On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–1.6 · 2.1–2.7 · 3.1–3.11 · 3.12–3.16 · 4.1–4.13 · 5.1–5.9 · 5.10–6.5 · 6.6–6.18 · 6.19–7.5 · 7.6–7.18 · 7.19–7.31

1. 0.1Cassian explains that after the Conferences he meant to keep silent, but Leo of Rome has compelled him to write again.
2. 0.2His earlier works were written at a bishop’s command; now Leo asks him to write on the incarnation itself, a step from the holy place into the holy of holies.
3. 0.3Leo asks him to fight a new heresy, pictured as a dragon, and Cassian obeys.
4. 0.4Cassian obeys out of trust in Leo and asks him to pray for the task’s success, since Leo’s judgment is now at stake.
5. 0.5He asks Leo to pray that his weakness may not discredit Leo’s choice of him.
6. 1.1Heresies are like the hydra whose heads grew back, and Cassian prays that the Spirit’s fiery sword will destroy the new heresy as Hercules burned out the hydra.
7. 1.2Cassian lists earlier heresies, from Ebion to Apollinaris, and a recent one from Gaul that taught that Christ was born a mere man and earned his Godhead, a forerunner of the present heresy.
8. 1.3That heresy, rooted in Pelagianism, held that Christ was a mere man who lived sinlessly, so that anyone could, and that he came as an example rather than a redeemer; Nestorius, Cassian says, shares this view and so protects the Pelagians.
9. 1.4Leporius, a Pelagian-influenced monk in Gaul, was corrected, confessed his error in Africa, and sent letters of retraction to the cities of Gaul.
10. 1.5Cassian quotes Leporius’ retraction: Christ is one person, one and the same God and man, the two substances neither divided into two Christs nor blended into one.
11. 1.6Leporius’ confession was approved by the bishops of Africa and Gaul; universal consent should suffice to condemn the heresy, but Cassian will argue in order to heal rather than merely condemn.
12. 2.1Though the condemnation of earlier heretics suffices, Cassian will set out the new heresy’s claims and refute them with the sword of the Spirit.
13. 2.2Against Nestorius’ refusal of the title Theotokos, Cassian argues from Luke 2:11 and 1:35 that the one born of Mary is Lord, Savior and Son of God, and that his conception required the coming of the whole Trinity.
14. 2.3Cassian proves from Isa 7:14, Isa 9:6 and Mal 3:8 that the one born of the virgin and crucified is God.
15. 2.4From Titus 2:11–13 Cassian argues that the names God, Savior, Jesus and Christ all name one and the same God, born of Mary.
16. 2.5Since saving grace can only come from God, and grace came through Christ, Christ is God and Mary is Mother of God; Paul’s blessing “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” would be absurd if Christ were a mere man.
17. 2.6Even granting Nestorius’ claim that grace was given to Christ later, Cassian presses him: Gabriel’s words show that the one born of Mary was Son of God from his conception, and so God, the giver of grace.
18. 2.7The whole fullness of the Godhead was always in Christ, from his conception, so every name of Christ names the Son of God, who cannot be separated from God.
19. 3.1Rom 9:3–5 says that Christ, born of Israel according to the flesh, is God over all; the two cannot be separated.
20. 3.2“God over all, blessed forever” excludes reading the title God as a borrowed name, such as was given to Moses or to the judges in Ps 82.
21. 3.32 Cor 5:16 agrees with Rom 9:5: Christ once known according to the flesh is now known only as God, since after the resurrection the weakness of his flesh has been swallowed up in divine majesty.
22. 3.4Gal 1:1, where Paul says he was sent not through man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, shows Christ to be God, one in power with the Father though distinct in person.
23. 3.5By adding “who raised him from the dead” Paul confesses Christ’s true body against Marcion as well as his Godhead against Ebion; Paul himself saw the risen Lord at his conversion.
