PG_91A_7

But if neither to divide nor to be divided according to its own principle is number able. For neither is it by nature to act, for that belongs to substance; nor to be acted upon, for that belongs to accident; nor will it be able of necessity to introduce division into itself along with the things, as they have their nature and position and relation to one another before the number, remaining firm, and after being numbered, having suffered nothing at all novel in a new way on account of the number. For saying, let us suppose, ten men, or whatever else of things subsisting in themselves, and signifying a divided quantity, we know that they did not then receive their being in themselves and their being distinguished from one another in their hypostases through the number; but that they are this in themselves and not through the number, and are so many, not by division; but we have indicated the quantity through the number. And again, when we say a stone is two-colored or four-colored, and whatever belongs to continuous quantity, we do not divide the one stone into two or five stones; nor do we cut the colors in it from one another, but we signify that there are so many around it and in it as in a subject without confusion; no cut or division having occurred, or being able to occur, to the stone from the quantity of the continuous colors numbered around it; just as neither is there confusion or mingling in the colors from the one subject around the stone. For the stone, having the monadic character in its subject, and possessing the quantity of the colors around it indivisibly, is shown to be such.

Likewise also the colors of the stone itself, differing from one another by quality, having quantity, contribute again to the one underlying subject by the composition of the stone; they possess the singular without confusion, and there is one and the same stone, neither divided by the quantity of the colors nor confused by the singularity of the subject. Having its existence with different principles, in one respect it admits number, in another it does not accept it. Every number, then, is not of the relation itself of things—I mean of division and continuity—but is declarative of the quantity of those things of which it happens to be; it introduces the principle that quantity is quantity, but not how it exists. For how could it also introduce to itself the relations of things, which exist before it and can be known without it, and which have no trace of affinity toward it, being separated by the middle of their quantity? For seeing a multitude of men, or horses, or cattle, and all such things—that they exist in themselves, and that each is individually divided in their hypostases, and apart from number,

As I said before, we know that this is truly the case; but when we need number for the demonstration of their quantity, we in no way posit it as the cause of the relation, since we have not needed it at all even for knowing that relation. And again, when we contemplate a stone or a flower or a many-colored animal, and all things similar to these, for knowing that they have been colored in various ways we in no way take up number; but for wishing to know the quantity of the colors in them, we do not deny that we need it. HOW NUMBER IS PIOUSLY TAKEN UP FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF DIFFERENCE. How number is piously taken up for the demonstration of difference. So that it does not make or introduce division while it signifies quantity, but it signifies quantity and introduces difference. For just as every difference is declarative of some quantity that admits of number, introducing the principle of how it is—for the unquantified is also altogether undifferentiated, as being simple in essence and in quality—so too every number of certain differing quantities, according to the principle of how they are or of how they subsist, is declarative of the difference of the underlying subjects, and is not introducer of the relation. And that these things are so in truth itself, and that every number is declarative of difference and not of division, the most holy Cyril again bears witness to the argument in his letter to Eulogius, writing thus word for word: "So also in the case of Nestorius, even if he says two natures, signifying the difference of the flesh and of God the Word, yet he no longer confesses the union with us. For we, having united these things, confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.

And so, one nature of the Son incarnate. He was saying, as it were: We, when we survey the all-wise economy of the mystery, whenever we wish to show that the difference of those things that came together is preserved after the union, in this respect and only this do we speak of two natures, receiving number solely for the contemplation, for the demonstration of the difference; but whenever we examine the ineffable manner of the union of the mystery, we say one nature of God the Word incarnate. For this, as I think, is what he wishes to signify by the words: But we, having united them, confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; and so, one nature of the Word incarnate. That is: we, confessing the union and accurately articulating its manner with piety, do not use the significant term of difference for the demonstration of the union; but applying the one to the difference and the other to the union as is fitting, we keep the meaning of the things signified without confusion. So that from this it is clear that it is common to him and to Nestorius to say two natures, up to the point of knowing the difference. But it was no longer common to confess the union as well, by saying, One Christ, one Son, one Lord, and one nature of the Word incarnate; which Nestorius did not deign to say. For the statement, Thus also in the case of Nestorius, even if he says two natures, signifying the difference of the flesh and of God the Word; but he no longer confesses the union with us, wishes to signify nothing other than this: that Nestorius confesses the difference with us, by saying two natures.

But he no longer agrees with us on the union, since he does not say "one Christ, one Son, one Lord, and one nature of the Word made flesh." And this is clear to lovers of the good and to those who are earnest to love the truth, from the fact that the teacher is nowhere to be found either forbidding us to speak of two natures after the union, but dividing the natures after the union; or teaching that the difference of those things that came together after the union is abolished; as it is possible to learn from countless of his writings.

If, then, the union always stands, and the things united always remain without confusion, and the difference of the things united is always preserved, on account of which the number was introduced according to the Fathers—how is it not necessary, if indeed the union and the things united are always, and their difference stands and remains and is preserved, both to speak piously of two natures to indicate the difference of those things that came together, and again to confess one nature of God the Word made flesh, to show the union according to hypostasis, neither of these expressions being destroyed by the other—these, clearly, since by the other the one is abolished, as seems to some who make the unwise a premise of wisdom—so that neither confusion nor division is introduced? For by being silent about the expression that fittingly indicates the difference, we give room for confusion; and by not again speaking the expression significant of the union, how do we know how to rout division? But in the same Christ both are always posited and spoken piously, though not in the same respect, because neither are the things signified the same as each other. For difference and union are not the same, even if they are and are spoken concerning the same one, and of the same one.

For each of these, when uttered separately from the other, is incomplete with respect to the manifestation of the whole mystery, since it does not bring along the other as its advocate, and it is shown to carry suspicion. The one is of division, on account of Nestorius, who denies the union according to hypostasis and does not endure to confess that the uncircumscribable one was pleased to be circumscribed in flesh for our sake; the other is of confusion, on account of Apollinarius and Eutyches, who deny the difference of the things that came together after the union, and who are ashamed to confess that the invisible one submitted to our perception because of the natural property of his holy flesh taken from us.

It is necessary, then, as has been said, for those who truly wish to be pious and to confess one incarnate nature of God the Word—so that by this the extreme union may be shown—and again to speak of two natures—so that the difference of the things that came together and are preserved without confusion after the union may be made clear—and to adopt the number for this purpose alone. For the Fathers did not think it right that the difference be made clear by another expression, as is likely. But if anyone, trusting in himself, is also able to devise a more fitting expression for the manifestation of this, let him not begrudge us the benefit, and we will not begrudge him the instruction—not to say the audacity.

HOW ONE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE PASSAGE SET DOWN IN THE LETTER TO SUCCENSUS... How one should understand the passage set down in the letter of Saint Cyril to Succensus.

And that the phrase "in two voices" does not conflict with those who say one nature of the Word made flesh, unless it is taken impiously according to Nestorius's opinion. But if they say that the problem of those who say two natures united inseparably after the union nonetheless does not conflict with those who say one nature of the Word made flesh—as Saint Cyril sets it forth in the second memorandum to Succensus—I judge this to be plainly the act of those who either do not understand or who maliciously misrepresent the utterances of the Fathers, and who fight against the truth, deeming it more profitable to make peace with it. For they ought, knowing that we shall give an account even for a bare thought to the righteous Judge of our deeds, to approach the writings of the Fathers intelligently with the fear of God, and to strive not to make a pretext for battle and division out of the words that teach peace and concord. For to whom, among those who attend to it in any way, is it not manifest that not simply

The blessed Cyril appears to forbid such a phrase, but only when it is advanced in accordance with Nestorius's evil intent, who claimed that the union was merely relational—as the blessed Cyril himself is shown to testify at the end of the same letter, making his own purpose clear even to the most contentious, saying thus: "But the addition 'indivisibly' seems in our view to be significant of right doctrine. But they do not understand it so. For 'indivisible' among them, according to Nestorius's empty babblings, is taken in another way. For they say that by equality of honor, by identity of will, by authority, the man in whom God the Word dwelt is indivisible from him. So that they do not simply utter the words, but with a certain deceit and malice." Behold, this wonderful teacher has clearly supposed that there is a twofold manner of the indivisible: the one signifying the union according to hypostasis, which he embraces and says is significant of right doctrine; the other indicative of mere relational conjunction, which he turns away from—and he exhorts the faithful to do this very thing, since from the identical pronunciation of the word the poison of heretical impiety can often be secretly injected into the more simple-minded. Hence, in his own case, saying "two indivisibly" he establishes as orthodox, since he himself said the union is according to hypostasis; but when it is advanced by the followers of Nestorius, he makes the phrase "indivisible" suspect, since they supposed that the union came about by mere relational conjunction.

Union according to hypostasis, then, is, according to the Fathers, the coming together of those of different essence into one hypostasis, with the one of the things composed in it possessing its natural property in relation to the other, unadulterated and unchangeable and undivided. Relational union is the equal motion of will and the unvarying sameness of judgment of those who subsist individually in personal monads according to themselves. Therefore, he who confesses the union according to hypostasis, even if he says that there are two natures in Christ united inseparably after the union—clearly by the union according to hypostasis—does not in any way err from the truth. For he confesses that the things of which Christ is composed have remained unconfused, because the difference is preserved according to the Fathers; he is able to know that the things that differ from each other by natural principle are in no way outside the one according to hypostasis, and not separately in any way whatsoever. But he who champions the union according to relation, even if he should say "inseparable" ten thousand times, has what is blameworthy; he says that the things signified are united by some loving disposition and have inseparability, but he is in no way able to say that God the Word is one hypostasis together with his own animate and intelligent flesh from us. For it is impossible that one hypostasis come to be from two individual hypostases that are divided by individual principle in relation to individuals of the same kind. So our holy Father Cyril does not simply reject and dismiss the saying that two natures are united inseparably after the union, but the meaning signified by such a phrase by those who used it badly.

If, then, it has been demonstrated—even if only moderately, yet, to speak for myself, sufficiently—as far as it was possible to indicate by letter, both from the holy Fathers and from the sequence of common notions, that number can neither make nor undergo nor introduce any division whatsoever, but simply makes known how many things there are, and does not attach itself to relation, whatever condition things happen to be in—what suspicion of a cutting or division is left, then, for those who faction against the holy Church of God and cut themselves off from the common body to no purpose, not so much acting as suffering, being pitifully put to death and corrupted by the separation, and, as far as lies in the indecency done to the body of Christ, preparing judgment for themselves—so as for this reason to refuse the right and pious confession of the faith? Unless perhaps, under the pretext of piety, so as not to seem to cut apart the union, they embrace confusion, and, like clever schemers, contrive not to be caught in an impious opinion. THAT IN CHRIST THE DIFFERENCE IS OF THINGS, THAT IS, OF ESSENCES, AND NOT OF QUALITIES... That in Christ the difference is of things, that is, of essences, and not of qualities. And that every difference necessarily introduces along with itself the quantity of the things of which it is said to consist; and quantity introduces its own significant number, whether the quantity is continuous or divided.

For they ought, if this were truly not the case, not to decline to say what and how many the things that differ happen to be, whose difference they verbally acknowledge—rather than ironically uttering the difference in bare pronunciation alone, as though it applied to nothing, to deceive the simpler sort. For if they believe that the things from which the union came are preserved after the union, they would surely acknowledge two things preserved. For just so many were the things that came together into the indivisible union, which did not admit any change whatsoever, nor confusion, nor diminution, nor contraction, nor transformation into one another from the union. But as it is, not holding this opinion, since they have denied that the natures are preserved after the union, they have made themselves liable to refutations, even if they do not wish it, saying that the difference is preserved in quality alone, apart from the things themselves—which is plainly the behavior of men who are playing games, and who reckon being laughed at, as is likely, to be an insult, and who clearly empty the Gospel, legislating that qualities can exist without underlying essences, and supposing that a difference can be known apart from quantity. For they have failed to understand, it seems, these most wise men, that every quality is invariably of an underlying essence, in relation to which it is both contemplated and spoken of, having no existence of its own; and that every difference, being indicative of the dissimilarity and otherness of some things in relation to others according to the principle of how they are, is by nature wont to introduce along with itself the quantity of the things that differ, whether essences, or qualities, or properties.

And simply, to put it concisely: of any other thing whatsoever, those things whose difference from one another they have supposed and would call a difference, they have certainly contemplated the differing things in quantity, whether they came to know the difference by sense or by thought. For without quantity it is impossible to be confident of demonstrating a difference. Since things that are not in every way the same as one another can in no way admit one and the same principle of being. For, say, of substance or nature to substance, or of quality to quality, or of property to property, or of any other of the things that are not in every way the same—for things that are in every way the same as one another, and incapable of difference, we can never say have one and the same principle of how they are. But the fact that one and the same principle cannot be contemplated in the same respect in all cases produces the difference, and reasonably establishes that those things are one and the same to one another whose principle of being is different, and that the same principle cannot exist. But when we say that one thing differs from another, or some things from others, we signify many, or at least two and not one—even if in another way, and according to a different mode and principle, we say they are of one, and can be one: as the qualities and properties of one fire are around it, and the natures of one Christ, from which and in which He is known to be constituted; and of one man, the things from which he was composed and in which he is known to exist. And one in hypostasis, both in the case of Christ and of the man according to us—that is, in the whole composed of these as parts, as properly admitting both in the fullest sense, the different principles of being of the parts.

