Letters

I wished, most pious brothers, that your venerable synod had been gathered in such a state of affairs that we too, having chosen by common decision some of our brothers and fellow bishops, might have sent a properly instructed embassy rather than an excuse worthy of lament; but various causes have hindered this desire of our mind. First, the letter of our lord and son, the most religious emperor Theodosius, when it was brought to our hands, was such that it particularly requested the presence of our brother and fellow bishop Augustine of blessed memory. But since that letter found that he had already departed from the living, I received that royal notice, though it seemed to be addressed chiefly to the said Augustine, and, sending suitable letters and the customary messages to all the provinces of Africa, I wished to convene a fitting synod, so that some of the number of our brothers and bishops might be chosen to be sent to the venerable synod of your beatitude. But at this time every approach by road has been closed. For the outpoured multitude of enemies and the vast devastation of the provinces everywhere, which, with the inhabitants partly killed and partly driven to flight, presents to the eyes a miserable sight of desolation stretching far and wide in every direction, prevents the ready possibility of coming. Hindered by these obstacles, the bishops who intended this could not assemble together from the whole circuit of Africa. Added to these difficulties was the fact that the emperor's letter was brought to us in the days of Easter, when scarcely two months remained before the universal venerable synod. That interval of time, even if no difficulty had at present been put in the way by enemies, was scarcely enough even to convene an African synod. Hence it came about that, though we could by no means send a solemn embassy, yet, out of the reverence and observance due to ecclesiastical discipline, we have sent to you, venerable brothers, my son the deacon Besula with this letter of excuse. [II.] Therefore I desire your holiness to be asked again and again (even though I am confident that, with the help of our God, the catholic faith will be stable and firm in all things through so great a synod of venerable bishops) that, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, who I do not doubt will be present to your hearts in all that you are to do, you may, armed with the strength of ancient authority, drive out new doctrines hitherto unheard of by the ears of the church, and so resist any new errors whatever; lest those errors which the church long ago attacked, and which, sprouting again in these times, the authority of the apostolic see and the harmonious sentence of the bishops have crushed, should seem to be revived, a voice long since silenced, under the pretext of a second discussion. For if any new controversy should happen to arise, it must be subjected to examination, so that what was rightly said may be approved, or what deserves condemnation may be rejected. But if anyone allows what was judged long ago to be called again into dispute, he will certainly be thought to be doing nothing else than doubting himself of the faith that has prevailed until now. Further, as an example for posterity, so that what has now been defined for the catholic faith may obtain perpetual firmness, all that was established in former times by the holy fathers must be kept unshaken and unmoved. For whoever wishes what he has decided concerning the catholic faith to retain perpetual stability ought to strengthen his sentence not by his own authority but by the judgment of the ancient fathers; so that, approving his decisions in this way by the decrees and sentences partly of the old and partly of the more recent fathers, he may show that he asserts, teaches and holds the one truth of the church, running from the beginning to the present time with simple purity and unconquered constancy and authority. These things I wished to suggest to your venerable ears in place of a present embassy of the Africans, which the necessity mentioned above has prevented; earnestly asking meanwhile that, considering the calamities of affairs and of the present times, you will ascribe our absence not to pride or negligence but to this manifest necessity. Cyril, bishop of the church of Alexandria, said: "Let this letter too of the most reverend and most pious Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, which has been read, be inserted in the Acts, since it contains a clear sentence. For he wishes the ancient dogmas of the faith to be confirmed, and the new ones, absurdly devised and impiously spread, to be rejected and proscribed." All the bishops cried out together: "These are the words of all; this we all assert; this is the wish of all."

