Girkʿ tʿłtʿocʿ (Extracts)

The Letter of Bishop Proclus to the Holy Sahak, Patriarch of the Armenians, and to the Holy Maštocʿ. Blessed are those who would be daily in the sweetly-beholding vision of your divinely-beautiful faces—and why say I daily? but at least on days, or in months, or in years. Say also to my chilled soul: Who would render me worthy to approach and fall at the feet of the evangelists and say, "I have sinned against the heavens and before you, and I am not worthy even to be called your son, but count me among your many-compassionate mercy as one of your hirelings"? And whence would it be to me, except through the prayers of your Holiness, which with great struggle you always offer to God on behalf of the worthy and the unworthy? And concerning the stability of the churches, which the wind of error suddenly thought to shake from your prayers, the sanctity of the Lord ceased, and all the bishops of the Romans came into unity, holding fast the faith of the first three hundred, and they anathematized that no one should presume to set forth any new and foreign faith, but to build upon the same and to teach the same.

Confess Christ true God, Son of God, and only-begotten, born of the Father before all creation, and Lord creator of all, and the same Word God at the end of times clothed in flesh, become for our sake man without turning, falling, or departing from his divine selfhood, and born of the holy virgin God according to the fleshly birth—perfect man—and the virgin is called and is Mother of the Lord and Mother of God; and the perfect one is called God, perfect man, because perfect in limbs, and he animated his holy flesh with breath, and not as a man. Let the opponents make manifest, and let them constantly forge from their slanders these things; then the same number of the common nature of birth begins. But the Word God truly became man because it was, so that they confess the nature and blaspheme the transgressions of the birth. Now let them choose one of the two: either be ashamed of the transgressions of the birth, fall away from the good nature, and be counted with the impious as having the disease of the Manichaeans; or take upon themselves the incarnation, and confess from the nature, let them not consider the transgressions of the natural birth a shame.

Now I am amazed at the foolishness which continually devises new and devious paths, for I have known and learned with piety that same Son, and I have one confession, the power of the incarnate Word of God. But now, since it is one that undertook with patience to pass through, and accomplished these magnificent powers, why, then, having kept silent about the divine things, do they prattle on at length about the basest things, that he himself, as if he willed it, said, "I am the faithful creator God and Word," was established, remaining what he was, but became flesh and infant and man, and by no means of his own... did he betray the mystery, but the same himself both performed these magnificent powers and the same himself entered into the sufferings. By the curses and arts, to hold and remain in that which he was, he reveals, but by the sufferings, that which he became, what he created, he confirms. Now, let us confess one and the same Son, eternal from the beginning and incarnate, and let us not mix in any other nature of the divinity, foreign and devious, for nothing else additional exists in that throne. But now, indeed, in another and yet in many glorious mysteries, they weave a thread weaker than a spider's web. If the Trinity, he says, is of one power, the Trinity is without passions, then if the Word of God is without passions, it is found that he who went up on the cross is someone other than the Word of God, who is without passions.

Indeed, the true spider weaves its web for those who speak thus, and they produce writings on the surface of the waters, who conduct this vain counsel, saying they are wise, and they become foolish and are darkened in the folly of their hearts, for the eyes of the physicians cannot receive the holy rays of the sun, and minds diseased from the faith cannot gaze upon the height of faith. Now what are we, if the word of the divinity is that the Trinity is of one power and without passions? Yet it is not that we say the Son entered into passions, according to the word of the divinity we say that passions reached him, for the nature of divinity is without receiving any passions; rather, we confess the Word of God, who is one from the Trinity, incarnate, and we give reasons for finding wisdom to those who inquire with faith why he became incarnate. For the Word of God wished to abolish the passions of all desires, whose end was death, and to leave the passions in their place, the immortal nature not taking them upon itself; for if all passion is opposition and strife bound up with creatures, then that which is immaterial has no conjunction with passions that could reach it, for no conjunction existed in it. Now he wished that the passions should constrain the rational body, to abolish them, as we said earlier, whose head is itself death.

