Refutations of Certain Propositions preface–6

A letter of the same author, serving as a preface and as a lament over the turmoil of the churches. I admired your scholarly and truth-loving purpose, most faithful servant of Christ (for what could I find equal to that dignity?), Eustathius; and I admired it so much, and was so overcome, that I rose at once to the service you commanded, bringing readily the will, even if the power is lacking. For how could I either make my words equal to your warm zeal, or fill up the measure owed to the truth, or set out the bulk of the falsehood that now troubles us? Words full of every unreason and madness are being spoken, and spoken with all shamelessness and high-handedness, so that by this things never dared before are now more easily dared, and heretical wickedness no longer plots secretly and little by little against the simpler sort, but acts with youthful insolence as if it had authority over all, and gives orders against all, legislates, drags to what it pleases, demands obedience without delay, condemns, exacts penalties for exactness about godliness; it covers one man with insults, drives another from his homeland, weaves for this one the nooses of accusations, strips that one of the rank he holds, throws one down by boldness, carries off another by bluster. I say nothing of the chains, the prisons, the fines, the disgraces, the scourges, the pitiable spectacles of murders, which even after experience are disbelieved for their excess. And this drama is staged through many priests. O unholy daring! O unbearable judgment! Their preface to the liturgy and to teaching is that sweetest word, "Peace to all"; their task is to carry about the proclamation, to give many charges about gentleness, so that they may keep the saying, "In gentleness correcting those who oppose"; they fittingly urge, "We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those who are not strong"; for they very piously keep the wise words of Paul, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?" and, "I have become all things to all, that I might win all." Where now is, "Do not hate him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother"? Where now, "So that what is lame may not be turned aside but rather healed"? Where is, "Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all patience and teaching"? Condemnation without trial, sentence without proof. Rashness is reckoned courage, cruelty is named zeal, deceit is counted wisdom. What loud-voiced tragedy is worthy of these things? The lament of Jeremiah is small beside the number and greatness of such evils. But lest we seem, for lack of proofs, to linger in lamentations, come, let us meet simply and truthfully each of the things they put forward; though even before words they have been refuted by their deeds, according to the divine law that says, "By their fruits you will know them." And the fruits of those now at work, it seems, are to scatter, not to gather; to persecute, not to bring back; to throw down, not to raise up; to wound, not to heal; to hate those who do not stray, not to seek those who stray. What was written without falsehood has plainly been fulfilled: "All who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted; but evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." The parts of our reply are set out below, divided in order as follows.

Against those who judge the truth by numbers alone. As we are about to engage, with God, in the contests against falsehood, let us call on the God of truth to guide us. For he has redeemed us from the falsehood of vanity, now crying out, "I am the truth," now charging us, "Take courage, I have overcome the world." How then are they not pitiable who assign the strength of an argument to numbers alone, and do not understand that the Master Christ gave to twelve disciples, simple, unlettered, poor, easily taken, courage against the whole world, preparing them not to follow the tens of thousands, but making the tens of thousands agree with the twelve? So the power of the truth is always strong, even if for a time it is found among few. But he who does not dare to give an account of the question before us, and has no store of proofs, and for that reason takes refuge in numbers, confesses his defeat, as having no provision for free speech. You brandish the multitude at us, as if threatening God with a second tower-building, in imitation of a crazed many-handed crowd. Let him show me the beauty of truth, and persuasion follows at once. But a multitude that acts on its own authority without proofs is able to frighten, but by no means to persuade. Or how many tens of thousands will persuade me to think day night? Or to know a bronze coin as gold, and accept it so? Or to take a plain poison instead of suitable food? Then, in earthly matters, shall we not perceive a multitude of false names, but in heavenly doctrines shall I follow unproven nods, departing from what was handed down of old and from long ago with much agreement and the witness of the Scriptures? Have we not heard the Lord saying, "Many are called, but few are chosen"; and again, "Narrow and hard is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it"? Who of sound mind, then, does not pray to be among the few who enter to salvation through the narrow gate, rather than among the many who are pushed through the wide one into destruction? And who, had he happened to be present at the time of the contest of the blessed Stephen, would not wish to be of his portion, who alone was being stoned