Having received and read your letter, dearest sons, which you sent by the devout man Numinianus, I greatly congratulated you on your soundness and zeal, by which you hold and defend with inviolable piety the rule of the long-founded catholic faith; and I perceived that the Nestorian heresy, a new and unspeakable ruin, as it had already begun to sprout in certain places, wishes among you too to cast the seeds of its tares into the hearts of the unwary. But I believe and trust that our Lord, the perfect farmer, creator of all, has and always has had in every place of his dominion worthy labourers of the gospel harvest, who, though the unclean seeds must not be rooted out before the time of reaping, yet always keep watch with continual prayers and preaching, so that either these may, if it can be done while there is time, be converted and changed into wheat, or at least the enemy of the human race may not everywhere be able to choke the tender kinds of grain as they spring up by an adulterous intermixture. For already, as I do not doubt has also come to your notice, in the regions of the East, where this pestilence first arose, a glorious synod of bishops was gathered, to which our embassy too was not lacking, and in its very entrance it was crushed together with its author and champion, and extinguished by the ray of apostolic light. Nor should your charity wonder if even after its condemnation its fetid spirit still breathes out its breath among the dying. For the boldness of heretics is always obstinate and, under the pressing weight of its sins, perseveres in its own ruin. If perhaps you do not yet know this, you will be able to learn it by an easy reading. [II.] Although, then, for Christian and devout minds the authority of the universal church itself fully suffices, and your own assertion in this case, as far as the letter you sent has shown, seems no less, nevertheless, lest I too should seem to refuse a necessary answer to your holy request and question, we confess that this is the one and true teaching which the antiquity of the Gospel holds and hands down: that is, that the Son of God, true God and true man, is of one wholly inseparable person; and we do not believe that the divine fullness came into Christ Jesus as it were from outside, in the way that God dwelt or dwells in the other patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and the rest of the holy and most illustrious men; but that in a proper and ineffable way the Son of God was made also the son of man; so that he who remained and remains only-begotten in the unbegotten substance of the Father, having wonderfully taken man, might become the firstborn among many brothers; and he who was in the beginning the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the Word, might become flesh and dwell among us. From the time, then, that the mystery which had been hidden for ages in God began to be accomplished through the angel in the womb of the virgin, and the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, God, who always was, deigned to be born in man, so that a man was born such as he had not been before. For he who was eternally begotten in heaven without a mother was himself created man on earth without a father in the womb of the virgin from the Holy Spirit. And therefore we believe that in Christ Jesus the person of God and man can in no way be separated or subdivided, lest there be counted in the Godhead not a Trinity but a quaternity. [III.] The blessed apostle Paul, when exhorting the faithful to put off the old man and put on the new, says: "The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly, such are the earthly; and as is the heavenly, such are the heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of him who is from heaven." Let them tell me, I ask, how this man is from heaven, if God was not conceived in the womb? Or what distinction is there of flesh and blood between the man Adam and the man Christ, if this man is not full of God? For what does "the second man from heaven" mean? Did flesh come down, sent from above, and did not, as is written, the Holy Spirit come upon the virgin? But because the Word became flesh, he was therefore called the heavenly man. Nor, because he came down from heaven, did he therefore not have true flesh, since God took flesh. Rightly the same Lord said of himself: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the son of man who is in heaven." Certainly he was still speaking on earth and had not yet ascended to the Father after the victory of the passion and the glory of the resurrection; and yet he said that the son of man was already in heaven. In this he bore witness with all truth that, on account of the man, God was living on earth, and on account of God, the man was dwelling in heaven. Hence also the apostle says: "He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." Likewise elsewhere, when the Saviour himself was speaking mystically of the food of his flesh and the drink of his blood, knowing that his disciples, offended by this, murmured, saying, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?", he said this: "Does this offend you? What then if you see the son of man ascending where he was before?" See, here too you notice how, on account of the unity of the person of God and man, he declares that the son of man will ascend where he was before, though it is certain that he was formed in the womb of the virgin, so as to take from her the beginning of his human birth. [IV.] Let no one, then, with a sacrilegious spirit, dare to separate what he sees remain in heaven and on earth in an inseparable unity. For as the man Christ Jesus cannot be a stranger to the omnipotence of the Godhead, so too God cannot be separated from the things that were done in the man or concerning the man. So the man was born who had not yet been, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In like manner the impassible suffered through the passible man whom he took, and the immortal died, and he who never dies rose again. For God was not absent from that man even in the passion: otherwise the Lord of glory was not crucified. Or do we say that God, in the man he had taken, was not also among the dead? Or is it to be feared that the Godhead was there as though under punishment, which no quality affects, no measure circumscribes, whose greatness no one grasps, whose presence no one escapes, whose secret no one finds out, whose splendour no one reaches? Do you fear that the immeasurable is shut in, that the almighty is held, that he who is spread everywhere is hidden? To loose, as it is written, the pangs of the underworld, to which he willed, and in the way