But not one in nature and essence, since neither do the parts admit of each other's principle of being, nor can we know the same principle of being in both. For the principle of divinity and that of humanity is not the same, just as neither is that of soul and body, as is evident to all. Therefore the word of truth has never defined that Christ is one in nature, nor that he is one nature, whether simple or composite. For the name "Christ" is not declarative of essence or nature as a species, of the indivisible particulars predicated of many things and differing in their hypostases, as the blessed Cyril says in his scholia: "For the name 'Christ' has neither the force of a definition, nor does it declare the essence of anything; but it is understood of the hypostasis of the Word, in the assumption, clearly, of flesh having a rational soul." But neither is man one nature, that from soul and body, as though the body were of the same essence as the soul; but [it is one] as in a species, divided toward other things by the constitutive difference into species, and perhaps predicated of the indivisible particulars contained under it as a species and by it. And it is not for this reason that soul and body are two according to the essential principle, as soul and as body, and another and another essence according to the principle of being, that he denied the things from which, and in which, and which man is.

That it is impious to say that Christ is one composite nature, and that this fights against the truth.

For every composite nature, having its own parts co-eternal with itself and with one another in respect to the very coming-into-being of existence, and brought forth from non-being into being, and into the completion of the ordering of the whole, by the power that constituted the whole and keeps it in being, reasonably and of necessity possesses its own parts contained by one another; as is the case with man, and with all other things that have obtained a composite nature. The soul involuntarily rules the body and is ruled by it, and provides life to it without choice, by the mere fact of being in it, and naturally partakes of passion and pain because of the receptive power for these things that lies within it. And even if some who have erred from the true doctrines concerning the soul held in the Church, monstrously inventing in the Greek manner that the soul pre-exists, or in the Jewish manner that it comes into being after its own body, and supposing that a beginning that is neither good nor God-loving presides over the creation of visible things—they are disposed in hostility to such a account. Since I judged it to be neither of the present time nor of the present argument to refute their rotten and discordant propositions concerning this, I will return to the matter at hand.

Thus, then, as has been set forth, since every composite nature has [its parts], no one of those who have resolved to think piously concerning divine things would ever dare to say that Christ is one composite nature, lest, having chosen of necessity by some natural sequence and consequence to say such things, he make himself liable to fearful charges—[namely, that Christ is] wholly created and from non-being, circumscribed and passible, and not consubstantial with the Father; and [lest he be] supposing either that the flesh is co-eternal with the Word, or that the Word is contemporaneous with the flesh. For such is the account of every composite nature. For that which belongs to a composite nature is evidently also composite by nature. But that which is composite by nature would never be of the same kind and consubstantial with that which is simple by nature. It is not lawful, therefore, for the pious to say that Christ is one composite nature, not only because of the absurdity gathered from such a phrase, but also because no one of the God-judged Fathers has ever appeared to have said this; but rather to confess one composite hypostasis of Christ, and two natures, so that He may be known as consubstantial and of the same kind with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial and of the same kind with us according to

that he himself be recognized as flesh; and that he be believed to be one and the same in relation both to the Father and to us, as existing as mediator of God and men. CONCERNING A COMPOSITE HYPOSTASIS. Concerning a composite hypostasis.

But if it is shown that every hypostasis is composite, having its own parts contemporaneous both with itself and with one another; and if we do not deny that Christ is a composite hypostasis, those who contradict might say that we too are unable to shake off the reproach on this point, as having been caught by our own arguments. We say that this is truly so, if indeed we were supposing that he is composite as having the species predicated of it. But as it is, since we do not say this, we shall in no way have any form of such a charge, clearly knowing that every composite hypostasis is not composite on its own account—the one that falls under some species—but on account of the nature that contains it, whenever it is composite and the predicated species under which it naturally is reduced; as the particular, that is the specific, whole having in itself the universal, that is the common and generic, most complete; but the proper [part] imparting nothing of the whole account to the generic. No one at all of the teachers of the word of piety who have arisen from the beginning down to us has been proclaimed to think this concerning Christ; in whose case neither genus nor species can anyone find predicated of Christ. For not by the account of nature did the Word, ruler of divine things, come to us through flesh, but by the mode of economy, having united our nature to himself without deficiency according to hypostasis, he renewed it.

So that they gain nothing from their great ingenuity—to take up the sequence of what was examined a little earlier—since their cleverness has again been overturned into the quantity they sought to escape, unable even to say that the very difference in quality exists without quantity. For it is entirely necessary that they be many; or, as was said before, that the qualities be a moderate two, whose difference they suppose to exist. For no one of sound mind could ever say that a single quality, having itself wholly unmixed in relation to another, differs from itself. It remains, then, either that they cease from this bare difference itself, having learned that it is altogether indicative of quantity in things that differ; or that they accept with us the confession of the truth, receiving in a pious manner, according to the Fathers, the number along with the principle of difference alone, for the knowledge that the things that came together have remained unconfused. Otherwise, let them tell us—since we wish to ask in a friendly spirit—if there is in them a word of wisdom that is not base, how, while saying that the two things that ran together toward union are two, and not denying that these very things have remained unconfused even after the union—so that neither has departed from its own natural definition and principle—even if both contribute to one person of the Son and one hypostasis, they do not confess two things also preserved according to them, as they say, if indeed they speak the truth; and what is their account of the diminution, and for what cause, and how have both natures become one? Or if the union remained pure of diminution, what is the account of their not being called the things preserved without diminution; and let us obediently welcome the deprivation of the one.

And we marvel at the vigor of their good education, as though they alone had been shown to us capable of the knowledge of ineffable things. But they will never be able to set forth the argument that persuades this.

A Brief Solution to Severus's Difficulty Against the Phrase "In Two."

Even if we take refuge most of all in that last sorry and empty invention of Severus, which is everywhere carried about and sung by him as though it were something wise, saying that it is ridiculous to claim that from two natures two natures are again produced from the union—as though we were drawing the likely conclusions from a premise granted by us. For from whom among those educated in the divine doctrines of the Church have they heard that the union produced two natures from two natures? But those who care for the truth will not be able to say that they have heard it at all. We say that the union came to be from two natures, and that one composite hypostasis of Christ was produced from them, and that it preserves and safeguards those very natures of which it was composed, as a whole does its own parts without deficiency, together with their natural properties, and without change; and that it is preserved and saved in them as a whole is in its parts. From two natures, then, not two natures, we say that Christ is one composite hypostasis—containing these natures as its own parts, and encompassing them as its own and complementary parts, and being and being known in them as in parts. For as long as the things that came together remain and are believed to be without confusion—and they always remain without confusion—so that they are not two according to their natural being, which each of them is by nature—

Just as, therefore, they are one by the principle of hypostasis, as long as the union exists—and it always exists according to the pious confession of the faithful—it is impossible.

Therefore, when we say that it is one and two, we do not say both of the same thing, concerning the same one thing; but in one respect and in another. For example, according to the principle of nature, there are two, from which the union is composed. For we do not know God the Word to be the same in nature as his own flesh; but according to the principle of hypostasis, there is one. For we know God the Word to be the same as his own flesh according to hypostasis. Therefore, we neither foolishly conflate the natures into one nature, by saying that the natural difference in Christ has been abolished, lest we introduce a change of the Word and of the flesh; nor again do we madly divide them into two independently subsistent beings, by positing a difference also according to the principle of hypostasis, lest we deny our own salvation—just as those who have been divided from one another diametrically in impiety have done, Apollinarius together with Eutyches, and Nestorius. The former did not know the natural difference in Christ; the latter, in addition to this, also introduced a personal one, and they fell away from the truth. But knowing the natural property to be unchangeable even in the union according to hypostasis, we equally reject both confusion and division: neither calling the union a confusion, as if we did not know the things united; nor calling the difference a division, as if we knew the things that differ to subsist separately by themselves, and effecting this.

This, then, as it seems, is what the great Gregory the Theologian also plainly teaches in the great Apologetic, saying "one from both, and through one both"—as if he were saying: Just as there is one from both, that is, the one from two natures, as a whole from parts according to the principle of the hypostasis, so too through the one according to hypostasis, as a whole, both are the parts according to the principle of nature, that is, the two. And expounding this more clearly in the second discourse On the Son, he says, "For even if the combined whole is one, it is not by nature, but by conjunction." The blessed Cyril also is shown to hold this very same view in his letters to Succensus, where, using the example of a human being, he says: "So that the two are no longer two, but through both one living being is completed"—all but crying out plainly in these words that the things from which the composition is made, both in the case of the human being made of soul and body and in the case of the mystery concerning Christ, made of divinity and humanity, are not destroyed as to their being two according to the essential principle; since otherwise it would no longer remain of a different essence. But the fact that they are, taken in themselves, in

For the word of piety does not at all accept that there are two by a monad and a monad in a manner of individual subsistence, lest we divide the one man, that is, the living being, into two men or two living beings, and the one Christ into two Christs or two Sons. For if the blessed Cyril had not known how to think and to hold and to teach this rightly everywhere, he would not have said that the difference of the natures has not been abolished because of the union; he would not have taught that one thing and another, different and different, and this and that, and both are the one Christ, and that the natures have remained unconfused. He would not have held the opinion that the Word has not been changed over into the nature of the flesh, or that the flesh has not been changed into the very nature of the Word. He would not have known that the divinely-speaking men treat the Gospel and apostolic sayings about the Lord, making some of them common, as of one person, and dividing others, as of two natures. He would not have refused to say that the whole, that is, Christ, is one nature, if indeed he knew this to be pious. He would not have defined that the humanity is no other nature than flesh rationally ensouled, thereby confidently affirming that the nature of the humanity is also perfect in Christ. He would not have said, by adding "made flesh," that the declaration of our essence is introduced. He would not have defined that it is a sign of right doctrine to say that two natures are united without division, whenever the phrase is not wickedly brought forward in the manner that seemed right to Nestorius. He would not have appeared saying such things—but countless things—as is clear to the diligent from his own writings.

From where, then, and from which of the teachers, will they show that the two natures on Christ—which are preserved after the union even according to them, as they say, from the very things of which He consists—ought not to be piously confessed by the faithful? For no one at all among the approved teachers is found to have decreed this; on the contrary, all both said it and taught the faithful to say it by their own words—unless perhaps, forming their opinion from their heart in the usual way, they put forward the fabrication as if it were one of the Fathers, for the deception of the more simple-minded. But these men, as it seems, regarding it as a shame to be persuaded, and preferring their attachment to the men who led them astray from the beginning over the divine love, and choosing contentiousness over piety, and esteeming being honored as priests by men—to whom they bring the deception by lying against us about things that are not—and esteeming the acceptance and honor from God for concord in the faith lower than receiving evil for evil, I mean the corruptible things as the wage of deception, do not cease to war against the truth and to attempt to lead away from it as many as they can. Therefore I, the least, exhort you, who are genuine children of the holy apostolic Church, in which, having been enlightened through the regeneration of the divine bath, you were deemed worthy to be adopted as sons to God in the Spirit, to be on your guard against such men, remembering the holy Apostle Paul, who writes to the Romans in this manner: I exhort you, brothers, to watch those who make divisions and scandals contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.

For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own belly, and through smooth talk and blessing they deceive the hearts of the innocent. And again, concerning these very men who are accustomed to stir up disturbances in the Church of God, he writes to the Corinthians as follows: For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing, then, if his servants also transform themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. But the deceitfulness of their mind and the stealth of their manner in

For in the Gospels the Lord, hinting at this, foretold it, as it were securing the faithful, saying: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Concerning these very men the holy Evangelist John also, in his first catholic epistle, making the pious more sober-minded, says: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that the Lord Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit which is now in the world.

Always remembering these words, I entreat you, blessed ones, to hold fast with all attentiveness and care to the piety than which nothing is more akin to humans for becoming friends with God, all of you turning away with all your might from those who do not accept the pious and saving doctrines of the Church, and especially those who have learned that they belong to the teaching of the Antichrist—namely, the refusal to confess in the flesh our Lord and God Jesus Christ, as the great evangelist John cries out plainly. This is what those who now war against the Church of God openly proclaim, denying the nature of the flesh, by not confessing that in Christ it is saved and that it exists and is accepted; and they do not shudder—to speak the more emphatic, or rather the more audacious, the more apt term—at putting themselves forward as heralds of the doctrine opposed to God. But these men, having chosen to be thus perilously disposed in the faith, reap the worthy fruit of their own folly: the possession of the proof of their double impiety, easily detected by all. A BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE SUMMARY OF THE CORRECT...