24. 3.6Paul’s vision on the Damascus road, where the voice of Jesus came with the blinding majesty of God, shows that Jesus and God cannot be separated; the heretic, unlike Paul, would hesitate and deliberate.
25. 3.7The Christ who spoke in Paul must be God; and since Scripture speaks interchangeably of the judgment seat of Christ and of God, and of the Spirit of God and of Christ, Christ is God.
26. 3.8Paul preached Christ crucified as the power and wisdom of God, unashamed that God born and crucified was a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
27. 3.9Paul’s preaching offended Jews and Gentiles only because he proclaimed the crucified man as God; Nestorius’ teaching, offending no one, would never make him a martyr.
28. 3.10Christ crucified is the power and wisdom of God and, according to 1 Cor 2:6–9, the Lord of majesty; to deny that God was crucified is to side with those who crucified him.
29. 3.11Besides Paul, Martha confesses Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, a confession the heretic should not be ashamed to learn from a woman.
30. 3.12Peter, prince of the apostles and head of the Roman church, confessed Christ as the Son of the living God; Nestorius cannot set himself above Peter.
31. 3.13Christ’s blessing of Peter shows that his confession was revealed by the Father’s Spirit, so it carries the authority of the whole Trinity; denial comes from a demonic spirit.
32. 3.14Christ’s promise to build the church on Peter’s confession shows that whoever rejects that faith is outside the church and bound in heaven.
33. 3.15Thomas, touching the risen Lord’s body, confessed “My Lord and my God”, without any of Nestorius’ distinctions between the man and the God dwelling in him.
34. 3.16As the sign from heaven Nestorius might demand, Cassian points to Christ’s baptism: the opened heavens, the descending Spirit and the Father’s voice all declare that the one baptized is the Son of God.
35. 4.1Having shown Christ to be God in the flesh, Cassian now shows that he was God before the incarnation, beginning with Gal 4:4: God sent his Son, who therefore existed before.
36. 4.2“God sent his Son” shows the Son existed before Mary; so Mary bore one older than herself, her own Creator, against Nestorius’ argument; God must be believed about himself.
37. 4.3Rom 8:3, “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” confirms that the Son was sent, with true flesh but without sin; Moses’ prayer “send him whom you will send” looked for his coming.
38. 4.4Christ says he was sent, David says God sent his Word to heal, and John says God sent his Son as Savior: the one sent is the Word, united with the man in one Son.
39. 4.5Since the one sent is called both Word and Jesus Christ (1 John 4:15; John 17:3), there is no distance between Christ and the Word.
40. 4.61 Cor 8:6 says all things were made through Jesus Christ, John 1:3 through the Word; and Christ says the Son of Man came down from heaven and is in heaven: so the Son of Man and the Word are one.
41. 4.7Scripture says variously that the Son of Man, Christ Jesus and the Word came into the world; the names differ, the one who came is the same.
42. 4.8The Creator of the world came into it and became son of man by his own will; whatever he is called, he is one and the same God.
43. 4.9The prophets also proclaim the incarnation: “This is our God … he was seen on earth” (Bar 3:36–38, cited as Jeremiah) can only mean the Son, and Isa 45:14–15, “You are our God, and we did not know it,” is the church’s answer.
44. 4.10Jews who come to faith rightly say “You are our God, and we did not know it,” for those who still refuse believe in God but deny the Son.
45. 4.11Isa 45:14 foretells the nations passing over to Christ in bonds of love, as Paul rejoiced in his chains; “God is in you” means God was in Christ, the natures distinguished without denying the unity.
46. 4.12The God and Savior of Isa 45:15 is Jesus, whose name means Savior; unlike the judges, he saves his own people from their sins.
47. 4.13Both Jewish and Gentile believers can say “You are our God, and we did not know it”; Nestorius should believe God’s own word and confess Christ in the Father’s glory.
48. 5.1The new heresy revives the Pelagian claim that Christ was a mere man; its argument that no one bears one older than herself ignores that the birth was God’s work, not Mary’s.