he willed, the Lord of all things could not be subjected in such a condition. Hear him, so many thousands of years before, when, speaking to blessed Job through the cloud as though reproaching him, he proclaimed the works of his wonders and added this too among his countless powers: "Have you taken away light from the wicked, or broken the arm of the proud? Or have you come to the ends of the sea, or walked in the tracks of the abyss? Or are the gates of death opened to you in fear, and have the gatekeepers of hell, seeing you, been afraid? Or have you known the breadth under heaven?" If this is the Father's voice, then nothing is difficult for the almighty, since he is everywhere and there is nowhere he is not; seeing that the prophet too says to him, in the person of a certain speaker: "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present." In this he bears witness and shows that God, of whose majesty all things are full, is in some incomprehensible and inexplicable way present even in the underworld. But if, as is more probable, in these things that were foretold of him so long before in prophecy and have been fulfilled, it is the voice of the Son of God, since all things were made through him and without him nothing was made, then he himself, in the man, deigned to visit the closed places of the underworld, and by the presence of his unconquered majesty terrified the overseers of death, and, for the sake of setting free those whom he willed, commanded the gates of the underworld to be opened. [V.] Indeed, the apostle John speaks thus of him in the Apocalypse: "He laid his right hand upon me, saying: Do not fear; I am the first and the last, and the living one, who was dead; and behold, I am alive for ages of ages; and I have the key of death and of hell." First, of course, on account of his deity, since he is the beginning, who also speaks to us; but last on account of his humanity, because he did not disdain to take up the cross and death for us. And therefore he, at whose nod all created things exist in his Godhead, holds also, in the man he took, the keys of death and hell. So far, then, is God the Son of God, unchangeable and incomprehensible, from having been able to be shut in by the underworld, that we do not believe even the soul he assumed was either taken to its destruction or held fast and abandoned there. Nor do we believe that his flesh was infected by the contagion of any corruption. For his is the voice in the psalm, as the apostle Peter interprets it: "You will not abandon my soul in hell, nor let your holy one see corruption." He himself, for our guilt, became like a man without help; but on account of his innocence and power he was found free among the dead. For then he truly paid back, as it is written, what he had not taken. It is no wonder, then, if some place receives God and yet does not contain him: it feels his presence but does not hinder his majesty; it dreads his omnipotence but does not shut in his substance. For that supreme and perfect blessedness of unquenchable light can neither be darkened by darkness, nor varied by places, nor affected by sufferings, nor diminished by conditions, nor changed by times. God, then, did not desert his own Son, the man, in death, nor abandon him in the underworld. By whose power and majesty were the bodies of the ancient saints seen to have risen, if God did not visit the underworld at all? Who is it that caused the rocks to be split, the earth to be shaken, the sun to be darkened, the day to flee, the veil of the temple to be divided in two? Was it a man only? Was it not also God? Therefore he was not absent from him on the cross, nor in death, nor in the tomb, nor in the underworld. Nor is that saying of the psalm usually understood otherwise or of another: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory shall come in." Hence, to those who are terrified and ask, "Who is this King of glory?", the answer is given: "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." In what battle, if not the one in which he trampled down death by death, extinguished sin by the slaying of the innocent, and carried off the trophy of victory over the devil and his angels? [VI.] But, it is said, he himself said on the cross: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But this is the voice of the man he had taken. Look where it is taken from, and see there what follows: "Far from my salvation," it says, "are the words of my transgressions." This voice is like that one too where it is said: "My soul is sorrowful even to death." Had he not, a little before, said to his disciples: "You are saddened because I said, I go to my Father, and you will no longer see me"; and, "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I"? In what, then, does he bid his disciples rejoice? How is the master believed to be saddened, unless to show in the man the sufferings and agitations of a true man? For he who had come to redeem, instruct and strengthen us bore in himself every kind of our weakness. "For we do not have a priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses"; indeed, as the apostle says, "he was tested in all things in the same likeness, without sin." Like this is that voice too: "Father, if it can be, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I will, but what you will." Had he not come for this, to drink this cup for us, and with such an antidote of salvation to drive out the poison offered by the serpent? Did he not have power to lay down his life, and power to take it again? Had he not himself said: "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself"? And yet now he speaks as though doubting and refusing, so that there the divine power might appear, and here the human condition might recognize itself. Does not the apostle cry out that this mystery was hidden in God before eternal times? Surely Christ did not take fright at something sudden, which he had arranged in eternity with the Father to be done at a fixed time? These and such things, then, when they are said or done, as has often been said, show the true weakness and frailty of man, and do not on that account empty out the presence of the divine majesty. [VII.] Here, O man, whoever you are, who think that Christ as God was separated from Christ as man at the time of the passion: do you not remember him faithfully promising his presence to his disciples who were to suffer, saying: "When they hand you over, do not think how or what you are to speak; for what you are to speak will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you"? Did he who promised, gave and showed his divine presence to servants doing their Lord's will, he in