A brief exposition of the understanding of the voices of the faith that are rightly confessed concerning Christ in the catholic Church. But we, by God's grace to speak, who feed on the divine and pure grass of the church's teaching, keeping the glory of piety undestroyed, we boldly confess before God and humans all the pious voices of the Fathers concerning Christ, receiving each one with pious understanding and fitting thought, just as from the beginning we were catechized in the saving word of the faith through those who from the first became ministers of grace. We confess, then, that our Lord Jesus Christ is from two natures, as being composed of divinity and humanity, and we know him to be in two natures, as in divinity and humanity. For just as in saying "from two natures" we glorify that he is from divinity and humanity, so too in saying "in two natures" we fittingly signify that he exists in divinity and humanity, as being separated from none of the natures from which he was constituted after the union, but in them, from which he both always is and is known. Again we confess him as two natures united in one hypostasis without division, believing that the names correspond to the realities themselves, as he is truly the same both God and human. For just as we believe him to be and to be called Son of God and God by nature and in truth because of the identity of essence with God the Father, so also we believe him to be and to be called Son of Man and having become human

We say that he is so by nature and in truth, because of his natural kinship according to the flesh with her who gave him birth. For if we do not confess that he is two natures, as God and man at once, we shall be convicted of saying that he is composed of mere names and not of realities, and that he is not in truth what is signified by the names that he is. So that, according to those very men, it can no longer be supposed that there is anything left to say for the one who chooses to blaspheme—namely, the one whom we worship and serve, which has surpassed every excess of impiety. Therefore, guarding against being led away into charges of blasphemy, we do not cease confessing that Christ is from two natures, as from divinity, as has been said, and humanity; and in two natures, as in divinity and humanity; and two natures, believing that the same one is both God and man; because he is not only in these, but also these; nor these only, but also in these, knowing the whole from the parts, and the whole in the parts, and the whole through the parts. For if he, having given being to existing things, also granted them the power to remain, so that the forms are not confused with one another nor changed into one another, but each remains according to the principle by which it has come to be from him—so that from the stability of each one's natural propriety, the all-wise and knowledgeable creator and orderer of the whole genesis, the lovers of divine contemplation who are diligent in divine things, may, as far as possible, conceive; much more will he confirm in himself his own boundless power; which he was, remaining, and becoming what he was not.

And not denying what he has become, while remaining what he was, by existing both without diminution and without change. And we piously say that there is one incarnate nature of God the Word, the flesh having a soul that is intelligent and rational, by adding "incarnate," thereby introducing the indication of our own essence. For it is at once a periphrasis according to union, making the two natures manifest by means of a name and a definition: by means of a name, that of the one nature of the Word, which signifies the commonality of essence together with what is proper to the hypostasis; and by means of a definition, that of the human nature, as the teacher himself says: For what is the nature of humanity, except that it is flesh ensouled with intelligence? So that he who says "one incarnate nature of God the Word" declares that God the Word is with flesh that is ensouled, understanding the flesh to be certainly something other in essence than God the Word—he, at any rate, who is a true and undefiled disciple of piety. And when we speak of union according to hypostasis, we understand and confess that the union has come to be into one of the natures, so that neither of them exists or is understood by itself at all, but rather with the composite and conjoined nature; nor again has either been corrupted according to the essential principle toward the other, nor has it suffered any diminution of natural perfection from the union. And again, when we speak of natural union, we confess it in place of "true," just as the same holy Cyril both spoke and expounded these very phrases.

And not to the abolition of the two natures of which Christ is composed after the union, or of one of them, as Apollinarius, Eutyches, and Severus, following Simon Magus, Valentinus, and Manes, have handed down—as is easy for those who wish to see from Severus's own writings against the men named as impious, in the agreement of their words, the identity of their doctrines. Likewise we say that the same and one Christ has two births: the one from God the Father before the ages, and the one for our sake in the last times from the holy Virgin. We glorify the same one's miracles and sufferings. We confess also that the holy, all-glorious Virgin is properly and truly Theotokos; not as having become the mother of a mere man—even if he were formed beforehand in the twinkling of an eye without union with the Word, and were deified by progress in works and by the height of virtue—but as having become the mother of the very God the Word himself, one of the holy Trinity, who was ineffably incarnate from her by conception and became fully man. The holy Church of God, having thus taught her own children piously both to speak and to understand these utterances, has entrusted them to be guarded by the divine and bright light of knowledge; exhorting through the Prophets and Apostles, and through Christ himself who by his own sufferings compacted and fitted her together, to take up a life suitable and fitting for the great profession of faith, looking to what is the good and pleasing and perfect will of God, and keeping watch unto it.

For we have been taught that we need the best conduct no less than pious faith in order to obtain eternal life, lest by building upon the foundation of faith things that do not belong, through wicked practices, and so insulting the calling and the grace of adoption, we make ourselves liable to eternal fire instead of joy and unending glory.

Seeing, then, blessed ones, many ways of virtue, and being prudent lovers of the blessed beauty of Christ, given to men by the Lord of all, having one goal and all arriving at one end, salvation, let us not neglect our own salvation, nor cast away the time given us for repentance, which it is impossible to obtain again. But before we go, as somewhere the great Job says, to the place from which we shall not return, to a dark and gloomy land, to a land of eternal darkness, where there is no light, nor any seeing the life of mortals, let us strive, each according to his own power, to propitiate God. For in view of the varied and different states of our souls, as one who is good, he has reasonably made the ways that lead those who walk in them blamelessly to the eternal mansions to be many as well, so that each, having chosen the way suited to himself and having made the course of his life through it, might attain the all-glorious place laid up in hope in the heavens. Therefore, as we have power, with the cooperation and grace of Christ, let us take hold of what is fitting. Let us lighten the poor man's misfortune with compassion, and let us not neglect to make his want more bearable for him.

Let us clothe the nakedness of those who are stripped, reverencing the garment of incorruption given to us, and let us not cast it off. Let us suffer together with those who are afflicted by the confinement of prison, and by weakness of body, and who are oppressed by the burden of exile, and let us strive to make the hardships of others our own; so that, imitating in our own kind the One who took up our infirmities and bore our diseases, and honoring in our deeds his loving self-emptying for our sake, we too may be able to become worthy beholders and partakers of his glory—not practicing these things for the sake of glory from men, which after the present life has no account to be rendered for its reception, but becoming wholly God's in truth, and, as he is all things to all and becomes so through the love for one another that we show, serving him, let us both say and do all things by which we shall please him. For thus, by our progress in virtue in each particular, we shall be able, with God's help, to say that we have at last rightly pursued the divine philosophy, and to be transformed to the life above, having despised all things on earth, judging it better and more honorable to hold the last rank before God than to bear the first place among things on earth before the king below; beginning to take this up for ourselves, and wisely accustoming the senses of the soul in quietness gently to behold creation, let us reap the greatest gain—to be well guided through the confusion and instability of visible things to the things that stand firm and are not moved—but not to remain in them and endure being entangled in them; from which, hating the disorder of some things,

Longing for the passable way of these things, let us call abyss to abyss; through the great works done among things visible, perceiving as far as is attainable by humans the principles among things intelligible; and thus, simply through unutterable silence, having peered into the innermost sanctuary of sanctuaries, we shall recognize our own worthlessness, being mystically taught through the oracles of the Spirit how we, being earth and ashes, are transformed into divine glory by the grace of the One who was well pleased; and to what blessedness our natural worthlessness and abhorrence is transformed; and thus, astonished by the visions of the Infinite, we shall pluck the strong fortress of the virtues—I mean humility, the greatest and first gift of God, being the fruit of true philosophy—through which, putting to death the causes of the passions, I mean the senses, together with their kindred affinity for sensible things, we cut ourselves off entirely from the world; so as to be able with the undefiled eye of the soul to cast our gaze upon intelligible things; from which, or after which, the soul, now truly made beautiful by humility and henceforth made capable of receiving the image of divine illumination, is taken up by divine love, which makes us friends instead of slaves, bestowing the summary of the law—"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul," and the rest—in that it permits none of the noetic powers within us to be stretched out toward anything else at all, but only toward God, in a manner beyond speech.

Let us strive, then, while we have time, to bring to fulfillment the goal of our pious and Christian profession, which God has set before us. And since our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, the invisible tyrants and enemies, who do not marshal their battles openly but weave their wars in the hidden recesses of the heart, let us take up the whole armor of God, as the divine apostle exhorts us, so that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having accomplished all things, to stand; and having girded our loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, in which all the fiery darts of the evil one will be quenched. Let us persevere through all prayer and supplication, and receive the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, which divides—to speak concisely—the worse from the better among things, and teaches the conduct befitting Christians to live piously, which is the work of perfect discernment: accuracy of the eyes, restraint of the tongue; discipline of the body; a humble mind, purity of thought; the abolition of anger, as somewhere the great Basil says; the soaring of the intellect toward God; and, when pressed into service by temptations, to add resistance for the sake of guarding what is precious; not to go to law when despoiled; to measure love in return for hatred; to match endurance to persecutions; to set consolation against blasphemies; to be dead to sin; to be crucified with Christ; to transfer the whole of one's love wholly to God.

I have written these things, my blessed lord, not unaware of the firmness of your faith in Christ and the reverence that grows in him through the commandments, but wishing you to know what kind of struggle and how great a struggle I have concerning you, one that always inflames my heart with care. And I beseech you to watch more soberly against the champions of heresies, lest any of them, deceiving you by the persuasive speech of falsehood, be able to muddy with the filth of his own impious doctrines the clear and life-giving stream of the faith within you—which may it never happen. For they possess a two-edged sword and a sharpened razor for a tongue, slaying souls and sending them to the pit of Hades and the abyss of darkness, and depriving them of the life in Christ through their deceitful smooth speaking. But may our Lord and God Jesus Christ himself, the only-begotten Son and Word of God and the Father, the maker of all creation visible and invisible, who for our sake, through his ineffable love for humanity, as he himself was well pleased, accepted death and rescued us by his own blood from the power of darkness—may he himself take hold of your right hand and guide you into his fear, and fill you with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and persuade you to walk worthily of himself, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of his truth, and may he strengthen you with all power according to the might of his glory for all endurance and patience.

and, keeping it with joy and thanksgiving as fellow contenders for the Gospel of his grace, may he count you worthy of the portion of the saints in the light, through the prayers and supplications of our all-glorious Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen. Letter 13....To Peter the Illustrious: A Brief Discourse... 13. By the same author, to Peter the Illustrious, a brief discourse against the doctrines of Severus.

(My blessed lord has truly shown that physical separation from one another cannot diminish spiritual love—for those who are joined to one another in God through love in the spirit—since he did not disdain to visit me, the humble and sinful one, who have nothing worthy of his love, through his precious letters. Having received them, I embraced and greeted him as though he were present in spirit, rejoicing, and I gave thanks as is my custom to the only God and Savior of all, Christ, having learned that he had completed the moist journey with safety. For truly my blessed lord is sweet both present and absent, and is no less desirable to all than if he were present, because of the grace of the poverty of the Holy Spirit that shines upon him; through which everyone who genuinely pursues this virtue as God's own becomes a holy temple for a dwelling-place of God in the Spirit—the virtue of him who humbled himself to the form of a servant and demonstrated it to men both in deed and word in himself; imitating him, my blessed lord has also possessed in his inmost being both gentleness and humility.)

Meekness, so that, having quenched the passionate motions of anger and desire, he may become pleasing to God and to men. For meekness is nothing other than a complete cessation of anger and desire toward things contrary to nature, through which the divine will becomes manifest to those who possess it. For the great David says in psalmody, He will guide the meek in judgment; he will teach the meek his ways. And humility, so that, having cut off the callous growths of pride, he may become thankful to God and approachable to all men. For humility is the recognition, in each person, of his own state in relation to God, by comparison and side-by-side with the surpassing and creative cause; through which the mutual disposition of men toward one another naturally comes to be, and the forgiveness of trespasses is given to those who owe. For behold, says the same great David again, my humility and my labor, and forgive all my sins.

Since my blessed master is thus disposed in his life, I pray that he may be kept unshaken, in accordance with his name, in the firmament of faith in Christ, and higher than every heretical tempest, as a genuine child of the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of God, founded upon the pious confession; against which the evil mouths of heretics, opened like the gates of Hades, prevail not at all. For concerning the illegitimate, and those illegitimately grafted from the wild olive into the cultivated olive, I knew even before

to write to you who are blessed, that according to the prophetic word, "As a dog to its own vomit," I mean the foulness of their displeasingness in faith, they have it to turn back; as indeed second Simons, and Demans and Hermogenes, choosing falsehood over truth; and, as they think, wronging no one by their apostasy the heralds of piety, or rather being justly harmed by the deprivation of grace; and not even being able to possess the present age, through which they apostatized from the truth, according to their desire, since by nature it is unstable and easily changed, and always running past those who think they hold it.