49. 5.2Nestorius’ calling Christ a God-receiving image, honored for the God within him, repeats the Pelagian view; his comparison of Christ to an imperial statue goes even further.
50. 5.3If Christ is only a receiver of God, he differs in nothing from the prophets and saints in whom God dwells; this makes the Creator equal to his creatures.
51. 5.4Christ differs from the saints as the dweller from the dwelling: they are sons by adoption, he Son by nature, eternally begotten, in whom the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells from the beginning and who himself dwells in the saints.
52. 5.5The prophets foretold the one to be born of the virgin as both man and God: “From my mother’s womb you are my God,” “Truth has sprung from the earth,” and Isa 2:22, “Cease from the man … for he is reckoned the Most High.”
53. 5.61 John 1:1–2 matches Isaiah: the Word of life who was from the beginning was seen and handled, so that Christ is one and the same, God and man, “yesterday and today and forever.”
54. 5.7Col 1:12–20 speaks of one subject who is image of the invisible God and Creator and also firstborn from the dead who made peace by the blood of his cross; the apostle joins them so that no one should divide Christ into two persons.
55. 5.8Christ calls himself a man sent from God and says “Before Abraham came to be, I am,” echoing “I am who I am”: the man born lately speaks with the eternity of the Word united to him.
56. 5.9Scripture says Jesus led Israel out of Egypt, Christ was tempted in the desert, and the fathers were saved by his grace; so Christ, in unity with God, was God before his birth, and one who calls him a mere man falls under a curse either way.
57. 5.10John’s warning that whoever “dissolves Jesus” is of antichrist applies to anyone who divides him, whether Manichaeans who deny his manhood or Ebion and Nestorius who deny his Godhead; the catholic faith confesses him both God and man.
58. 5.11Christ’s word on marriage, “What God has joined, let man not separate,” applies more deeply to the union of God and man in him, as Paul shows by calling the marriage text of Gen 2:24 a great sacrament spoken of Christ and the church.
59. 5.12The great sacrament of Gen 2:24 is the incarnation (1 Tim 3:16): the Son left his Father and the heavenly Jerusalem and was joined to human flesh, so that God and the soul are one in one flesh.
60. 5.13The prophets and Moses longed to see God come in the flesh, as Christ said many prophets desired to see what the disciples saw.
61. 5.14If God dwelt in Christ as in a statue or instrument, as he did in the prophets, the saints would not have longed for his coming; but in Christ dwells the whole fullness of the Godhead, from which they received a portion.
62. 5.15All the saints longed for God’s coming in the flesh, knowing that only one free from sin could free sinners, and that none, however holy, could be saved except by Christ’s coming and redemption.
63. 6.1The feeding of the five thousand shows that God’s works, like the miraculous birth, are beyond human reckoning but not impossible for God.
64. 6.2Cassian likens his five books to the five barley loaves and adds two more as the two fish, praying that they may feed and heal the church.
65. 6.3Cassian now refutes Nestorius from the baptismal creed of Antioch in which he was baptized, quoting it and explaining that the creed (symbolum) gathers the whole of Scripture into a short word.
66. 6.4The creed carries both divine and human authority, since God shortened his word in it through the apostles; Cassian quotes it again.
67. 6.5Even heretics appeal to the creed of their upbringing; Nestorius, born, taught and baptized in catholic Antioch, has no such excuse and should hold the faith of his own baptism.
68. 6.6The creed of Antioch brought Nestorius to baptism, the Eucharist and the episcopate; it confesses Christ as only-begotten, firstborn of all creation, born of the Father before the ages and not made, which leaves no room for his statue and instrument comparisons.
69. 6.7Having confessed in the creed that Christ is true God of true God, consubstantial with the Father and Creator, Nestorius cannot now call him a mere man, statue or instrument; he has grown worse with age and office.
70. 6.8The creed says that the true God, Creator of all, “came and was born of the virgin Mary,” agreeing with Gal 4:4; only one who already existed could come, so it was God who came.
