Epistula ad Caesarium

From John Chrysostom, from the letter to Caesarius after his second exile. And you would certainly say that they have come from error to the better and that they give thanks to those who brought that marvelous book, which your most excellent writings call the best, as it clearly declares that a substantial union and a divine mixture of divinity and flesh has taken place and that one nature has been produced from this. This, admirable one, is the folly of the mad Apollinarius; this is the most impious heresy of those who introduce mixture and blending. From the same letter: But when you say Christ, you have conjoined both. Hence the same would be called both passible and impassible: passible in the flesh, impassible in the divinity. And these things are also predicated of Son and Jesus and Lord; for these names are common and indicative of the two natures. From the same letter: Thus also here, with the divine nature established in the body, the two together have produced one Son, one person, known, however, by an unconfused and undivided account, not in one single nature, but in two perfect natures. For in the case of one nature, how could the unconfused be spoken of? How the undivided? How could the union ever be spoken of? For it is impossible for the one to be united, or mixed, or divided with itself. What Hades then has belched forth the saying of one nature in Christ? And near the end of the same letter: Avoiding the empty talk of these men, beloved, let us return to the matter at hand.

It is pious and exceedingly pious to confess Christ, who was enveloped in death, as perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, one only-begotten Son, not divided into a duality of sons, yet bearing in himself the unconfused properties of the two inseparable natures, not another and another, far from it, but one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word, clothed in flesh, and that flesh not without soul and mind, as the impious Apollinarius said. Let us therefore attend to these things. Let us flee those who divide; for even if the nature is twofold, yet the union is indivisible and inseparable, confessed in one person of sonship and one hypostasis. Let us flee those who prate of one nature after the union; for by the notion of the one they hasten to attach passion to the impassible God, denying the economy. 2. From Chrysostom, from the letter to Caesarius the monk. What Hades belched forth the saying of one nature in Christ after the union? For either, holding to the divine, they deny the human, I mean our salvation; or, clinging to the human, they make denial of the divine nature. Let them choose which lost its own. For if the union still stands firm, it is necessary that the properties of the union also be preserved. Otherwise this is not union, but confusion and obliteration of the natures. Christ is not, then, in one nature alone, but in two perfect ones. For in the case of one, where is the unconfused? Where is the indivisible? Where is the union? For it is impossible for a thing to be united or divided with itself. Of the same author: And the holy fathers, interpreting, speak of both the division and the difference.

Division is that which does not cut through the underlying subjects completely and set them apart individually and separately, subsisting by themselves and separated from each other; difference is a principle according to which the underlying subjects differ from each other, that is, the flesh being by nature and essence, which is also the Word of God being by nature and essence, which is. 3. Of Chrysostom to Caesarius. And it is pious to confess Christ, who was enveloped in death, as perfect in divinity, one only-begotten Son, not divided into a duality of sons, yet bearing in himself the unconfused properties of the two inseparable natures, not another and another, God forbid, but one and the same Lord Jesus, God Word, clothed in flesh, and this not soulless and mindless, as the impious Apollinarius said. But if to some it seems impossible that in one there be two, and that at once he be both held and crucified, and that one of these undergo the insult, I will attempt to show this by a human example. The royal purple was wool; mixed with this, the blood of the murex gave it a purple hue. When, therefore, it was woven by the fingers and spun, becoming warp, evidently, the wool and not the dye underwent the twisting; likewise, by the wool the man, by the purple hue the Word of God, who was united in the passion and the cross. But he did not at all succumb to the passion. Again, let there be a tree, having in itself the ray of the sun; when, therefore, this is cut, we observe that the striking iron is first borne against the ray in it from above.

And the first ray appears to receive the blow before the tree is struck. Just as, therefore, the flash of lightning, though it is there, is neither cut nor divided, so also the divinity could neither be separated nor cut and suffer, but the flesh was subject to suffering, which could be both cut and suffer, as the tree there.