and set out for all to mock, rather than of the crowds who thought their credibility came from their wicked high-handedness? One man of good repute is to be preferred above tens of thousands priding themselves on arrogance, as we find also in the Old Testament: in it thousands of the people fell by a God-sent blow, but Phinehas alone stood and made atonement, and the plague ceased. But if he had said, "How will anyone dare against what has been done with one accord by so many? How shall I cast a vote against those who have decided so to live?" he would neither have been the champion, nor have stopped the evil; the rest would not have been saved, nor would God have granted his favor. It is good, then, good for one righteous man to speak freely and to break up the unjust agreement of many. But you, if you like, prefer the drowned multitude to Noah who was saved; allow me to run to the ark that holds the few. And you, if you wish, place yourself with the many in Sodom; I shall go with Lot, even if he alone parts profitably from the crowds. Yet for me too a multitude is to be respected: not one that flees examination, but one that offers proof; not one that avenges itself bitterly, but one that corrects like a father; not one that rejoices in innovation, but one that guards the ancestral inheritance. And what kind of multitude do you speak of to me? One hired by flattery and gifts, stolen by ignorance and lack of knowledge, fallen through cowardice and fear, one that has preferred the temporary enjoyment of sin to eternal life, as many have openly confessed? Do you strengthen falsehood by numbers? You have shown the intensity of the evil; for the more there are in evil, the greater the calamity.

Against those who order that one should not search or speak from the Scriptures, but be content with the faith they hold. That the unexamined agreement of the many is nothing, I think not even those who disagree with us will now gainsay. We must go on to what follows, and show how we must refute the daring of those who speak on their own authority without the witness of the Scriptures, and declare that study of the holy Scriptures is superfluous, as though each one's own faith were sufficient, and as though inquiry rather produced obscurity in us. These are the words of men who condemn their doctrine as unable to stand. But we, trusting in the truth of the mystery and in the help of him who cannot lie, who said, "Everyone who seeks finds," both seek as we ought and find what we ought, and speak with proof and listen with sincere purpose, so as to persuade our own, to refute our opponents, to profit ourselves through the search, and not to show the matter as unable to stand. Shall I neglect the Scriptures? From where, then, is knowledge? Shall I leave knowledge behind? From where is faith? Paul cries, "How will they believe if they do not hear?" and again, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God." He who hinders the word, then, stops up hearing and casts out faith. To be ignorant of the laws of the Romans is safe for no one; and those who hinder people from studying and learning the great decrees of the King of heaven, what plot do they not work? Scripture is the food of the soul. Stop, then, starving the inner man, O man, bringing on a savage famine, "not of bread and water, but of hearing the word of the Lord." Another inflicts the wounds, and do you prevent the bringing of the medicines? Stop declaring vain the varied wisdom of the medical books; respect that eunuch, the lover of learning, who was over all the treasure of the queen, and did not leave off reading even on the road; whose purpose the Master accepted, and at once sent him the teacher, adding knowledge to reading and leading him from the Scriptures to the Savior. Therefore he himself commanded, "Search the Scriptures," by "search" meaning a careful and sober examination of hidden things. From the holy Scriptures comes the revealing of what is unclear, the confirming of hopes, the fulfilment of promises, the finding of the Savior: "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote." Paul uses these words to establish the truth. But if Paul, the hearer of unspeakable words, the initiate of secret things, who had Christ speaking in him, does not simply use … how is it now safe to neglect the divine legislation and to speak what seems good from one's own heart? But there are some things that surpass our comprehension, I too say. Let us then learn this too from the Scriptures, so as to know that some things are to be sought as attainable. For it is neither godly to dare everything, nor holy to neglect everything. What we worship, all of us ought to know, as it is written: "We worship what we know." But how great, or of what kind, or how, or where, is for madmen to seek. But those who want to judge their own matters keep people from the Scriptures, on the pretext of not daring, as though they were inaccessible, but in truth in order to escape being refuted from them for their own false doctrine. And when they see their own ill-thinking hampered by the proof of the Scriptures, they set aside the purpose and use of the Scriptures; but when they think that some bare phrase, cut off from its own sequence, serves their own attempt, they drag it to their own construction, not serving the meaning it shows but forcing the syllables to their own malpractice, as they do with "The Word became flesh." [3] Against those who maliciously put forward "The Word became flesh." Many things have been devised for deceit by those who have