For truly displeasing and full of foulness and destitute of all grace is every word that does not profess that the things from which Christ is are saved according to nature in the one Christ after the ineffable union; but as it were denying the whole economy of God concerning man, and circumcising the body assumed by the Word of God from the immaculate and holy all-glorious Virgin and truly God-bearer, a rational body ensouled. For he truly circumcises in fact, even if he seems somehow to confess with the mouth plainly, to the deception of his hearers, and he utterly denies the incarnation, who after the union does not say that the nature of the flesh is saved and is called, united to God the Word in hypostasis without confusion and without division, on the pretext, ostensibly, of piety, so as not to seem to cut the union by number, but in truth denying the very existence, after the union, of all the natures from which Christ is.

A More Natural Discussion Concerning Number. A more natural discussion concerning number.

This, it seems, is what they suffer because of their ignorance: that every number neither divides according to its own principle nor is divided; it is wholly capable of producing neither division nor indeed union. For to act or to be acted upon is not its nature, since it is not a substance or an accident—and it is in relation to these that acting and being acted upon occur—but it is only indicative of the quantity of the underlying things, as they happen to be disposed in relation; whether united or distinguished. For example, if I may venture to say something, it is significant of the name of quantity apart from the relation to it. For number does not of necessity produce the natural distinction or quantity of beings, nor does it of itself effect the continuity of things joined together according to the same species, nor is it characteristic of any particular property in general of the individuals under the same species that are distinguished from one another by their accidents. For to do these things is proper to the divine wisdom and power, which established the whole and preserves each thing unconfused by the natural determinations of beings throughout the whole; but, as I said, it makes a declaration only of the quantity of things simply, and not of how they are, like a certain name of quantity naturally fitted to it.

Concerning Difference, and Quantity More Precisely, and Their Pious Confession. Concerning difference, and quantity more precisely, and their pious confession.

If, then, according to the Fathers, number is declarative of the quantity of things, but not of their relation; and every quantity considered by natural otherness admits of difference altogether; and they who fight against the truth speak of a natural difference in Christ after the union; and the quantity of the things that differ, without which

it is impossible for there to be difference together with the number that declares it; without which it is impossible for quantity to be known at all—they must necessarily speak of it after the union, if indeed, according to orderly sequence, they wish to demonstrate the closely connected account of their own doctrine. But if they deny the quantity of the natures saved in Christ after the union, let them not dare to speak even of the difference of the natures from which Christ is, after the union; knowing that whatever has a difference in any respect whatsoever cannot be one according to every principle and mode. And that which cannot be one according to every principle and mode is, clearly, according to some principle and mode, two at the least, or more. Therefore, by saying that there is difference in Christ after the union, they cannot say that Christ is one according to every principle and mode after the union. But if Christ is not one according to every principle and mode after the union, clearly according to some principle and mode Christ is altogether two after the union.

If, then, according to any account and manner, Christ is two after the union, because of the difference in him of the natures from which and in which he is, as the argument has shown, it is clear that those who speak in vain are impious who say that there is a difference of the natures from which Christ is after the union, but who by their silence after the union manifestly abolish the natures themselves, of which there is the difference; for abolition is truly the denial of things that exist and are preserved. For either the natures are not abolished according to them after the union, and they exist and are preserved, and it is right that they be confessed as preserved after the union; or if indeed it is not right that they be confessed after the union, then according to them it is not right to say that they either exist or are preserved in Christ, and they have been abolished. For what it is not right even to name at all, it is far better, as I think, and more right to say does not exist at all; or let them persuade us by argument how it is right that the things from which Christ is, existing and preserved after the union without any change or alteration whatsoever, and without change into one another according to the essential principle, not be confessed in Christ; and we gladly and obediently accept the deprivation of the confession of the things that are preserved and exist in Christ. But just as according to every account and manner Christ is not one after the union, so again according to every account and manner Christ is not two after the union. But if Christ is not two after the union according to every account and manner;

Certainly, by some account and manner, because of the hypostatic identity—that is, the one hypostasis—according to which he cannot have difference, Christ is one. Since, then, according to one account and manner and another, the same one is both one and two, it is necessary to consider according to what account and what account the same one is one and two. THAT IT IS BLASPHEMOUS TO SAY THAT CHRIST IS SIMPLY ONE NATURE. That it is blasphemous to say that Christ is simply one nature. If, then, they will say that he is one according to the account of nature, the whole will be, according to them, simply one nature without any difference whatsoever. But if we concede to them to say this, Christ will not be God according to them, nor indeed man; neither creature altogether, nor Creator. For the nature spoken of simply does not admit at all any significance of any of these others. But if, fleeing the obvious absurdity, they should say that Christ is one nature, but composite, they have truly failed to understand how the darkness of impiety drove them out to the ultimate error.

On composite nature more precisely, and the principle according to it; and how those who say that Christ is one composite nature are impious. For every composite nature, first, has the coming-together of its parts with one another for the composition without choice. Then it also possesses the parts as co-temporal with one another and as co-existing with itself in its coming-to-be into existence, with neither part temporally pre-existing the other.

Furthermore, it is known to have been made for the completion of the whole that majestically delineates the entirety; none of which is at all contemplated in the case of Christ by those who wish to be pious—lest we make the coming-together of the Word with the flesh involuntary and without choice; and lest we say either that God the Word is co-temporal with the flesh in coming-to-be into existence, or that the flesh is co-eternal with the Word in its beginningless existence; or that he has nothing more than the other species contemplated according to the universal nature, as a part for the completion of the whole according to the other species, brought forth by the power that constituted the whole—we would be defining Christ thus. For this is the definition and principle and law of every composite nature, as the power of truth and the course of logical consequence guides those who make examination of beings with understanding to say. And who will still be able to be of the portion of the pious, thinking thus about God the Word, who exists before all the ages—or rather, to speak more properly, the maker of the ages—and who according to his voluntary and self-chosen will made the kenosis toward us humans?

And for the correction and renewal, but not for the completion of the whole, he became man. For by the manner of economy, but not by the law of nature, the Word of God ineffably dwelt among men through the flesh. Therefore Christ is not a composite nature, according to the innovation of those who empty the Gospel; by the law of composite nature, according to the manner of existence, he is altogether unenslaved; but he is a composite hypostasis, not having any composite nature of its own predicated according to species; which is also paradoxical, to behold a composite hypostasis without the composite nature of it predicated according to species. But if, according to those very men, Christ is a composite nature—the wondrous acropolis of Severus's arguments—then it is either generic in every way, or singular. For it is impossible to conceive another middle between these. And if Christ is a generic nature, he will evidently be predicated of many and differing in number; and he will exist only in conception, in those in whom he has his existence; and he will not be known in himself in some hypostasis of his own, apart from the accidents contemplated in the individuals under him. For such is the definition and principle of every generic nature; and a multitude of Christs has been introduced to us instead of one, having in no way any identity whatsoever with God or with men, through Severus's superfluous and unrestrained madness against the truth. But if Christ is a singular nature—to omit saying that he is in no way at all a nature circumscribed by one person—

Even if they put forward as their final argument the fabled bird, the phoenix, as though it were some great and invincible example establishing their own glory, I am afraid to say anything about it, lest I incur the laughter of folly among the discerning by trying to show that a myth is a myth. For if the phoenix is a bird, it is certainly also a living creature. And if a living creature, then first, it is not in every respect singular insofar as it is a living creature. Secondly, if indeed a living creature, it is also an ensouled, perceptive body. And if the phoenix is an ensouled, perceptive body, it is evidently subject to generation and corruption. Let us ask the wise observers of existing things themselves whether it is possible for any of the ensouled and perceptive bodies subject to generation and corruption to be of a singular nature according to hypostasis—for their succession from one another according to species is a manifest mark and definition of existence. As divine Scripture also testifies, providing certainty to the account through itself, when it introduces God giving these commands to the great Noah: And God said to Noah, "Enter, you and all your household, into the ark, because I have seen you righteous before me in this generation. And from all the clean cattle bring in to yourself seven by seven, male and female; and from the cattle that are not clean, two by two, male and female; and from all the clean birds of heaven, seven by seven, male and female, and from all the birds of heaven that are not clean, two by two, male and female, to preserve seed upon all the earth.

To these things, if indeed the phoenix is numbered as a winged living creature, it is not of a singular nature according to hypostasis, according to the divine declaration—so that, as I said, we may not speak of these things; for we are not fond of fighting over unnecessary matters. It is evident to all that if Christ is a singular nature, he is neither consubstantial with God the Father nor with human beings. For that which is entirely singular according to nature is completely alienated from natural kinship with anything else whatsoever. But if, according to those very men, as the argument has shown, Christ is entirely alienated according to nature from all things that exist, we will urge those new doctrinaires themselves to say what he is according to nature, and by what account they worship Christ, who—as far as their own teachings are concerned—is nothing, being blasphemed by them. If, therefore, a great and fearful danger necessarily follows, according to the force of the argument as set forth, for those who say that Christ is one according to nature—that is, one nature, whether spoken of simply or as composite, and this either generic, that is common, or singular, that is particular—let us keep our hearts pure from such an opinion with all guard, so that we may also be freed from the coming threat upon it. And the "two" in Christ, according to the principle of natural otherness—that is, of the difference of the natures from which he is, preserved even after the union, as parts in a whole—let us piously confess; according to which the parts never naturally coincide with one another, as long as each preserves intact its own principle of nature in relation to the other.

The one, however, according to the principle of hypostatic identity, according to which Christ as a whole admits no distinction arising from difference, that is, no division, in relation to himself at all—since he is believed to be one hypostasis both before the flesh and after the incarnation, and is worshipped and glorified by us as one of the holy and royal Trinity. For the hypostasis of Christ is singular, as a whole, being divided by no principle, according to its distinctive property, among the extremes, by which it is separated from them. And by extremes I now mean God the Father, from whom Christ came to be before the ages in a divine manner, and the holy all-glorious Virgin and Mother, from whom the same was born in a human manner for our sake, through the affinity of his own parts to both extremes, preserving the identity according to essence without diminution; and in these parts Christ, while admitting the principle of difference, does not depart from his own singular hypostasis. (For every whole, and especially one considered by composition from different things, singularly preserving the identity of its own hypostasis, also has the unconfused difference of its own parts in relation to one another, according to which it preserves inviolate the principle according to essence of each part in relation to the other. Likewise also the parts, in their composition in relation to one another, preserving the principle according to nature pure and undiminished, have the single and undivided identity of their own whole, according to which it singularly preserves the principle according to hypostasis entirely indivisible.)

If, then, as the argument has shown running with truth, it is altogether impious in the case of Christ to decree that the one lies in the principle of nature, just as conversely the two lie in the principle of hypostasis—for the former is proper to the stench of Apollinarius, who smears together and confuses the natures into one nature, and makes the economy altogether indiscernible, holding that after the union there is properly no nature at all. For each of these, passing over and falling into the other, flees from being what it is. But the latter is proper to the Jewish madness of Nestorius, who divides the one hypostasis into two hypostases and denies the whole economy, refusing to say that God the Word was united to the flesh hypostatically and substantially. We, using the principle rightly and fittingly, and turning the utterances of the perverse toward what is straight, [say] the two according to the principle of natural otherness, that is, difference, and the one according to the principle of hypostasis, so that both the difference of the natures of which Christ is, after the union, may be preserved in Christ, and the sameness and singularity of the hypostasis of the incarnate God the Word may likewise be kept unmultiplied. For the reciprocal demonstration and confession of the things destroys the underlying realities according to the heretics, since truth does not endure to concede that the proper designations of things pass over entirely into one another. For this reason we confess that Christ is two natures, as I said, according to the principle of the difference of the natures of which he is, and which are preserved in him after the union.

as being himself both God and man after the union.

THAT HE WHO SAYS THAT CHRIST IS GOD AND MAN AFTER THE UNION... That he who says that Christ is God and man after the union necessarily acknowledges by these names the natures after the union, if he has chosen to believe rightly. For if Christ is God and man after the union, according to the common confession, then clearly, since he possesses the realities corresponding to the names, he speaks truly after the union. For the realities are conceived before their proper names; and a name could never exist without the reality that provides the basis for the name and secures its meaning. But if Christ does not possess, after the union, the realities of which these are the names, then, according to them, he will be shown to have the appellations bare, as set down with nothing behind them, and devoid of realities; and according to them Christ will be God and man only in name, and not in reality—and what could be more impious than this? But if, refusing to be so mad, they say that the appellations are not devoid of realities in the case of Christ after the union—just as they do not refuse to say that there are two appellations of Christ after the union, so let them also say that there are two natures of Christ after the union, from which and in which he consists, and of which these are also the appellations—if indeed they faithfully confess, in truth, that the things united are preserved in reality according to nature after the union. CONCERNING THE "IN TWO" FORMULA; AND CONCERNING THE ONE NATURE OF THE WORD MADE FLESH...