whom there was no sin, who underwent an innocent death for our salvation in order to do the Father's will, deny himself divine help at the time of the flesh? And did God, who took man, compelled by no necessity, to endure these things, abandon him in this performance? Is he present speaking amid the torments of the martyrs, not allowing them to prepare anything, and did he abandon himself on the gibbet of the cross? For he is the same, which must be repeated often and always; nor can the person of God and of man be distinguished in him, although there is in him a diverse substance. Far be it to believe otherwise; far be it to think otherwise of the Almighty. He did not shrink from being born though eternal, from growing though perfect, from suffering though impassible, from dying though immortal, without any change or corruption of himself, as has already been said. But because the Godhead alone could not suffer these things, he took a man through whom he might perform the mystery of so great a gift. For when he was received into heaven, he raised the man there, whence he himself never departed. Let us hear the apostle preaching Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks, the same Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Notice, dearest sons, and recognize what you already know: that the same Christ who, on account of the lowliness of the man he took, is said to have been a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles, is himself the power of God and the wisdom of God. Is the person of the divinity and humanity separated or divided by the apostle even here? Or was he ashamed to call the same one the wisdom of God whom he had said had become foolishness to the gentiles? Or to assert that the same one is the power of God whom he had called a stumbling block to the Jews? Why, then, are we ashamed to confess that God was born and suffered on account of the man and in the man, when we do not deny that, by God's gift, this same man was made God? This, certainly, he is known to have received through divine grace, not through human substance. [VIII.] A little further on still it follows: "But from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us from God wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; so that, as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." "Certainly Christ Jesus is the name of a man only," says the heretic. But Paul, who knew and had said that one must not boast in man, had known Christ Jesus to be not only a man but also God; whom he believed to have become for us from God wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; and he taught believers to boast in him, since Christ Jesus is both man and God. And consistently with this, announcing the mystery of God not with loftiness of speech or wisdom, he adds and says: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And lest the wicked people of the Jews assert that they committed a small sin, if they understood that they had persecuted a mere man only, he says that the mystery was hidden in the wisdom of God, testifying that it was revealed to none of the rulers of this age; "for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory." See, here too he does not fear to proclaim that Christ Jesus, whom he confesses as the Lord of glory, was crucified by the rulers of this age. I urge you to consider the whole content of this reading, and you will see with what great effort and endeavour the holy apostle lifts human minds from the cheapness of a merely earthly understanding to the consideration of divine and heavenly things in this mystery. I pass over all things briefly, which you yourselves will be able to notice more fully and widely. For in the second letter to the Corinthians he speaks thus in one place: "If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For love compels us, judging this, that one died for all." And a little later: "All things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave us the mystery of reconciliation; for God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." [IX.] I ask: how? In no other way than by being born, suffering, dying, rising again and ascending into heaven? I ask also what the mystery of our reconciliation is? Is it anything other than the sacrifice which Christ the high priest offered through his own blood? Let us see, then, whether the man alone accomplished it, since, as they think, God departed from him in the passion. But the apostle Paul contradicts this opinion most plainly: "God," he says, "was in Christ." He was in Christ; he had not departed from Christ. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." How reconciling? "Not counting their trespasses against them." Or perhaps fools are pleased that the remission of sins should come about through a man only? When the Jews too rejected this, saying, "He blasphemes: who can forgive sins but God alone?", the Lord himself, the Son of God and of man, wishing to make plain to the unbelieving that he whom they saw was not a man only, but also God, in whom they refused to believe, and to show clearly that divine power was conferred on the man too because of the unity of his person and presence, said: "That you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins," then he said to the paralytic, "Rise, take up your bed, and go to your house." So God and man, the one and true saviour of souls and bodies, relieved both the outer man of the bodily disease and the inner man of the burden of sin. God, then, was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, nowhere and never deserting the man whom he took by his own condescension, under no necessity at all. [X.] To the Hebrews too the same apostle testifies at the very opening of the letter: "Lastly, in these days he has spoken to us in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages. He, being the brightness of glory and the figure of his substance, and bearing all things by the word of his power, having made purification of sins by himself, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high." He, then, the Son of God and son of man, is one and the same: on account of his eternity with the Father he made the ages; on account of the unchangeable light he is the brightness of glory; on account of his equality he is the figure of the substance; on account of his majesty he bears all things by the word of power. He also, on account of the passion of the man he took, made purification of our sins; and on account of his reward he has his seat at the Father's right hand. How did he make purification of sins, except by blotting out the handwriting that was against us, drawn up at the devil's