71. 6.9Nestorius once confessed in the creed that God was born, suffered and rose; now he says that to speak of God the Word buried wounds the ear and that God cannot be born a second time.
72. 6.10As a former catholic now an apostate, Nestorius condemns his own baptismal confession; Cassian denounces his holding the altar and chair while denying the God whose bishop he is.
73. 6.11Even if Nestorius was baptized as an infant, he served as deacon and presbyter under the creed without objecting; he wanted both heresy and catholic honors.
74. 6.12Nestorius finds God born and suffering a wound to his ears, as the cross was folly and offense to Gentiles and Jews; his guilt is greater, since he denies after faith and as a bishop.
75. 6.13Against Nestorius’ claim that offspring must be of one substance with the mother, Cassian answers that the one Christ is consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and with his mother in the flesh.
76. 6.14If the one born of Mary is not the one born of God, there are two Christs, as in the Pelagian view; Nestorius goes further than the Pelagians, who at least confessed Christ God after the passion.
77. 6.15Since the creed confesses Jesus Christ as Son of God, Nestorius must either deny the creed or confess that the Christ born of Mary is the same Son of God; otherwise he makes two Christs.
78. 6.16One conceived of the Holy Spirit cannot be a mere man; if he is other than the eternal Son, Nestorius makes two Sons to be worshiped and adds a fourth person to the Trinity.
79. 6.17Denying Christ’s Godhead overthrows the whole creed: the Father, the birth, passion, resurrection, ascension and judgment all stand or fall together.
80. 6.18Cassian calls Nestorius to repentance, to return to the sacraments and full creed of his baptism, confessing one Christ of twofold birth and one majesty.
81. 6.19The incarnation advanced the man without lessening God; Martha, Peter and Thomas confessed one Christ, and the faith confesses the same Lord as Creator and Redeemer, “the same yesterday, today and forever.”
82. 6.20Cassian clarifies that the man born of Mary did not pre-exist; rather God, who always was, became flesh in the virgin’s womb; otherwise the incarnation would be no different from God’s dwelling in the prophets.
83. 6.21Yet Scripture and the creed speak of Jesus Christ as existing and creating before his birth from the virgin.
84. 6.22Because God and man are united in Christ, Scripture and the creed speak of the Son of Man as eternal and of the Lord of majesty as crucified, though the man had a beginning and God cannot suffer; in Christ one cannot be named without the other.
85. 6.23By synecdoche Scripture names the whole by a part, as in the four hundred years, the three days and nights, and John the Baptist’s words; so whatever is said of the Son of God or son of man is said of the one Christ.
86. 7.1Opening the last book, Cassian prays to Christ for strength to crush the serpent of heresy and to purify the minds it has infected, so that all may confess him true man and always true God.
87. 7.2Cassian answers Nestorius’ argument that no one bears one older than herself: that law binds creatures, not their Creator, for whom nothing is impossible.
88. 7.3Against the claim that offspring must share the mother’s substance, Cassian cites the quails, the manna, the multiplied loaves, the water made wine and the blind man healed with mud: God produces unlike from unlike.
89. 7.4If God’s birth from Mary is judged by human impossibilities, so must his crucifixion, his blood, his death and his presence in heaven be; Scripture affirms all these of God.
90. 7.5Even in nature unlike comes from unlike, in the ancient lore of bees born from flowers, locusts appearing suddenly and basilisks hatched from ibis eggs; how much more can God be born as he wills.
91. 7.6Cassian quotes a treatise in which Nestorius likens God restoring his image to an emperor restoring his statue and compares Christ’s seedless birth to Adam’s; behind the pious words he makes Christ no more than a new Adam.
92. 7.7Nestorius cites 1 Cor 15:21 but ignores Paul’s many statements of Christ’s Godhead; Paul calls Christ man while confessing the same man as God, the Lord of majesty who was crucified.