Concerning the expression "in two"; and concerning the one incarnate nature of the Word, a pious confession according to the Fathers; and a denial of the one composite nature. (And again we believe that the same one is in two natures without division, as in divinity and humanity. For just as when we say that Christ is from two natures, we understand him as being from divinity and humanity, as a whole from parts; so also when we say that he is in two natures after the union, we believe that he is in divinity and humanity, as a whole in parts. And the parts of Christ are his divinity and his humanity, from which and in which he subsists. And again we have been taught to believe, to say, and to proclaim one incarnate nature of God the Word, with flesh, having a rational and intelligent soul, according to Saint Cyril; by saying "incarnate," we understand the substance of our nature as having been brought in. And again, the miracles and the sufferings belong to the same and one Christ, and the two births belong to the same: the one before the ages, without body, from the Father, and the one in time, from the Mother and Virgin, bodily for our sake. Therefore especially and in truth we confess her to be properly Theotokos, as having given birth to the God Word who was begotten from the Father before all the ages, and in the last times was incarnate from her. But we altogether reject saying that Christ is one composite nature, not only for the reasons stated, but also because no one at all of the approved Fathers has appeared up to the present day saying this expression; and because it is plainly the offspring of Apollinaris the heretic and of his students.

Severus, having accepted their error, rightly takes pride in these expressions as well. For Christ is not a natural unity by composition, according to Apollinarius and Severus, such that it preserves the distinctness of the natures from which it is, unconfused even after the union. Nor indeed is he a hypostatic duality according to Nestorius, such that the things that came together do not subsist each on their own and are not completely separated from one another; and such that the incarnate God the Word is not one even after the incarnation, and did not assume flesh that had not previously subsisted in its own principle of nature, united to him rationally and intellectually ensouled; but rather he is one composite hypostasis according to the Fathers, according to which the same one is wholly God and one of the holy and all-praised Trinity with his humanity because of the divinity, and the same one is wholly man and one of men with the divinity because of the humanity.

A more natural discussion concerning the composite hypostasis; and an exact demonstration that those who confess Christ to be one composite hypostasis do not fall into the same absurdities as those who say he is one composite nature. But if someone should think that the same absurdity is inferred because every composite hypostasis has its parts coexistent with one another, even for those who say that Christ is one composite hypostasis, such a person does not correctly understand my argument. For not simply every composite hypostasis has its parts coexistent with one another in generation; but rather that which evidently comes under a composite nature, and has such a form predicated of it.

This is a nature which has the aggregate of its properties woven together with the common and universal substance, that is, nature, of the thing predicated, or rather, it is a nature with properties. If, then, the nature under which it falls is composite, and the species predicated is composite, it is entirely necessary that it too be composite and possess its parts contemporaneous with one another, because the substance, that is, the nature, predicated of it exists in such a way as to be the same in species apart from its distinguishing characteristics. For just as, when defining what is called a hypostasis in the simple sense, we say, "A hypostasis is a certain substance with properties," or, "a certain substance comprehensive of the particulars, of all the properties in its own individual"; so too, when defining the hypostasis spoken of with specific determination and not in the simple sense, we say, "A composite hypostasis is a certain composite substance with properties"; or, "a certain composite substance comprehensive of the particulars, of all the properties in its own individual." For the things commonly contemplated in the individuals under the same species characterize primarily the generic element of the substance, that is, the nature, in the individuals under it. But the composite is common to all the individuals under the composite species; therefore the composite characterizes primarily a composite nature in the individuals under it, and not a hypostasis. And in another way again, every definition is formed from the common and universal, of the individuals that fall under it; and all things under them have naturally the beginning of their own description from the generic elements, because it is clear what the thing defined properly and primarily is.

If this is true, as indeed it is, it is clear that one who has said that a composite hypostasis is brought under a nature, that is, the thing existing in the common substance, has generically set forth together with the individual of the hypostasis, along with the properties that specifically characterize it. So that one who has said that a composite hypostasis is brought under some nature has said nothing other than a composite nature, that is, substance, with properties. If, then, as has been shown, every composite nature has an involuntary coming-together of its own parts with one another in the composition, and possesses its parts as co-eternal with one another, and has come to be for the completion of the wholeness observed in beings according to each species—and every hypostasis, clearly, according to its natural constitution, has the same constitution for being, without variation, as its own genus and species. Let them then show that the composite hypostasis of Christ is brought under a composite nature, and let them bring together that it possesses its parts as co-eternal, and let them justly bring against us the same accusation. As long as they are unable to do this, they make the supports of their own doctrines out of sand. For one who, in ignorance, forcibly subjects Christ to these aforementioned absurdities, because he is a composite hypostasis and is piously confessed by us as such, has wandered far from the road that leads to the truth—or rather, to speak more properly, from the truth itself. For this great and venerable mystery of Christ neither has, as an individual, some universal and generic nature predicated of it as its species; nor indeed is it itself a genus or species predicated of the natural individuals under it.

So that it can be subsumed under one of the rules that have been stated; such things do not even belong to composite things in their coming-together with one another, since the concurrence of God the Word with the flesh in the composition is equal and similar. THAT THE UNION OF THE WORD WITH THE FLESH ALONE CAME ABOUT BY ASSUMPTION... That the union of the Word with the flesh alone came about by assumption, since He pre-existed and willed to empty Himself for union with the flesh. For in the case of all composite things universally, it is not the coming-together of this with this by assumption that produces the constitution of the whole from its parts, as it were, of the species from parts. Rather, the sudden coming into being of the parts from non-being into being, in their simultaneous coming-together with one another at the very moment of their being, produces the composition of the whole. But the mystery of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ did not come about in this way; rather, being God by nature and the simple and incorporeal Son of God by nature, and co-eternal with the Father, and the Creator of all the ages, by His philanthropic will He willed to become man by the assumption of flesh; and for our sake, though simple by nature and incorporeal, He became economically, according to hypostasis, composite and embodied from us, as the holy and great Dionysius the Areopagite says in a God-inspired manner in the first chapter of his treatise On the Divine Names, discoursing thus about the divine incarnation: "And it is pre-eminently philanthropic, because in a wholly true manner to those things that are according to us (in one of its

of hypostases; calling it back to itself, and setting aside the human extremity, from which the simple Jesus was ineffably composed; and the eternal one has received temporal extension; and he who has transcendentally gone beyond every order of nature has come within our nature. If, then, not according to the law and order of the nature of composite things, but by another institution beyond the nature of composite things—for the Word of God was ineffably composed with the flesh by assumption, but did not receive his being together with the flesh at generation for composition, unto the completion of some whole according to species, as the word of truth loudly proclaims to all—in vain do the ignorant attempt lawlessly to subject to the institutions that are under nature the composition that transcends every boundary and principle of nature. For this reason, he who says that the incarnation came about by the assumption of flesh both preserves the pre-eternal existence of God the Word and piously confesses his voluntary and self-chosen enfleshment in time; and he keeps unconfused the difference between the Word who assumed and the flesh that was assumed, even after the union. But he who confesses that the Word of God became man without change, not by the assumption of flesh, will be able to confess none of the things said truly in any way. For how, unless the Word pre-existed without beginning, did he take flesh different in essence by will? In which case especially, as I think, the union of that which is of a different nature is properly said to have come about by assumption.

as the only one, and uniquely without passion and truly, having taken up the one of a different essence, and having kept himself unchangeable in every principle and manner and unmultiplied, and the thing taken up unaltered; which is impossible to happen in the created nature; in which, at the very generation of the parts, for the completion of some whole according to species, through the sudden concurrence of the parts with one another, every composition naturally comes to be, preserving through the whole the proportion of the parts to one another equal; just as it is with us, and with all those who have received a composite nature according to species. For in us the soul has the natural powers of the body proportioned to its own activities, since the body is by nature receptive because of the soul's sudden generation together with the flesh into being. But the Word of God, having the powers of the nature taken up by him proportioned in no principle or manner to his own natural activities; for what is above nature is not measured by nature; nor is there anything at all among existing things that is by nature receptive of him. Therefore, being most alone in the taking up of flesh rationally and intellectually ensouled, willing ineffably, he became man; as being and pre-existing, and able to do all things; innovating the natures in the manner beyond nature, in order to save man.

This faith I have learned, and I was taught it both from our holy and blessed Fathers who have departed before us and from those now living who have been entrusted with the rudders of the holy catholic Church of God and who rightly steer her toward the harbor of the divine will; with this faith, through their supplications, I too shall depart, leaving behind the present life, offering to God in place of every rank this confession, undefiled and unspotted and higher than every heretical surge. For I cannot boast in a life made glorious by works of righteousness, since throughout my whole life here I have been a willful transgressor of the divine laws.

And these things I have written to you, as far as was possible, in brief, my blessed lords, so that you may know—if there is anything useful in what has been written—how you may, even in some measure, send away the wolves clothed in sheepskin who terrify with their indistinct barkings the divine and gentle sheep of the holy flock of Christ, and not be swept along by falsehood that wickedly pretends to be truth; and the

the voices of the Fathers who are advocates of the faith of the Church, I have not been able, for the present, to set down in writing, because of the great scarcity of books in my possession. For there you have my blessed master, father and teacher, the lord Abba Sophronius, truly prudent and wise, the advocate of the truth, the invincible champion of the divine doctrines, able both in deed and in word to contend against every heresy, and, along with all the other good things, rich in the abundance of divine books, and eagerly enriching those who wish to learn the divine things. So then, by attending to him, I know well that you will receive the right and unerring knowledge of all the divine and saving doctrines. Farewell. Letter 14.... To the same, a dogmatic letter. 14. Of the same, to the same, a dogmatic letter. God, being good by nature, is not evil in anything that He is naturally capable of doing. But man, becoming good by the care of his will, is always shown to rejoice in the things God is naturally capable of doing. For man has no other discernment of being good than solely his concordant disposition toward what is brought into being by God. For it is God's own property to do good things; but it is man's, to be concordantly disposed toward them. For it is the virtue of a man to show that what has been made by God is cherished by the disposition of his will. Therefore, if indeed every good thing has God as the cause of its own coming into being, then reasonably the greatest of good things is the union of things that have been separated, because it has been established as a manifest work of God.

If this is entirely true, I know that you, being good, rejoice to see the scattered gathered into one, because of your own disposition toward good things.

Receive, then, I entreat you, as good men, you who are guarded by God, this most God-beloved deacon, my lord Cosmas, who carries this my modest composition, a good and prudent man, adorned with godly character, and enroll him among your own friends; and if there should be need to lay a petition before the God-honored pope on his behalf, so that he may receive back his own rank of the diaconate in the Church in which he was appointed, do not be slack. For he has so genuinely embraced the pious doctrine of the divine dogmas of the Church that he contends fervently for it, and knows this to be the boundary and ordinance of piety: to have refused to think anything of what Christ is after the ineffable union—being truly the same both God and man at once. For he did not cast off what he was, having truly become what he was not; for he is immutable. Nor did he change what he had become, remaining what he was; for he is loving toward mankind. But he is wholly both by nature in one hypostasis, as one from both, and through one of himself saving both, without change or diminution, as being truly both in accordance with the hypostatic union. For the hypostatic union, having its opposition toward division, but not toward the natural difference of the things united in it, brings about the complete removal of the one, but effects the firm preservation of the other; of which number is the manifestation.