He became incarnate from the virgin, as God the Word knows, and took form as a man, for this was his own will, and he enclosed himself within himself; in the form of servitude he came to be, without making any diminution of the divinity, and thus he saved all the races of men, and with his own body he obstructed all torments, preserving the divinity whole and undefiled. For this reason also Gabriel, when giving the tidings of the birth, calls himself the prince of the power before Mary: "He himself," he says, "will save his people from all their lawlessness." But now the people are not of a man but of God, and no one can save the world from sins who himself has fallen to earth in corruption and whose own origin of birth is not without blemish. It is evident that the same is God and man, not that he is something divided into two, but he remains one and the same. Being born of a woman would make it manifest that he was man, but preserving the mother a virgin without intercourse clearly witnesses that he is God, for Jesus, who is Christ, saved the world, who came to earth and walked among men.

Then if Christ is some insignificant man, and not himself God the Word, how did he create everything from the beginning, when he was not yet? For if man is younger than all creatures, it is evident that those who were before him—their life was not granted by Christ as to younger creatures, as to some insignificant man. But how does Paul proclaim: "One is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom everything came to be"? For if everything is in Christ, it is evident that Christ is God the Word, as the evangelist proclaims: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; he was in the beginning with God; everything came to be through him." And Paul preaches the same and says: "One is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom everything." It is evident that Christ is God the Word.

Then if they bring forth from the holy scriptures the words that are common, in which a man is named, because Peter called Jesus of Nazareth a man, and Paul proclaims, in that very place where he established the faith, and the Lord himself said, "Why do you seek to kill me, a man?"—let them know whether it is because of baseness, negligence, or ignorance that they have fallen short of the depths of the scriptures, or because of cunning they distort the beautiful written word, so that they say that Christ is truly a man, yet everything came to be through him, not that he was anything before as a man, but only God was; for as an example, God is not of a nature to be created, and the same appeared as a man; and as an example, God the Father is of one power according to divinity, so likewise the Virgin is of the same race according to the body, radiant in all the truth of the mystery and emptied of all deceptions. Then if the Virgin did not give birth to God, and it is not worthy of many wonders that she gave birth without marriage—for many other women have borne fruit to the righteous in the world—then if the tongues of the prophets, having sounded the ineffable mystery beforehand like a trumpet, cry out: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel," which Gabriel translated, saying, "God with us"—now why, because of the humility of the birth, do they cast the glory of the birth into doubt?

Again they set against this: every offspring is of the same kind as its begetter; for if the one who begot is a man, then it is evident that the one whom he begot is a man. To these words say the following: it is then of the same kind, that is, heavenly, when the offspring appears according to the nature of the good of the plant by birth; but the beginning of the birth of the good of the plant is the mixture of union, for mixture is prior to corruption; but where these enemies have never even conceived of it, there time appears not at all, but suddenly and briefly, which is in the higher regions, more than to say the magnificent wonders that are above the nature of the good of the plant—there the offspring itself is God.

Now we confess henceforth that there is one who made the world, and laid down the laws, and breathed into the prophets, and was incarnate at the end, and hunted the apostles for the salvation of the heathen and the peoples; let us flee from the fruitless ones, and from the torrents of intellectual deceit, for I speak of the god-man heresy of the promises, I speak of the madness of Ara, Matthea, and Marathovna, which they set forth in the midst of the indivisible Trinity, dividing it into parts; I speak of the insolence of Eunomius, who measures the inaccessible nature with profound knowledge; I speak of the fury of Macedonius, who tears away from the divinity the unceasing effluence of the Spirit; and these new-fashioned, new-voiced ones speak these new vain blasphemies, who with manifold blasphemies of the mystery of Judaism, manifoldly transgress according to their blasphemy; for they, by dishonoring the Son, go astray from the truth; these, beyond the true one, which was, bring forth yet another within, hostilely rejecting the indivisible nature as if it were manifold.

Now we have come to say with Paul: Christ is our peace, who made the two of them alike, and brought the Jews and the heathen into one new man, and united and reconciled them by his power, those who were separated from each other by their own deeds and ways. Now let them be dismayed at that condemnation, who cast the novel impiety within, for if the creator of the harmony and agreement of the other divisions, who reconciled and united, were himself found divided in two according to their words, as has been said. But now henceforth leaving the lengthiness of these words, let us come briefly to the command of the way.

