Fragments

Peter, to the beloved brothers in the Lord, established in the faith of God: greeting. Since I have learned that Meletius does nothing for the common good, and that even the letter of the most blessed bishops and martyrs did not satisfy him, but that, moreover, having entered our parish, he has taken so much upon himself that he has tried to separate from my authority the presbyters and those who had been permitted to visit the needy, and, as a sign of his desire for primacy, has ordained certain persons for himself in prison; take care, then, not to communicate with him, until I meet him with wise men and see what it is that he has in mind. Farewell.

Since truly grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, whence also we have been saved by grace, according to the apostolic saying: “And this,” he says, “not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should boast.” By the will of God the Word, having become flesh and being found in fashion as a man, was not left without his Godhead. For it was not so that he might wholly depart from his power or glory that he became poor, though he was rich, but so that he might take on himself death for us sinners, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. And after other things: Whence also the evangelist speaks truly, saying: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among …” … the Virgin, saying, “Hail, you who are favored; the Lord is with you.” For “the Lord is with you” is now to be heard from Gabriel in the sense of “God the Word is with you.” For it signifies that he came to be in the womb and became flesh, as it is written: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one who is born will be called Son of God.” And again, after other things: But God the Word, in the absence of a man, by the will of God who is able to accomplish all things, became flesh in the womb of the Virgin, without needing the activity or presence of a man. For the power of God, overshadowing the Virgin together with the Holy Spirit who had come upon her, worked more effectively than a man.

And to Judas he says, “Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” These things and others like them, and all the signs that he did, and the mighty works, show that he is God made man. Both, then, are shown: that he was God by nature, and became man by nature.

[From On the Sojourning (Advent) of Christ:] Both things, then, are shown together: that he was God by nature and became man by nature.