fallen from the truth, whether through strife or through ignorance; but "The Word became flesh," which was said in a way beyond nature and beyond praise, has been chosen both by the enemies of old, in the heresies, and by our present opponents, as an invincible mystery, as they thought; and they have built it as a fortress against us, contriving to sally out from there and strike the phalanx of the orthodox, and to bind many in the tangle of the question: "The Word became flesh"; the one who became flesh himself received the passion. Who does not shudder at the madness of these words? Cutting off what is written, they spoke, and introduced what is not written. For he who said, "The Word became flesh," added, "and dwelt among us," so that we should at once understand twofold meanings: the Word, the flesh; that which dwells, that in which it dwells; and should take neither a turning nor an alteration nor anything of the kind in the unchangeable substance. For otherwise he would have said, "He became a dwelling," not "He dwelt among us," if indeed the nature of the Word itself had changed into the nature of flesh. But it is not possible to reason so about him who says, "See, see, that I am, and I have not changed." How then did he both become flesh and not change? By being united to flesh, not by being transformed into flesh. Therefore it is also said, "He was manifested in the flesh," not "the flesh was manifested"; and, "He took hold of the seed of Abraham," he says, not "he became the seed of Abraham by alteration"; and, "He had the body as a temple," not "he was changed into a temple"; and, "He who was in the form of God took the form of a servant," not "he became the form of a servant." If anyone, being contentious, will not consider what befits God, but wants to serve syllables without godly understanding, and to demand everything that ought not to be demanded, let him know that he declares himself wiser than the grace of the Holy Spirit, and does not accept the legislation from there, which, through many sacred voices, as was said before, has made the force of the phrase clear to us; and that not without daring he brings conflict into the divine words and condemns the holy doctrines as contrary to one another, if indeed "He became flesh" is contrary to "He took the form of a servant." But away with that, wretched man: neither is the divine changed, nor does holy Scripture fight against itself, but, interpreting itself to those who listen with love of truth, it is wholly acceptable and harmonious. This godly understanding, then, the divine books hand down to us; and "became" is written not so that we should think of a change of God the Word, but so that we should understand thereby the highest union; since he is not said to have committed sin, but to have been made sin: "For him who knew no sin," it says, "he made sin for us," not by the Word being transformed into an act of sin, or by having committed sin, but by taking our sin and doing away with it, as it is written, "He takes away our sins." Just as, then, he was made sin and became a curse not by being changed … so too he became flesh, not changed into it but united to it. Hence also a man, joined to God through faith and grace, is said to be one spirit: "He who is joined to the Lord," it says, "is one spirit"; not as though the man were changed into the nature of the Godhead, but as though such a union bestowed on him the spiritual dignity. In the same way the Word too did not change into the nature of flesh, but, being united to flesh, is said to have become flesh; just as a man joined to God is said to be spirit, not casting off his own substance but taking on the fellowship. But what is the wisdom of the opponents? "He remained what he was; he became what he was not." Then the indivisible nature was divided, and part of it remained, while … became an appearance; or it ought to be said simply, but it is not fitting to understand it. And what need is there of a word that means nothing? But as it was handed down from the beginning, what is said is firm, what follows is plain, the interpretation is clear, the understanding godly, the impossible uncontested, the fitting present together, the credible from many witnesses beyond dispute, the unchangeableness of the Godhead inviolate, and the passion belongs to what is called the temple, not to God who raised it. Besides, according to their account the Virgin is not even understood as mother. If the Word made himself flesh, he did not come forth having taken flesh from her. For how is she a mother from whom what was born took nothing? And how could a strange passage, like that through a pipe, be called a birth? They make the holy Virgin a vessel, then, not a mother. And they cannot even see that they put forward "The Word became flesh" rather against themselves. For if the Word is one thing and the flesh another, they are two, not one; but if the Word and the flesh are the same, "became" is undone. For the Word did not become the Word; and what is in the same thing did not become something else. So it is necessary either that "became" be overturned, or that the two natures be confessed. For "became" is said according to what truly appeared, with reference to the impression of those who saw, who did not then know the unseen God the Word: just as if someone should say, "The shepherd has been changed from a man into a sheep," when he has truly put on a sheep's form over the man, not by an unwilling necessity of nature, but by the judgment and good pleasure of his free choice alone.