Since no one could ever conceive of a difference that is entirely devoid of quantity, even if he were the wisest in arguments and the hardest to fight against. For as long as the parts of the whole that is constituted by composition are preserved without confusion, from which the whole has been composed, the natural difference of the parts of the whole that are preserved in relation to one another according to union is not unknown. And as long as the principle of the essential difference of the parts remains preserved in the whole, it is impossible for the quantity of the parts of the whole that differ from one another in essence to be unknown, of which number is naturally capable of making a declaration, but not a division, since number is declarative of quantity simply, but not of relation—that is, of union or division—but not of some particular quantity. But if number is naturally capable of making a declaration of quantity, but not of relation, then he who uses number after the union solely for the pious declaration of the difference of the natures preserved in Christ, from which he is, does not entirely divide the union, but knows only that the natures have remained without confusion after the union, from which the one Christ and Lord and Son and God exists, clearly incarnate and perfectly made man. Therefore he also piously maintains one incarnate nature of the Word himself, the flesh having a soul that is intellectual and rational, after the union, not being ignorant of the difference, but setting aside and, as it were, placing outside the division, so that by these very terms he might drive away from the divine court both the confusion of Apollinaris and the division of Nestorius, the evils that are diametrically opposed, and might become a pure worshipper of the mystery.

confessing the same one begotten from above from the Father before all ages, and the same one born from below—by the taking on of flesh, clearly, endowed with a rational and intelligent soul—from the mother for our sake in the last times. And for this reason I believe that the holy Virgin is truly and in the proper sense the God-bearer, because she conceived him, the Word himself, in place of seed, and carried him and gave birth to him incarnate from herself; the same one working the miracles; the same one willingly enduring the experience of human sufferings; the same one crucified, buried, risen on the third day according to the Scriptures; taken up incarnate into the heavens, from which he had come down to us without flesh, as he himself knows—he who as God has by nature no transition from place to place. For he is by nature infinite, and therefore in no way contained by existing things, since he is free from all circumscription, and by nature loving humanity, and therefore he endured our fleshly birth according to his will, and became containable by our limitations; the same one who will come to give to each according to the measure prepared for him. Having gladly accepted this confession, the aforementioned most God-loving lord Cosmas, I too assented with joy, and I preferred his simple disposition in Christ to my own soul, having recognized it; and concerning the doctrinal chapters about which he asked, I have given him a concise answer in writing; and it is among the fitting things for your God-guarded selves to receive it and to exercise yourselves in it.

For you benefit him through your good exposition of what lies before you, filling in the sense of what has been omitted because of brevity; and this much concerning this. I remind you who are guarded by God to keep watch and to pray according to the Lord's command, so that we not be caught in the snares of the temptations that surround us from every side. For if we keep watch and are sober, I know that we are guarded against the wiles of the demons; and if we pray, we draw to our aid the divine grace, fighting alongside us and making us victorious over every opposing power, and delivering us from all error and ignorance. And we ought to do this especially now, because even apart from the commandment, nature becomes a teacher of refuge in God, taking circumstance as its counselor. For what among the evils now encompassing the inhabited world is more pressing? What is more terrible to those who perceive what is happening? What is more pitiable or more fearful to those who suffer? To see a nation desert-dwelling and barbarous, overrunning a foreign land as if it were its own; and the civilized order consumed by wild and untamed beasts, who have only the bare shape of human form; and a Jewish people, from of old rejoicing in human blood, and knowing as their only divine satisfaction the murder of the creature; and for this reason raging all the more, having become more conspicuous in the wealth of wickedness than all who are notorious for evil; and thinking it serves God in the very things God hates; the only

the most faithless of all the peoples on earth, and for this reason the most fit for the reception of the opposing power, going before as a forerunner, in every manner and disposition of the indwelling of the evil one, and by what it does making known the coming of the Antichrist, since it has ignored the true Savior; the hostile and lawless one, both hating mankind and hating God, and for this reason hating mankind the more because it hates God, and permitted to revel in outrages against the saints, since vengeance is near, so that it may also be punished more justly, when its tyranny and rebellion against God has been fully revealed through its deeds; the people that champions falsehood, the maker of murder, and the enemy of truth; the bitter persecutor of my faith, through which the polytheistic error was destroyed and the ranks of the demons were driven away. Through it all the nations have clapped their hands, according to the prophecy, and have shouted to God with a voice of exultation: for the Lord is most high, terrible, a great King over all the earth. The only-begotten Son was known to them mystically when he came in the flesh: Lord, as commanding virtue to servants, to those who endure through the practice of the commandments; most high, as the provider of true knowledge to those who press on by love of wisdom through contemplation to the bare apprehension of the mysteries without symbols; terrible, as judge and avenger of transgressions; King, as the distributor to each of what has been prepared according to worth; and great, as doing contrary things beyond nature through things that are contrary.

and through suffering, impassibility, and through death, life, creating; and by paradoxical power, by his own privations according to the flesh, granting to nature the unwavering states of the good; and not even so is the senseless people ashamed, nor does it cease persecuting faith and virtue. These things it clearly persecutes out of envy, as having fallen from both, and not knowing that it has fallen, lame in both legs, and utterly unable, or unwilling—to speak more fittingly—to rise from the fall of impiety; as always betraying faith and virtue for the sake of pride and pleasure, as an apostate and foolish people, and an untaught nation. Dividing his life among these, the apostate and full of lawlessness makes the one the mother of apostasy from God, and the other the creator of misanthropy, so that both God and creation are outraged by him: the one despised, the other corrupted by his defilements of practices. What of these things, as I said, is more fearful to the eyes or ears of Christians? A harsh and strange nation is permitted to see hands raised against the divine inheritance. But these things the multitude of our sins has caused to happen. For we have not conducted ourselves worthily of the Gospel of Christ. All have sinned, all have acted lawlessly, all have abandoned the way of the commandments that said, I am the way, and we have become savage against one another, ignorant of the grace of philanthropy and of the mystery of the sufferings of the incarnate God on our behalf; and we have traversed impassable paths, that is, the relations of the passions of dishonor, having ratified them by the disposition of our mind.

But let us be watchful and pray, lest our hearts be weighed down more with carousing and drunkenness. For carousing is hesitation regarding the word of faith in times of persecution; and drunkenness is the loss of the natural thoughts through which the true discernment of beings naturally comes to be, whenever the soul, from weakness, yields to the assaults of temptations; and being darkened, it suffers a tossing concerning the word of faith, as I said. For if we pray and are watchful, we hold the faith in our Lord and God Jesus Christ more firmly, beholding and by experience grasping the outcome of what he foretold; and we are not wholly estranged, nor do we endure a tossing of the soul, as though suffering contrary to the promise, but we hold the faith more firmly, seeing the Lord's foretelling fulfilled through the events. And if the outcome of what was foretold is able to produce confirmation

of faith, we too will confirm our faith all the more through what comes to pass, finding that the one who spoke is true; and we will confess him to be God before men, utterly dreading no death; so that he also may confess us before the Father, and bring us, saved through the good confession, which he himself began as a pattern for our good works, having borne witness before Pontius Pilate and confessed the good confession; which may we be deemed worthy to imitate according to his grace, whenever the time may call.

not leaping rashly into the dangers that come for the sake of the word of piety, but fleeing temptations with all our strength, both out of sparing the persecutors and through a testing, by way of knowledge, of the natural weakness that is in us; training those who are still children, and awaiting the Word who calls; who, coming invisibly to those who lawfully contend in the struggles for piety, runs the course of martyrdom; as the only one able to conquer both sense and nature; since martyrdom is clearly a victory over sense and nature, through which there naturally comes about the uprising of mind and reason against the passions, by which the longing for God is confirmed, persuading its lovers, paradoxically through death, to pass over to the Beloved; to stand before whom may we be counted worthy, shining with our confessions of faith in him, which may we also carry with us as we depart from here and pass over to the endless world, through the prayers and intercessions of our all-holy Lady, the Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen. SCHOLION (1. He who uses, it says, the term of the two natures in the case of Christ merely to indicate the distinction, fights against Apollinarius; and he who again says the term of the one nature of God the Word made flesh, casts out the division of Nestorius. For he who equally flees the impiety of each of these speaks of the two terms.

Letter 15. Of the same author, on the common and the particular, that is, on essence and subsistence, to Cosmas, the most God-loving deacon of Alexandria. To the most God-loving lord Cosmas, deacon, Maximus the humble, greeting. Since a great account has been set in motion among us concerning the divine Incarnation, having touched on the subtle points of the doctrines of piety themselves, from which you took occasion and demanded of my humility, saying, O man of God, what is the common and universal, and what is the partial and particular, so that from this the whole account of the union may become clear to us—I will say nothing at all of my own, but what I was taught by the Fathers I declare, passing over nothing of their teaching on these matters. The common and universal, that is, the generic, according to the Fathers, is essence and nature; for they say that these are the same as each other. The particular and partial is subsistence and person; for according to them these are the same as each other. And the great Basil makes this clear, writing to Terentius: "But if we too must say in brief what seems to us, we will say this: that the relation which the common has to the particular, this same relation essence has to subsistence. For each of us both participates in being by the common principle of essence, and by the properties about him is this particular man and that." And again the same author, to Amphilochius, concerning such things—

Going through these matters, he says: "Essence and subsistence have this difference, which the common has in relation to the particular. For example, as the living being has in relation to a particular man." And after other things: "But those who say that essence and subsistence are the same are compelled to confess only distinct persons." And again, teaching a certain canonical rule, he wrote in explanation of the meaning of "consubstantial": "This phrase also corrects the evil of Sabellius. For it removes the identity of the subsistence, and introduces the complete notion of the persons; for it is not the same thing that is consubstantial with itself, but one thing with another. So that it is well and piously said, both distinguishing the particularity of the subsistences and setting forth the unvaryingness of the nature." And again in the second letter to the Neocaesareans he teaches, saying: "For it must be known that just as he who does not confess the commonality of the essence falls into polytheism, so he who does not grant the particulars of the subsistences is carried away into Judaism." And again in what he made Eustathius the Armenian sign, he appears to write clearly. "It is fitting, then, to confess plainly that they believe according to the words set forth by our Fathers at Nicaea, and according to the sound meaning contained in the words. For there are some who, even in this faith, corrupt the word of truth, and draw the sense of the words in it to their own will.

Where indeed Marcellus also dared to act impiously against the subsistence of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, interpreting him as a bare word, claimed to have received his starting points from there, wrongly interpreting the meaning of "of the same essence." And some of those from the impiety of Libys Sabellius, supposing subsistence and essence to be the same, draw from there their starting points for the construction of their own blasphemy, from the fact that it is written in the faith: "If anyone says that the Son of God is from another essence or subsistence, this one the holy and catholic Church anathematizes." For those men did not say that essence and subsistence are the same. For if the terms indicated one and the same meaning, what need was there of both? But it is clear that, while some denied that he is from the essence, others said he is from some other subsistence; thus they rejected both as alien to the mind of the Church. Since wherever they indicated their own mind, they said that the Son is from the essence of the Father, no longer adding "from the subsistence." So that the former stands for the refutation of the evil mind, while the latter makes manifest the saving doctrine. And in agreement with this, Gregory, surnamed of Theology, in the first theological discourse appears to say the following: "And when I speak of a mean, I speak the truth; to look at it is sufficient, avoiding the evil combination and the more absurd division.

so as not to bring the Word together into one subsistence, and through fear of polytheism leave us bare names, supposing the same to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit." And again after a little: "Since it is necessary both to preserve the one God and to confess the three subsistences—that is, three persons—and each with its own peculiarity. And, as my account holds, the one God would be preserved if they are referred to one cause of the Son and the Spirit, not compounded nor commingled; and the three subsistences, with no commingling or dissolution or confusion being conceived—lest the whole be dissolved by the things through which the one is more honored than is right. And according to the one and same movement and will of the Godhead, so to name it, and the identity of essence." And again in the Syntacterion: "We believe in Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit—consubstantial and of the same glory, in which baptism also has its perfection; you know, who have been initiated, that it is a renunciation of godlessness and a confession of divinity; and thus we are perfected, recognizing the one in essence and in the undividedness of worship, and the three in subsistences, that is, persons." And indeed also in the discourse on the Lights the same says these things, "Of God

But when I say, you were illumined by one light, and by three: by three, according to the properties, that is the subsistences, if it pleases anyone to call them so, or the persons—for we shall not quarrel over names, so long as the syllables lead to the same meaning; and by one, according to the principle of the essence, that is of the Godhead. Such great agreement in the divine doctrines did our God-inspired Fathers Gregory and Basil set forth as existing, saying clearly the same thing: that nature corresponds to essence, as common and universal, and person to subsistence, as particular and individual; in no way confounding the meaning of the terms through their interchange and confusion with one another. For, energized by one and the same Spirit, they handed down to the peoples the right confession of the faith. And in agreement with these you will find all who, by the grace of the Spirit, were entrusted with the helm of the Church, proclaiming the right word of pious faith, and in no way at all turning aside from this meaning. A MORE NATURAL CONSTRUCTION, WHICH SHOWS THAT IT IS NOTHING OF THE THINGS THAT ARE; IT IS THE SAME AS ANOTHER...

A more natural demonstration, showing that none of existing things is the same as another in essence and hypostasis; but things that are the same in essence are other in their hypostases, and things that are the same in hypostasis are altogether other in essence. And if essence and nature are the same, and person and hypostasis are the same, it is clear that things of the same kind and same essence as one another are altogether of other hypostases than one another. For in both respects, I mean nature and hypostasis, nothing among existing things is the same as another. For things united to one another according to one and the same nature, that is, essence—that is, things that are of the same essence and nature—could never be united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person; that is, they cannot have one person and one hypostasis. And things united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person, could never be joined according to one and the same essence, that is, nature; that is, being of one and the same essence and nature, they could never appear to have become so. But things united according to one and the same nature, that is, essence—that is, things that are of one and the same essence and nature—are distinguished from one another by their hypostases, that is, persons, as is the case with angels and human beings, and all created things contemplated in species and genus. For an angel is distinguished from an angel, and a human being from a human being, and an ox from an ox, and a dog from a dog, according to hypostasis, but not according to nature and essence. And the argument will dare to say the greater thing, that not even in the case of the first unbegun and creative cause of existing things itself do we contemplate nature and hypostasis as the same as one another.