[From the work on the Passover. Heading:] That the Hebrews unerringly fixed the fourteenth day of the first month of the moon until the capture of the [Jews]. … great is the mercy of God … we give thanks to him, and because he has sent down upon us the Spirit of truth, guiding us into all truth. For this reason also the month of new things, appointed by the law as the beginning of months and first among the months of the year, has been made known to us; and both by the ancient writers before the capture of Jerusalem and by the recent ones after the capture it has been shown to have a most pure and evident boundary, since the new crops sometimes come early in some places and sometimes late, being at one time early, at another late; as happened at the very beginning of the legislation on the Passover, as it is written: “But the wheat and the rye were not struck, for they were late.” Hence it was well laid down by law that from the spring equinox, in whatever week the fourteenth day of the first month falls, in that week the Passover is to be kept, together with fitting praises … “For this month,” he says, “is to you … the beginning of months among the months of the year,” it is written; when the sun, coming into summer, gives more and brighter light, and the day lengthening … , and the new seeds having flowered … are gathered into the threshing floors. Moreover, all the fruit trees sprout and blossom … with a variety of different and many-colored fruits, so that at that very season a grape is sometimes found, as the lawgiver too says: “And the days were days of spring, forerunners of the grape,” when he sent out those who were to spy out the land, and they brought the great cluster on poles, and some of the pomegranates and of the figs. For at that time, as they say, the creator and maker of all things, our eternal God, also established all things, which he enumerated: “Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass, sowing seed according to its kind and likeness, and the fruitful tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in it according to its kind on the earth.” And he added, “And it was so.” And very well and rightly he made known the first month legislated among the Hebrews, which we know was kept among the Jews until the capture of Jerusalem, because it had been handed down so above all to the Hebrews; but after the capture it was forgotten by some, and in this too there was a hardening; this month we have received, observing it lawfully and sincerely. And in this … according to … the saying, saying … the day of our holy feast, which the elect obtained, but the rest were hardened, as the Scripture said. And after other things: 1. For he says this too: “All these things they will do to you, because they have not known him who sent me.” But if they did not know the one who sent, and were ignorant of the one who was sent, there is no doubt that they also had no knowledge of the law of the Passover, so that they fell away not only from the [right] choice of place but also from the beginning of the months, the first among the months of the year, of which … [For the ancients] sacrificed the Passover after the equinox, according to the divine command; but those who now do it before the equinox do it altogether carelessly and erroneously, as … indeed they did, as the one who wrote these things himself also agrees. III. Whether, then, the Jews, erring in the course of the moon, sometimes keep their Passover in Phamenoth, or, by the intercalary month every third year, in Pharmuthi, it makes no difference to you. For nothing else is set before us than to keep the remembrance of his passion, and at this season, as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning handed down, before the Egyptians believed. For it is not now for the first time that, observing the course of the moon, they keep it of necessity on the [sixteenth?] of Phamenoth and once every third year in Pharmuthi; for from the beginning, even before the coming of Christ, they appear always to have done so. Hence God also, accusing them through the prophet, said: “And I said, They always go astray in their heart; as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest.” IV. In this, as you see, you appear to be uttering great falsehoods, not only against men but also against God. First, because the Jews were not yet erring on this point while the eyewitnesses and ministers from the beginning were with them, and much less from the beginning, before the coming of Christ. For God does not say that they always went astray about the law of the Passover, … but about all their other disobedience, and because of their wicked and unseemly works, seeing them living in idolatries and fornications. V. And after a little: So that in this too, very much indeed, since you have fallen asleep, rouse yourself with the goads of the Ecclesiastes, remembering above all him who says, “A slip on the pavement rather than from the tongue.” For indeed, as you see again, the charge you bring reaches to those who led them, and one may suspect the great danger that attends it, since we hear that “he who throws a stone on high throws it on his own head.” It is easy for another, and for anyone who dares, to accuse in this matter Moses, so great a servant of God, or Joshua son of Nun who succeeded him, or those after them who followed them well and ruled — I mean further the judges, and the illustrious kings, or [even] the Spirit-bearing prophets — and he will bring the charge also against those who were blameless high priests among them; and … following … , at least in the most fitting season of the Passover they agreed, as in their other feasts. It would have been better and more seemly to pass over this, and not to write rashly and slanderously that from the beginning and always they appear to have erred about the Passover; which you cannot show, however much you wish to harangue about those who now, in great error, have fallen away from the law of the Passover and from the others. For those of old appear to have kept it after the spring equinox, as you can learn by reading ancient writings, in which the wise men among the Hebrews above all recorded it. VII. That, then, until the Lord's passion, and indeed until the last capture of Jerusalem, which took place under Vespasian, emperor of the Romans, the people of Israel unerringly fixed the fourteenth of the first month of the moon and kept the legal Passover, has been briefly demonstrated by these things. While, then, the holy prophets and all, as I said, who lived holily and righteously in the law of the Lord, together with all the people, were keeping the typical and shadowy Passover, the maker and master of all creation visible and invisible, the only-begotten Son and Word, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit and of the same essence according to the Godhead, our Lord and God Jesus the Christ, born in the consummation of the ages according to the flesh from our holy and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin, and truly Mother of God, Mary, and seen on earth, and having truly lived as a man among men, who are of the same essence with him according to his humanity, himself also with the people, in the years before his preaching and during his preaching, kept the legal and shadowy Passover, eating the typical lamb; for “I did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill,” the Savior himself has said in the Gospels. But after he had preached, he did not eat the lamb; but he himself suffered as the true lamb at the feast of the Passover, as John, the theologian and evangelist, teaches in his Gospel, saying thus: “They led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium; and it was early, and they themselves did not enter the praetorium … Passover.” And after a little: “When Pilate heard this word, he brought Jesus out and sat on the judgment seat at a place called … ; it was the preparation of the Passover, about the third hour,” as the accurate books contain, and the very autograph of the evangelist, which by the grace of God has been preserved to this day in the most holy church of the Ephesians and is venerated there by the faithful. And again the same evangelist says: “The Jews, therefore, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (since it was the preparation, for that Sabbath day was a great one), asked Pilate that …” On that very day, then, on which the Jews were about to … , our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ became the sacrifice for those who were to partake of faith in his mystery, according to what was written by blessed Paul: “For our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed for us”; and not, as some, carried away by ignorance, confidently affirm, that he ate the Passover and then was betrayed; which we have neither learned from the holy Gospels, nor has any of the blessed apostles handed it down to you. At the time, then, when our Lord and God Jesus the Christ suffered for us according to the flesh, he did not eat the legal Passover; but, as I said, he himself, as the true lamb, was sacrificed for us at the feast of the shadowy Passover, on the day of preparation, the fourteenth of the first month of the moon. So the typical Passover came to an end when the true Passover had come: “For Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us,” as was said before, and as the chosen vessel, the apostle Paul, teaches. And it was the preparation, about the third hour, as the accurate books contain, and the very autograph of the evangelist John, which by the grace of God has been preserved until now in the most holy church of the Ephesians and is venerated there by the faithful.

[From the work That the soul does not pre-exist the body. Heading:] … of the martyr, from [the work] That the soul does not pre-exist the body. Having first set out what concerns the Godhead and the humanity of the second man from heaven, according to the blessed apostle, we have thought it necessary also to set out what concerns the first man, born from the earth and earthy, in order to show that he was one and the same, made at the same time, even if the inner and the outer man are sometimes spoken of separately. For if, according to the saving Word, he who made the outside also made the inside, then he made them at once and at the same time, that is, on the very day on which God said, “Let us make man according to our image and according to likeness”; so that from this it is quite clear that [man] did not come into being by a joining together, as if [the soul] pre-existed … For if the earth brought forth the other living creatures with souls at [God's] command, much more did the dust taken from the earth by God receive a living power according to …

Wretched am I! I did not even remember that God watches over the mind and hears the voice of the soul. I consented to sin, saying to myself, “God is merciful and will bear with me”; and, not being struck at once, I did not [cease] …, but rather despised pardon, and …

[Fragment on Matthew:] And in the Gospel according to Matthew the Lord says to the one … [Peter, ar]chbishop of Alexandria, explaining it, says this and things like it: “All the signs that he did, and the mighty works, show him to be God [made man]. Both things together, then, are shown: that he was God …”