Against those who say there is one nature in Christ. How then do some dare, after it has been shown that the Word and the flesh are two, to throw out the coming together of the two natures, fighting against all the holy Scriptures, bringing every insult on the nature that cannot be insulted, and begrudging the whole human race the divine becoming man? They throw out every prophecy of it, they who set aside the twofoldness of the natures. The nature of the flesh, receiving all that is said in lowlier terms, keeps the glory of the Word intact; if it is thrown out, everything must run together onto the Word. All hope and confidence for human beings comes through the union of the Word with our firstfruits. But those who say that the Word was turned into flesh have emptied the boast of our race and declared our bright hopes unsure. Abraham no longer takes pride, David no longer exults; the promises to him are false, if Christ according to the flesh does not rise from the fruit of his loins, but God the Word, having made himself flesh, granted his sojourn. How then are they not ashamed, fighting against the divine Scriptures, begrudging human beings, blaspheming God as passible, and declaring his promises false; or rather not only false, but pouring perjury on the God who cannot lie? "For the Lord swore truth to David," it says, "and he will not set it aside: of the fruit of his loins I will set upon his throne." If David contributed nothing from his substance, but the flesh was newly fashioned from the Word, and there is one nature in the Master Christ, then one must certainly think of him either as Lord of David or as son; for the one nature does not admit both. If he is God only, he is not properly Son; for he does not receive the beginning of his being from him; nor is he a true son who has nothing from the substance of the one called his father.

Against those who say that to confess the flesh as a nature is to preach a quaternity instead of a Trinity. Again I see the same mischief put forward by the opponents in other words. For having said above, simply, that those who understand the two, the form of God and the form of a servant, in one introduce two Sons, here again they slander those who believe that the flesh was assumed as a nature with preaching a quaternity. They say this on their own authority, not from any logical sequence; and they bring it not so much against us as against all the saints who preached such things through spiritual grace, enlightened by whom we were taught the undefiled confession in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and came to know the dispensation of the becoming man from two natures. But those who want to carry everything lowly onto the very Godhead of the Son set aside the nature of the flesh, so that its sufferings must of necessity be ascribed to God the Word, who would first have been turned into flesh and then have suffered the things of the flesh. And for this reason they brandish an accusation at the faithful, constructing what they please by their authority alone. For if we said that the flesh is of the substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, they would rightly call it a quaternity, as the same substance would be seen in four persons. But if we say what is true, that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and the Holy Spirit consubstantial, and that he took the flesh to fulfil the dispensation, not to increase the substance, how do they make an addition to the number, when the nature of the flesh is so different, as if introducing another consubstantial person? And this, when it is not considered by itself, but is known in inseparable conjunction with God the Word, so that it is no longer seen as separate, nor counted together as consubstantial in an equal way. Our account, then, both confesses the becoming man and does not make a quaternity, as he says, and keeps the Word impassible, and agrees with all the holy Scriptures; but the opponents' legislation disobeys what has been written from the beginning, sets aside the assumption of the flesh, and declares that God the Word was changed and suffered, or that everything was displayed in appearance only. But if, because of the many benefits which we have received and hope to receive through the mediating spotless flesh, they compel us to take the flesh into the number of a quaternity, it is time for them also to take into the count of those named the garment, the hem of which the woman who carried the spring of blood touched in faith and stole her healing, and to bring the garment in as a fifth into the proclamation of the doxology; not as honored with the same place of union, but as taken up for a wonderful miracle. As, then, the garment, which received so great a grace from the spotless flesh and passed it on to the woman, made no addition to the number in the doxology, so we too, honoring the divine flesh inseparably united to the almighty Word, confess that we have found salvation through it, and yet keep the number of the Trinity untouched, since it is one with the Word in the inseparability of the union and the indivisibility of the worship. But whatever they say has happened that befits the divine nature, they take the power of God to build an unfitting idea, though Paul says: "It is impossible for God to lie" and "to deny himself"; and whatever is fitting to God and saving and God-befitting and loving to humankind, these they transfer to the impossible, not allowing the Master's wisdom the power both to take flesh and not to make a quaternity. Such is their contentious judgment: to confirm their own unfitting innovations by saying that God can do all things, but no longer to accept as true, possible, and profitable what is piously proclaimed by holy Scripture, rather to take it for tangling questions, and not to ascribe to the power of him who does all things what belongs to it beyond human comprehension.