If indeed we know one essence and nature of divinity, existing in three hypostases that differ from one another by their properties; and three hypostases in one and the same essence and nature of divinity. For a Monad in a Triad, and a Triad in a Monad, is what is worshipped by us: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, one God; neither is the Son the Father, but is what the Father is; nor is the Spirit the Son, but is what the Son is; for all things that the Father is, the Son is, except unbegottenness (for he is begotten), and all things that the Son is, the Holy Spirit is, except generation (for it is proceeding). Unbegottenness and generation and procession do not divide the one nature and power of the ineffable divinity into three unequal or equal essences and natures; but they characterize the persons, that is, the hypostases, in which, or which, the one divinity is, namely essence and nature; and the things united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person (that is, being of one hypostasis, and of one

They differ by the principle of essence or nature, as is the case with the human soul and body, and with all things that have their coming together with one another according to hypostasis. For these are not consubstantial with one another. Therefore, things united according to one and the same essence, that is, nature—that is, things that are of one and the same essence and nature—are certainly consubstantial with one another, and are distinct in hypostasis: consubstantial, by the principle of the essential community contemplated in them in natural identity without variation, according to which one is not more than another that which it both is and is called; but all admit the one and the same definition and principle of essence. And they are distinct in hypostasis by the principle of the personal otherness that distinguishes them, according to which one is distinguished from another, not coinciding with one another in the characteristic properties that belong to hypostasis; but each, by his own collection of properties, bears the most particular principle of his own hypostasis, according to which he does not admit communion with things of the same kind and consubstantial. But things united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person—that is, things that are constituent parts of one and the same hypostasis according to union—are co-hypostatic with one another and differ in essence. Co-hypostatic, by the principle of the indivisible personal monad completed from them according to union; according to which the properties that divide the one from its own essential newness, in their coming together with one another simultaneously with their existence, are made characteristic of the one hypostasis completed from them.

according to which the identity of things with one another is contemplated, admitting no difference whatsoever, as is the case with the human soul and body. For the characteristics that mark off someone's body from the remaining bodies, and the peculiarities of someone's soul from the remaining souls, running together in union, characterize at one and the same time and mark off from the remaining human beings the hypostasis completed from them—of Peter, say, or Paul—but not the soul of Peter or Paul from its own body. For both, soul and body, are the same as each other by the principle of the one hypostasis completed from them in union; because neither of them subsisted separately by itself, apart from the other, before the composition of the form from them into generation. For generation is simultaneous, composition is simultaneous, and the completion of the form from them by composition is simultaneous. They are other in essence, by the principle of their natural otherness toward each other; according to which they in no way admit each other's definitions and principles in respect of essence, but each yields something different, and the principle of the one is incompatible with the principle of the other; according to which, preserving the essential difference of soul and body, we do not confuse the hypostasis completed from them, which by the turning and change of the one toward the other—of the parts, that is, the natures, of which it was composed—admits destruction.

But if it is in the coming-together of soul and body at the very generation according to species that the “someone” who is a human being is naturally brought to completion—by the principle of the natural community of his own parts preserving, in relation to other human beings, the same essence; and by the principle of the propriety of these same parts guarding, in relation to other human beings, the distinctness of hypostasis; being united, on the one hand, to other human beings by the natural community of his own parts, with whom he bears one and the same nature according to species; and being divided, on the other hand, from the rest of human beings by the hypostatic propriety of his parts, in relation to whom he bears another and different person; by the principle by which he is distinguished from other human beings, preserving the unity of his own personal indivisible monad entirely without difference; and by the principle by which he is naturally united to other human beings, preserving without confusion the difference of the essential otherness of his own parts—from this the account concerning the incarnation, that is, the becoming-human, of the one God the Word of the holy and consubstantial and worshipful Trinity stands clear to us and has nothing riddling about it.

That Christ, by the essential communions of his own parts with the extremes, being united, had the difference of the parts preserved toward one another; but by the peculiar properties of the parts, he demonstrated the same according to hypostasis as of a whole, common to both.

(Teaching us plainly that the Word of God, being perfect according to nature and essence, according to which he is the same as the Father and the Spirit and consubstantial, and according to the person and the hypostasis, according to which he is established as other than the Father and the Spirit, preserving the personal unconfused difference, having become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, became perfectly human; that is, he became a perfect human being, evidently by the assumption of flesh, having a soul intelligent and rational, which took in him both the nature and the hypostasis; that is, both to be and to subsist, at the very conception of the Word; since the Word himself was found willing instead of seed—or rather as the seed—of his own incarnation, and became according to hypostasis composite, he who according to nature is simple and incomposite; one and the same remaining in the stability of the parts of which he was composed, immutable, indivisible, and unconfused; so that he might be according to hypostasis a mediator for the parts of which he was composed, joining in himself the separation of the extremes, making peace, and reconciling to God and the Father through the Spirit the human nature; as being truly God according to essence, and truly human by nature according to the economy having become.)

Neither divided by the natural difference of his own parts, nor confused by the hypostatic unity of the same; but by the principle of the essential community of the parts of which he was composed, being united by nature to the Father and the Mother, he demonstrated that he preserved the difference of the parts of which he was composed toward one another; and by the principle of the hypostatic peculiarity of his own parts, being distinguished from the extremes—I mean the Father and the Mother—he appeared to possess entirely without difference the uniqueness of his own hypostasis, being always united in the personal identity of his own parts toward one another at the extreme. For the essential community of one of the parts with the extremes, in the unity of the one hypostasis, preserving without confusion the difference of the nature of the other, did not allow one nature of both to be known by the pious from the union, lest there come to be a complete passing-away of the parts in essence—the generation by composition of the one nature of the whole from them, not having how it will preserve the natural kinship toward the parts of the extremes, not preserving the essential difference of the parts of which he was composed toward one another after the union; but it provided one composite hypostasis to be seen from the union, preserved by the natural existence of the parts of which he was composed. And the hypostatic peculiarity of the other of the parts, as contributing to the composition of some whole, Christ, being co-conceived with the essential commonality, completed a common distinguishing mark of the parts, that which characterizes the one hypostasis fulfilled from them.

For we say that the flesh and the Godhead became common according to the ineffable union, the natural [union] from their coming together in union—that is, true and real—having completed the one hypostasis of Christ. And I say "common" as [meaning] that one and the same most particular hypostasis of the parts was shown forth from the union; or rather, that it is one and the same [hypostasis] of the Word, existing both now and before: but before, without cause, simple and uncompounded; later, through a cause, by the assumption of flesh rationally ensouled, having become truly composite without change; according to which, separating myself from the extremes—I mean the Father and the Mother—he is united to himself, having no difference in any respect; lest there come to be a complete cessation of the hypostatic identity of the parts, [namely] the coming-to-be of the difference of the parts according to it, dissolving the hypostatic union into a personal duality, not having [any way] to show how the personal identity of the parts with one another is preserved, being divided by the hypostatic difference into a duality of persons. THAT THE THINGS COMMON TO THE PARTS ACCORDING TO HYPOSTASIS, [NAMELY] THE WHOLE—THAT IS, CHRIST—DEFINED...

For the things common to the parts according to hypostasis—that is, the whole, Christ—set him apart from the extremes; but the things common to the parts according to essence in relation to the extremes, as a whole, joined Christ to the extremes essentially.

For the flesh did not preserve its difference from the Word by those idioms by which it was set apart from the rest of men; nor again, by those idioms by which it differed from the Word, was it set apart from us. But by those things by which it was set apart from us, it preserved its union—that is, identity—with the Word according to hypostasis; and by those things by which it was naturally united to us, it plainly had its essential difference from the Word preserved. Just as also the Word, by those idioms by which he was set apart from the commonality of the Godhead as Son and Word, preserved his union—that is, identity—with the flesh according to hypostasis; and by those things by which, as God, he kept his natural difference from the flesh, being united in essence to the Father and the Spirit, he set aside both the difference and the identity in relation to himself and the extremes: being united to the extremes by the natural commonalities of the parts, but being distinguished according to hypostasis from the extremes by the peculiarities of these same parts; in the hypostatic identity of his own parts, showing the difference of the extremes preserved in relation to himself; and in the essential otherness of the parts, bringing upon himself the natural identity of the extremes in relation to the parts. But if by the commonalities of the parts he was united to the extremes, and by the peculiarities of the parts he was set apart from the extremes, it is clear that by those things by which he was united to the extremes, he had the natural difference of the parts from one another preserved.

But the things by which he was distinguished from the extremes he had as an identity of the parts according to hypostasis, shining through. Therefore Christ had, from each of the parts of which he was composed, both the common and the particular: the common, in the principle of the identity according to essence toward his own parts of the extremes, according to which he had the difference of the parts from one another preserved even after the union; the particular, in the principle of the identity of the parts according to hypostasis, according to which he was set apart from the extremes, preserving the distinction from them unconfused. For the true union according to hypostasis, of each of the parts coming together with one another into the composition of some whole, at the coming-together simultaneously toward the generation of some whole, taking up along with the common the distinctive property that sets each apart from the community according to essence, shows it to be enhypostatic, but not a hypostasis; because it did not subsist separately by itself, being set apart from things of the same kind, or from that which coexists with it toward the generation of some whole through union; which is proper to a hypostasis. For that which subsists separately by itself is a hypostasis—if indeed they say a hypostasis is an essence with properties, differing in number from things of the same kind; but enhypostatic is that which in no way subsists by itself, but is contemplated in others, as a species in the individuals under it; or that which is composed together with another different in essence toward the generation of some whole; which, insofar as it differs by the things that set it apart from the things according to

by the idioms of those of the same kind, is united to the composite according to hypostasis, being made identical. For it is not by the idioms by which it is separated from those of the same kind that it is distinguished also from the composite united and co-subsisting according to union; but by the separating idioms by which it differs from those of the same essence, by these it preserves toward the composite the identity of the hypostasis according to union, kept in the wholly unique character of the person; which the true account proclaims in the case of the divine economy, that is, the incarnation. For by the idioms by which our flesh, being separated, differed, by these it had identity according to hypostasis toward the Word; and by the idioms by which the Word differed from the Father and the Spirit, being separated as Son, by these it preserved the unique character according to hypostasis toward the flesh, kept whole, being divided by no account at all.

Therefore the flesh of God the Word is not a hypostasis. (For never, not even to the extent that the speed of bare conception can reach, did it subsist at all by itself, separated by the idioms that distinguish it from those of the same kind, or toward the Word composite according to hypostasis, having its own separated from the common; but it received its generation of being enhypostatic as in him and through him; and having become his flesh according to union, and being united to him according to hypostasis, by the account of the peculiarity that separates it from the rest of men. And to speak more clearly, making its own the very Word's according to hypostasis; as somehow also the common according to essence, of which it has truly become flesh according to union. THAT CHRIST, BEING PERFECT GOD, IS ALSO THE SAME PERFECT MAN...

Because Christ, being perfect God, and the same being perfect man, had, of the things that he was, both the common and the proper, by which he effected the union and the distinction of the extremes in relation to himself: by the union of the extremes in relation to himself, he assured that the two natures of which he was composed are preserved in him; by the distinction of the extremes in relation to himself, he set forth the singularity of his own hypostasis. For if the Word, being God by nature, became man by the assumption of flesh rationally ensouled, without change, it is clear that, being one from both, and through one truly assuring both of himself, the same had both the common and the proper of both; by which he effected the union and the distinction in relation to the extremes: by the natural difference of his own parts in relation to one another, being united to the extremes according to essence; but by the identity of the same, that is, of the parts, being distinguished from the extremes according to hypostasis. But if the same had difference and identity, it is clear that the same was one and two. One, by the principle of his own indivisible unity according to hypostasis; but two, by the principle of the otherness, according to essence, of his own parts in relation to one another even after the union. For difference is the principle according to which the otherness of the things signified in relation to one another is naturally preserved, and it is declarative of how they are. But identity is the invariability according to which the principle of the thing signified possesses the wholly singular, being known by no manner of difference.

A Brief Discussion of Difference, by Which It Is Shown That the Quantitative Measure According to Essence of the United Elements Is Preserved.