93. 7.8Nestorius’ proposal to honor the God-receiving form together with God, as a statue or image of the hidden God, separates Christ from God under the guise of honoring him.
94. 7.9Christ is not the image of a hidden God: his birth was announced by star, Magi and angels, and even Jacob, wrestling with a man, recognized God in human form.
95. 7.10The prophets openly proclaimed God who would come, and Peter, Martha and all who sought healing from Christ recognized God in him.
96. 7.11Even the devil, having heard John the Baptist and the voice at the baptism, suspected that the man Jesus might be the Son of God and tempted him to find out.
97. 7.12Though the devil knew Jesus’ lowly human birth, he still thought he might be the Son of God; Nestorius, denying it outright, outdoes the devil in faithlessness.
98. 7.13The devil’s suspicion lasted to the cross, where the signs of the passion drove him, through the mockers, to test whether Jesus was the Son of God; Nestorius denies even after the resurrection what the devil suspected.
99. 7.14Nestorius quotes Heb 7:3, “without mother, without genealogy,” to deny that God had a mother, but omits “without father”; the verse rather describes Christ’s twofold birth, without mother as God and without father as man.
100. 7.15Matthew gives Christ’s genealogy through his mother, while Hebrews says he has none as begotten of the Father; both describe the twofold birth.
101. 7.16Nestorius quoted Heb 7:3 selectively, as the devil quoted Ps 91 to Christ while omitting the verse about trampling the serpent.
102. 7.17Nestorius says the Spirit created, justified, empowered, consecrated and raised Christ, as if he had nothing of his own; Cassian answers that Wisdom built her own house, the Spirit cooperating, since the works of the Trinity are inseparable.
103. 7.181 Tim 3:16 speaks of the mystery of godliness being justified in the Spirit, not of Christ lacking righteousness; he is our righteousness and justifies all in his name.
104. 7.19The apostles cast out demons and healed in Christ’s name, never their own; Christ healed and raised by his own word and authority, so his power was his own, not lent by the Spirit.
105. 7.20Christ gave his disciples power in his own name; no saint could say “in our name,” so the one who could bestow divine power must have had it by nature.
106. 7.21The Spirit’s descent at the baptism pointed out Christ’s dignity without making the Spirit greater; the three persons share equal honor; Nestorius’ view echoes the Pelagian claim that Christ became Christ at his baptism.
107. 7.22Nestorius distorts Acts 1:2, which, read as a hyperbaton, means that Christ chose the apostles through the Spirit; Christ ascended by his own power, being always in heaven.
108. 7.23Christ did not receive glory as a gift: Ps 24 calls him the King of glory entering heaven, and he speaks of coming in his own glory, which he shares with the Father and the Spirit.
109. 7.24Cassian closes with witnesses of the faith, beginning with Hilary of Poitiers, whose On the Trinity and Commentary on Matthew confess God born of the virgin.
110. 7.25Ambrose, in On Virgins, a Christmas sermon and his commentary on Luke, confesses that the one born of the ever-virgin Mary is God.
111. 7.26Jerome, in his letter to Eustochium and on Isaiah, speaks of the Son of God waiting months in the womb and of the Lord of glory entering the virgin, against Nestorius’ denial that God was born after months of gestation.
112. 7.27Rufinus on the creed and Augustine in his Tractates on John and his letter to Volusian confess God born of a virgin.
113. 7.28From the East, Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of the new mixture in which the Creator is created and the Son of God becomes son of man without change.
114. 7.29Athanasius, in the Orations against the Arians, calls Mary Theotokos and says that the Word of the Father took flesh from her.
115. 7.30John Chrysostom, whose successor Nestorius was as bishop of Constantinople, confessed that the virgin’s womb bore God; Nestorius, who accuses his predecessors Gregory, Nectarius and John of error, is refuted by them.
116. 7.31Cassian, ordained by John Chrysostom, urges the people of Constantinople to separate from Nestorius and follow their former bishops, and closes with a prayer that the humility of the incarnation may increase love for God.