Against those who say that to know the Master Christ as man is to have one's hopes in a man. Not content with problems so absurd and shameless, they have added another, more reckless pronouncement, saying that those who confess Christ as God and man according to each nature have their hopes in a man. On this it is good to ask them: must we obey the holy Scriptures, or, according to them, must we not? If we must, we have heard it from them, and let them accuse the Scriptures themselves. But if they say we must not, let them openly confess their implacable war against the sacred books, and we have no more argument with them, as with strangers. From the Scriptures we have heard: "A man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness"; and that he is Son of Man; "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth." "One God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ." "The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." "The first Adam, but the last Christ." "Through a man came death, through a man the resurrection of the dead." So much in words, and very much more again in deeds. He was born a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, nourished with milk, circumcised according to the law; he advanced in stature and wisdom and grace; he knew hunger, was not ignorant of thirst, felt toil, experienced trouble, distress, and grief; he was made like his brothers in all things, without sin. He was subjected to scourges, brought to the cross, pierced with nails, tasted death, was handed over to burial; his soul was in Hades, and, unable to be held there, was given back to the body, and the resurrection took place; then the touching and handling by those who disbelieved; then food, confirming the resurrection of the body; then the ascension into heaven, while many watched. So many testimonies in what is written, such full assurance in what happened, so many goods procured by the dispensation. And all this they tell us to overlook, and to go against so many and such great things, and not to confess according to nature the manhood demonstrated by them; though not a mere manhood. Against this it is time to set the apostolic voice: "We must obey God rather than men." The manhood is so ineffably and inseparably united to the Godhead that the same one is seen as a baby and a child and known as God. "A child has been born to us," says the prophet, "a son also has been given, and his name is called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counsellor, mighty God." He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but shows his uncircumscribed lordship to all creation. He was laid in a manger, but was glorified by the hymns of angels; he endured hunger and thirst, but fed thousands from five loaves, and, as he willed, showed an abundance of fragments, twelve baskets. In short, he tasted death, but destroyed the one who had the power of death; and in the very passion, the body was hanging on the cross, while God the Word in it was everywhere displaying his impassible sovereignty. The earth shook, the rocks were split, the sun was veiled, the curtain was torn, the tombs were opened, the dead leapt up, strange heralds of the destruction of death; all creation declared the invisible Godhead of the Crucified. What defense shall we have if we neglect so great a salvation, overlook such full assurance, and agree with the innovations of the contentious? That it is fitting in every way to know Christ the Savior as at once God and man, according to each nature, the stones would cry out even if we kept silent; but that those who believe in this way do not simply have their hopes in a man, must be shown clearly. Yet even if some difficulty arose, one ought to seek its solution or confess one's own ignorance, not depart from what is written. But now it is easy to find what is fitting: that we have our hopes in the incarnate presence of him who became man, in the saving dispensation of the Master, recognizing through the visible flesh the invisible God the Word, and believing that through its passion we receive impassibility; ascribing all that happened to the Godhead united to the flesh, and so offering one worship to God the Word incarnate and made man. For the woman who touched the hem was not convicted of having her hopes in a hem, but in the invisible power of him who was clothed in the garment whose hem it was. Nor did the man freed from blindness by spittle have his trust in spittle, but in the invincible authority of him who commanded him to receive healing so. Since now too those who approach the holy altar, embracing it and kissing it with fear and joy, do not rest simply on stone or wood, but on the grace remembered by the godly through the stone or wood. Or would you also accuse those who were once saved under the blessed Moses by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up of entrusting their salvation to a serpent? And if the image of the mystery showed such power through a serpent, how much more will the very archetype of grace give you through a man, as it has given the faithful its manifold benefits, according to him who said: "For as through a man came death, so through a man the resurrection of the dead."