accusation? How did he blot it out, except by nailing it to the cross and washing it away with innocent blood? What God once spoke to the fathers in the prophets, then, and lastly testified in the Son, this let us believe, this let us hold, this let us defend with all our strength. Add to the case that he then confidently despoiled the principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself. This work is not at all of the man alone, but of the divine majesty in the man. For it is not "a man strong and mighty," but "the Lord mighty in war." [XI.] Likewise there, after much in which the apostle distinguished the mystery of the New Testament from the figure of the Old, he says this: "Whoever sets aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses; how much worse punishment do you think he deserves who has trampled on the Son of God, and has thought unclean the blood of the New Testament, by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of the grace of God? For we know him who said: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." I ask how God, the Son of God, can be trampled on. You see here too how he neither hesitates, nor fears, nor blushes to assert that the Son of God was trampled on. But since anyone who thinks unclean the blood by which he was sanctified certainly tramples on the Son of God, he therefore did not distinguish the man's passion from the majesty of God, of which he wants that person to be guilty who has counted as nothing the blood shed for him. For the Son of God is not trampled on except in this, that the benefit of the death which he endured in the man is despised. The Saviour and Lord himself too, when about to reward faith, asks a question. See what he said: "Who do people say that I, the son of man, am?" And when they suggested to him the various opinions of others, he said: "But you, who do you say that I am?", that is, I, the son of man. To this Peter, inspired by him, and in this confession to be of benefit to all nations as a model of right faith, answered (notice with what great and full integrity): "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." You, you, O you who call yourself the son of man, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Is not here too, whether in the Lord's question or the apostle's answer, the one person of both substances shown and displayed, while he calls himself the son of man, which was seen openly, and Peter, by the confession given him, showed him to be the Christ, the Son of God, which was borne in secret? Hence he was praised by the Lord and called blessed, since flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but the Father who is in heaven. What we ought to believe, then, let God the Father reveal through God the Son, not flesh and blood suggest. [XII.] After the resurrection too, when Mary did not recognize the Lord and he, by calling her by her own name, opened to her the way of recognition, and forbade her to touch him when she wished to, let us hear what he deigned to give her to announce to the disciples. "Go," he says, "to my brothers, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Come now, let the heretic choose which he thinks, and let him decide whose voice he would rather this be: on either side he will be struck by the sharp spiritual sword. "I ascend," he says, "to my Father and to your Father; to my God and to your God." If it is the man's voice, then that man is the Son of God: "I ascend," he said, "to my Father." If it is God's voice, then that God is man: for he said, "I ascend to my God." For he did not say, "I ascend to my Father and the God of my man," or "I ascend to my God and to the Father of my God." Whoever, then, separates the person of divinity and humanity is refuted by either understanding. Either the man said it, and he is the Son of God; or God said it, and he is also the man taken. For he who says, "I ascend to my Father and to my God," by repeating "my" and "my" proves and promises one person, although he distinguishes both substances. For his saying "I ascend to my Father" seems to belong to the only-begotten Son, while his saying "to my God" seems to belong to the man made. But in Christ Jesus neither can the man be said to be merely created, nor can the only-begotten God be denied to have been born man. And therefore that voice is shown to be neither of God only nor of man only: the voice which God and man, the one and only Son himself, commanded to be carried to his disciples with an affection wholly inseparable and indivisible. Finally, so that you may know and notice more fully that what is said is so, for the destruction of all the machinations of the heretics and the refutation of all their slanders: where it was necessary to distinguish the nature of the creator from the creature, see how the divine goodness kept watch for us. "Go," he says, "to my brothers, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God." See, here the person of the Lord himself, that is, of God and man, is plainly distinguished from the person of his servants, and the calling is separated from the nature. For although what is commanded is commanded to those who are now friends and brothers, yet it is shown what is owed to the Lord and what is granted to the other servants. For he could have said, "I ascend to our Father and to our God"; but there is a great difference between lordship and condition, between generation and adoption, between substance and grace. And therefore it is not said here in a mingled or indiscriminate way, "I ascend to our Father and to our God," but "to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God." For God is Father to him in one way, to us in another. For nature makes him equal, mercy humbles him; but nature lays us low, mercy raises us up. For this is what that divine humanity and human divinity accomplished by such and so great a miracle, that the unworthy weakness of mortals should obtain such grace. [XIII.] And who could, or for whom would it suffice, to gather at one time all the proofs of the holy pages by which this pure and unmixed truth is taught? But the measure of my discourse, which has long since been exceeded, must at some point be kept, and I need not labour longer with those whom I know to be learned by the Lord's instruction. Press on, then, as the apostle commanded, in season and out of season, and with sound doctrine refute, call back, instruct, and strengthen all who err, having in this rule of faith not my proofs, which are nothing or little, but those of the divine Scriptures, and of the great and most learned men who before us both held these things most firmly and taught them most eloquently in many books.