Homilies at the Council of Ephesus

Contents

Only the three homilies preserved in the acts of Ephesus (ACO I.1.2) are on the site so far.

Reading pages: 71.0–72.14 · 73.0–73.13 · 73.14

1. 71.0Title of Theodotus's first homily, preached at Ephesus during the council of 431.
2. 71.1As a physician amputates a diseased limb to save the body, the church's priesthood cuts off persistent error, as God's commission to Jeremiah shows.
3. 71.2Theodotus answers one who denies that God suffered: the nature is impassible, but denying the suffering denies the economy of salvation.
4. 71.3Humanity ran away from its good Master into sin; God, not willing to lose his possession, came to the runaway not in terrifying majesty but humbly.
5. 71.4Paul's 'Christ Jesus' names the one born of the virgin; one who divides Christ into slave and master makes the single name empty. The Son, equal with God by nature, could humble himself without loss.
6. 71.5God suffered not in his nature but by uniting himself to what can suffer; John, whose relic Ephesus holds, sums up all piety in 'The Word became flesh'.
7. 72.0Title of Theodotus's Nativity homily, read at the Council of Ephesus.
8. 72.1The feast celebrates God's manifestation: the invisible and unknowable God took a visible, tangible nature so that he could be known.
9. 72.2The burning bush that was not consumed prefigured the virgin who gave birth without losing her virginity; God is not outraged by the lowly things he took on to save us.
10. 72.3The virgin's remaining a virgin shows that the one born is God; God appeared as man so that we might approach our judge as a kinsman.
11. 72.4The manner of the incarnation, like the healing of the man born blind with clay, is a wonder beyond reason; we should believe that it happened and leave the how to God.
12. 72.5Theodotus prepares an example from human speech, explaining that Scripture calls the Son 'Word', 'Son', and 'radiance' to guard against blasphemous understanding.
13. 72.6'Son' shows sameness of essence, 'Word' the impassibility of the generation, and 'radiance' the Son's eternal coexistence with the Father.
14. 72.7As a spoken word becomes visible when written on paper without beginning to exist then, so the eternal Word, begotten of the Father, became visible when born of the virgin.
15. 72.8Applying the image: the Father is like the mind, the Son like its word, and the virgin like the hand that makes the word visible; God loathes nothing he made.
16. 72.9Man, with his rational soul and free will, is more precious than the sun or heaven, so it is fitting for God to dwell in him.
17. 72.10God made man from lowly earth yet in his own image, so that the memory of his origin would keep him humble.
18. 72.11God restored man's lost honour by uniting his image to himself; he made human passions and death his own in order to destroy passion and death.
19. 72.12One who tears up an imperial letter is punished for tearing the emperor's word, though the word itself cannot be torn: so the impassible Word received the passion of the flesh he united to himself.
20. 72.14Applying the example: those who crucified the flesh outraged God the Word himself, who made its sufferings his own; the homily closes with a doxology.
21. 73.0Title of Theodotus's second Nativity homily, also read at the Council of Ephesus.
22. 73.1The Nativity overcomes nature: Mary gave birth and remained a virgin, surpassing the virgin earth of paradise, because the one born is the Word of God.
23. 73.2The Word did not begin to exist at his birth but began to be man; remaining unchanged God, he emptied himself into the form of a servant, as Paul says.
24. 73.3The cross is foolishness to the Greeks because they judge God's wonders by nature; if a mere man had been crucified, no one would have found it foolish.
25. 73.4To deny that God made human passions his own is to deny that the cross saved us, destroyed death, and nailed our sin to the wood.
26. 73.5The magi's gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh confess Christ as king, God, and one who would die; the union makes him one, so that dividing him even in thought dissolves the union.
27. 73.6Separating Christ's natures even in thought dissolves the union; Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever; the manner of the union, like the Nile turned to blood, is known only to God.
28. 73.7The Nile was water for the Hebrews and blood for the Egyptians; the light of Egypt became darkness without ceasing to be light.
29. 73.8The same light was light for Israel and darkness for Egypt, and the Nile remained water while it became blood: wonders without change of nature.
30. 73.9The furnace was flame and dew at once; God, who changed nothing there, became man without change; and since prophets and angels could not save humanity, God saved it himself, respecting free will.
31. 73.10When prophets, law, and angels failed, God came himself, not in terror as at Sinai but in poverty, born in a manger, so that all might approach him; Isaiah's ox and donkey point to that manger.
32. 73.112 Cor 8:9 shows that the one who was rich and became poor is God the Word himself, not a separate man; so he also suffered the rest of human things.
33. 73.12Christ's poverty in the manger reveals the wealth of his Godhead; the magi and the angels worshipped one and the same God; the star was an angelic power, not a real star.
34. 73.13The manger has become the eucharistic table, and Christ's lowliness, sufferings, and death have brought the world salvation; the virgin's body, made good by God, was no unworthy dwelling.
35. 73.14Theodotus confesses one Christ, the same God and man, and warns that dividing him even in thought denies the economy of salvation.