If anyone wishes to know with truth that this is himself the one and only son, who was before Abraham, and in the completion of the stature of the body, because there is in the perfection of divinity, ask Paul, and he will thunder forth, showing the worship of God, that he was God from eternity and came in the body of a Hebrew, because concerning the Hebrews he spoke of the race of the veil-wearers and the God-fighters, whom he honored for the sake of the root, Abraham and the offspring who is the Lord Jesus Christ, for thus he says: Of whom he says, it was adoption—he himself calls God from the mouth of the prophets: My firstborn son Israel, and the glory, because he gains immeasurable glory for those who understand, having placed the wondrous things one by one—he means the covenants—which were with Abraham, having promised the multitude of the blessing, he means the legislation which was written on the mountain by the hand of God, and he means the gospel, the land of Palestine, and from that offspring he says Abraham blessed all the heathen, whence the fathers who in the night of error shone like lights of faith, whence also Christ is according to the body, in order to reveal the birth. And not that Paul established the word in this manner, for not that the birth from Mary is from some source.

after that the beginning of the beginningless existence, but God poured forth immediately and speaks according to the revelation of the body, but not as if the birth according to the divinity—now who is this? It is Christ himself, who was born from the virgin, for whom men were sufficient, which he alone knows, who lay down in the manger, who grew according to the body in time, who while he was in the lower regions of the earth, who endured all the passages of the body, so that he might make faithful with truth that he came and became man, not that he is someone other than that which descended, but he himself is the one who descended and who ascended, for he did not ascend first, but descended, as if not that God brought forth anything by hand beforehand—far be it—but for the sake of his own scripture he came and became man, for we ourselves are in need of this. Now do not learn this from me or from anyone else, but from Paul, who from the Father learned the Son by revelation and says: but when it seemed pleasing to God that he chose me from the womb of my mother, and he called me by the hand of his graces to reveal his Son in me, he will teach you truly who Jesus Christ is, for he himself cries out and says: Whence is Christ according to the body, who is above all, God blessed for eternity. What blasphemous audacities of men do not undo the words of Paul, the slanderous men. He called him Christ, for he made manifest that truly he became man.

He said this of him from the Hebrews according to the body, in order to make manifest that it is not that he became incarnate from some source, but that he is only from that one. He said of him that he was, in order that Paul might thunder forth the beginningless revealed. He said this of him over all, so that we might proclaim him Lord of all creation. He said of him God, so that we, who are troubled by the sufferings and the forms, might not set aside his nature because of the dissolution. He said of him blessed, so that we might worship him as the almighty, and not revile him as our fellow servant. He said of him eternal, in order to make manifest that what I made by word is always everlasting among them as the God of the first. Now we have Christ, who was, and is God, and is blessed; we worship him, and we shall say to the heterodox plainly: if someone does not have the Spirit, this one is not his, for we have the mind of Christ, since we also have an eye for the coming of the manifest glory of the great God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who bestows upon the pious the gifts of victorious glory, and upon the rebellious and disobedient the punishments of insolence.

And because he wrote all this for the sake of your love, that it became known to us that some men, false-tongued and delirious, fell into that world, and they wish to compose some false compilation with writings, with contradiction, with falsehood, with plausible knowledge, to pervert the simplicity, the unadorned, the universal, the straight and true beauty of the faith, but I again say to you what the blessed Paul the apostle said: "Beware, lest there be someone who would rob you of your treasure by the artfulness of words, and by the vain deception of teaching, by the vain counsel of men, and not according to the teaching of Christ—for the foundation of the holiness of the faith is that which is set, that is, Jesus Christ.

Now stand firm in one spirit and in one person, having become fellow martyrs through the faith of this Gospel, and do not be frightened by the disturbances, nor be foolish from the evils of the enemy, and do not be delivered into curse and destruction with Nestorius, and with Theodorus who was his teacher, and who brought forth the evil plant and the new-fangled torture, who passed beyond the bounds according to the apostasy of Judaism, and according to the heresy of the former Arians, Theians, and Maratonians, and others who deviated from the glory of the truth and from the straight path of the faith; they were cursed by all the assemblies, and the books of their evil counsels were burned in the presence of all the assemblies, from which you also should guard yourselves, and do the same work which the holy councils of bishops did, and let no one, considering the temporary shame as shame of the person, inherit the eternal shame, and be condemned with them and fall into the abyss. But preserve the teaching which you received from the holy fathers who were at the synod of Nicaea, and who established the straight and holy glory of the faith. And the teaching of the holy blessed ones, Basil and Gregory, and those who are like them, who with holiness and unanimity established the holy faith in their lives, whose names are written in the book of life. Greetings in the Lord, and may you be granted to us, God-loving brothers.

Written in the year of the Lord 535.