If, therefore, after the union in Christ the difference according to essence of the parts of which he was composed is preserved toward one another, there is clear proof for the pious, that the quantitative measure according to essence of the united elements has remained undiminished after the union, preserving the definition and principle of essence of each part in relation to the other in the whole composed of them, without confusion. And if also the identity of the whole in relation to its own parts—or rather, to speak more clearly, the hypostatic identity of the parts toward one another according to the composition of the whole from them—is preserved, it is clear that in no way do the parts, in the one hypostasis completed from them, differ wholly from one another. And henceforth there is no argument able to show either the difference according to essence being confused, or the singularity according to hypostasis being divided. A Broader and More Natural Construction Concerning Difference and Quantity, and the Number That Reveals Them.

Therefore, if indeed we speak of a difference in Christ after the union, and every difference necessarily and by nature brings in a quantity, of which we recognize number to be indicative, then reasonably, taking number for the sole purpose of indicating the difference of the differing things after the union, we do not divide the things signified by number entirely, but we show that the existence of the united things is preserved; because every number is by nature indicative of quantity alone, but not divisive. For that which neither acts nor is acted upon, how could it be master of any relation whatsoever? Since it belongs to essence alone to act, just as to be acted upon belongs to an accident, that is, to quality; from which, and out of which, relations are said by the experts in such discourses to proceed. But when we look more precisely, relations are not the work of these—I mean of essence and accident—but of the cause and power that makes all things, and that has implanted in each of the things that have come to be a principle constitutive of its being and declarative of its natural affinity and estrangement toward one another. But if relations do not properly have their essence as an efficient cause, far less would number; which, insofar as it is not an essence, cannot act at all; and insofar as it is an accident, that is, a quality, it is not by nature to be acted upon. But if number is by nature neither to act nor to be acted upon, then it is a sign indicative of quantity, making no suggestion of the relation in the quantity signified; because it is not a genus, able to be predicated of other things, but a sign, as I said, indicative of the genus that is borne predicatively of other things.

But if number has neither the power to act nor to be acted upon, it is clear that insofar as it does not act, it is not indicative of any relation whatsoever—that is, of union or division; for this, as I said, belongs to another account. And insofar as it is not naturally capable of being acted upon, it is not divided. For every number is in itself indivisible, admitting no motion by way of alteration, which is proper to quality; nor contraction and expansion, which is proper to substance; nor indeed increase and decrease, which is proper to quantity. But if it belongs to quantity, it does not belong to relation; for number is significant of quantity taken simply, not of quantity somehow qualified. It is clear, then, that number is not naturally capable of producing either division or union, but only a manifestation of quantity, however we may conceive this to exist. For, as I said, acting belongs to substance, and being acted upon belongs to an accident, that is, to quality; and number is neither of these. For if it were a substance, it would also be self-subsistent, needing nothing else for its constitution. But if it were an accident, that is, a quality, it would either produce the most specific difference and, combined with the genus, would complete the definition of the subject and provide a manifestation of the species, but not of quantity; or, joined to the species, it would introduce the common difference and produce the distinction of one individual from another among those reduced under the same species; or, in the case of what is properly called difference, in the collection of all the properties in the individual

it was doing; and it was indicating not only one thing from another, but also that the one signified through it was shown to be of another kind. But if in the definitions of things absolutely no one includes number, number is neither substance nor quality. And if number is none of these, it is clear that it is naturally capable neither of acting nor of being acted upon. And if number has neither the power to act nor to be acted upon, it reasonably neither unites at all nor divides as acting; nor indeed is it divided at all as being acted upon; but making a declaration only of the quantity of things, it does not touch their relation. But if number is declarative of quantity alone, and not of any relation whatsoever conceived according to it, number is rather a kind of utterance, so to speak, and a designation naturally attached to a quantity. Therefore, the one who speaks of a difference in Christ after the union has certainly also conceived together with the difference a quantity of the things that differ. For what is absolutely simple is also incapable of difference, because it is in every way the same as itself and singular, and whole and entirely without relation, as not having the category of quantity predicated of it; and for this reason it is absolutely not numbered. But the one who has conceived together with the difference a quantity—for it is impossible for a difference to be known that completely destroys quantity—employing number for declaration only, and not for division, of the quantity conceived together with the difference, does not depart from the truth, signifying by necessity through number the quantity that is conceived together with the difference; since, as I said, with every difference spoken of in any way whatsoever, a quantity is certainly conceived together with it; and we have been taught that number is by nature declarative of this, but not divisive.

But if he cares more for the truth, he who signifies the quantity necessarily co-conceived with difference through number, for the constitution of the mystery, so that he may not champion a confusion of the united things—how is it not just to think that for this reason one must confess, according to some, the quantity according to essence of those saved in Christ without confusion after the union, since number is naturally fitted to make a declaration of difference, as the argument has shown at length, and not of division? If, then, the principle according to essence of one of the united things remained unchangeable after the union, not falling over to the definition of the essence of the other, it is manifest that the divinity of Christ has remained divinity according to essence, not passing over to the essence of the flesh; and again the humanity of the same has remained humanity according to essence, suffering no change toward the nature of divinity. But if neither the divinity of Christ nor the humanity have passed over into one another because of the union according to hypostasis, but the natures have remained without confusion, according to the great Cyril, then clearly the difference of the natures saved in Christ after the union is established, and no argument will contradict it. But if it is of those saved without confusion in Christ, the difference after the union; and it is altogether impossible for a difference to be known separated from quantity; let quantity be spoken of the things that differ, for the declaration of the difference, so that we may not suspect a difference that is somehow bare and not true, while championing it. For the argument knows every difference to be bare which does not have, existing in reality as a subject, the truth of the things of which it is the difference.

We, then, never properly saying that substance and nature are the same, according to the teaching of the Fathers, as the argument previously set forth above demonstrated, piously in the case of Christ we honor both the same and the different. The one, by the principle of the one hypostasis, according to which we confess that God the Word is the same as his own flesh, so that the all-praised Trinity may not receive a personal addition, becoming a tetrad. The other, by the principle of the essential otherness of the things from which he is, according to which the parts of Christ do not at all pass over into one another. For divinity and humanity could never be the same in essence, so that nothing created should be of the same nature and consubstantial with the divinity through union. Since to say that a nature is consubstantial with a nature

we know to be the mark of a deranged mind. For a nature could never be naturally of the same nature and consubstantial with a nature. For "of the same nature" and "consubstantial" are naturally said only of individuals reduced to one substance according to the same species. THAT HE WHO DOES NOT SAY THAT NATURE AND HYPOSTASIS ARE THE SAME, PIOSLY IN THE CASE OF CHRIST... That he who does not say that nature and hypostasis are the same speaks piously in the case of Christ of both the union and the difference, believing the one to be according to hypostasis and the other according to nature.

Having this confession, we neither deny the difference of the natures after the union, believing that the natures from which the one Christ was composed have remained unconfused; nor are we ignorant of the union according to hypostasis, confessing one Christ of the holy and consubstantial and adorable Trinity. But we also make the difference of those things from which Christ is—being truly preserved in him—evident after the union through number, apart from division and confusion, for the refutation of the confusion of Apollinarius and Eutyches; and since we know the union according to hypostasis, with a clear voice we set forth the one nature of God the Word incarnate, with flesh possessing a rational soul, against the division of Nestorius; equally also fleeing the confusion of Apollinarius, who denies the natural difference of the united things after the union, and who maintains that the flesh is the same in nature as the Word because of the union; and the division of Nestorius, who proclaims a hypostatic difference in Christ, and who cuts apart the identity of the flesh with the Word according to hypostasis.

THAT SEVERUS, SAYING THAT NATURE AND HYPOSTASIS ARE THE SAME, MAKES THE UNION A CONFUSION...

That Severus, saying that nature and hypostasis are the same, makes the union a confusion, and the difference a division; by which he is shown to be dividing the account of the Trinity into a quaternity of persons, and cutting the mystery of the monad into a dyad of divinities, and blasphemously casting Christ out of all substantial existence.

But Severus, saying that essence and hypostasis are properly the same, and nature and person, in the case of the divine incarnation, neither knows the union as unconfused, even if he pretends to say so; nor the difference as undivided, even if he goes through this too with boasting; but he brings about the union as a confusion according to Apollinarius, and the difference as an alienation according to Nestorius. For if hypostasis and nature are the same, in no way according to him will the flesh be the same as the Word or other. For in saying the difference as in natural quality in Christ after the union, he will himself be found dividing the union along with Nestorius, introducing the difference of the flesh from the Word according to hypostasis after the union; since the difference as in natural quality could not according to him be understood otherwise than as a difference in hypostatic quality, if indeed nature is the same as hypostasis. For he is compelled, in saying the difference as in natural quality, also to bring in the difference as in hypostatic quality, in order to show that the hypostasis is the same as the nature. But if he calls the difference according to hypostasis after the union, fearing the division—

Nor let him speak of natural difference after the union, if indeed he has determined to be consistent with himself and has earnestly sought to keep the rules he himself laid down for himself; since he knows that nature and hypostasis are the same as each other, both in definition and in principle. But if in both respects—I mean nature and hypostasis—he has no difference, as Severus thinks, then the flesh is not different from the Word; let it clearly be the same as the same, both consubstantial and co-hypostatic, according to the nonsense of Apollinarius. And if the flesh is consubstantial with the Word, it will also be consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit, and the Trinity will appear to have become a Tetrad; since things consubstantial do not admit of mutual conjunction according to hypostasis. But if the flesh is co-hypostatic with the Word, it will be toward that which is of a different essence. For things co-hypostatic have the principle of essence in relation to each other utterly and entirely different. But if, as co-hypostatic with the Word after the union, the flesh is of a different essence, then Christ will be found divided into two natures after the union, according to Severus; since in his view number certainly possesses the power of division. Thus everything that fights against the truth is easily overturned and easily tripped up by itself. But if, saying that the one nature of Christ after the union is composite, he thinks to attach to it the difference as in a natural quality—first, insofar as it is a composite nature, Christ will be altogether consubstantial with none of existing things; since according to essence and nature Christ is one and only. For nature, as has been said, would never be altogether consubstantial with nature. But being consubstantial with none of existing things, he will be neither altogether God himself, nor indeed man.

Or if indeed he is God, the one who champions this will be a polytheist, since he speaks of God the Father and the Holy Spirit as of a nature that is uncompounded as simple, but speaks of Christ as of a compounded nature, not simple, and he will be shown to proclaim two divinities: one simple, and one compounded. Then, in speaking of the difference as in a natural quality, if he says that the natures of which the qualities are belong as subjects to the different qualities, he himself will be shown to be making a declaration of two natures after the union; and, unwillingly, he becomes an advocate of those things he fought against. But if he says that the difference belongs to bare qualities apart from the things themselves, let him speak also of the union of these. For of those whose difference is after the union, of these plainly is the union; and in a few syllables he has introduced the automatism of Epicurus and the deceptive fantasy of Manes, since Christ is not for him in truth in the realities, but in empty qualities; and Christ will be God in quality only, and not in reality. For immortality and mortality, of which he says there is a difference after the union, are of natures, but are not natures. For where is mortality, when there is no one who dies? Or immortality, when there is no nature which death does not touch? But truly wickedness is illogical, and the appearance of being wise is by nature disposed to become the creator of great folly. And for the prudent it is more profitable to embrace silence toward such people than, by the refutation against them, to be thought to be playing and themselves to be the mystery. Seuerus, then, holding such views about Christ, has died together with his own doctrines.

A Brief Exposition with the Correct Advocacy of the True Confession of the Fathers. A brief exposition with the correct advocacy of the true confession of the Fathers.

But we do not think so, we do not believe so, nor is this the portion of Jacob, says the one who spoke; but we confess that the one Christ, that is, his one hypostasis, was composed from two natures fully possessing the principle of their being, I mean divinity and humanity, and we believe that the natures have remained without confusion and without any division whatsoever after the union. For believing that Christ exists, we confessed that the natures from which he was composed are preserved after the union. And for this reason we proclaim a natural difference in him, clearly observing the parts from which he was composed, because divinity is not the same as humanity in essence; but we proclaim a hypostatic identity, for the flesh is evidently the same as the Word in hypostasis. Knowing, then, the real difference of the natures from which Christ was composed after the union, we do not ignore the identity according to hypostasis; since the parts of Christ differ from one another naturally, but according to the hypostasis of the whole composed of them they do not differ; because it has not appeared that the parts completing the whole differ from one another entirely by the principle of the whole. Confessing, then, that the same one is two natures, we have recognized him as both God and man; since we do not put forward the names as bare and applied to nothing in his case.

Believing that after the union he is in two natures without division and without confusion, we have proclaimed the same one perfect in divinity and the same one perfect in humanity, as a whole in parts. For from the parts of which he was composed, he is known in them as a whole after the union; because Christ has no other manifestation of his being and being saved and being properly spoken of, than the natural permanence after the union of the parts of which he was composed. For not only from these, but in these, and to speak more properly, Christ is these; and we number after the union the things of which Christ consists, not dividing the natures—may it not be!—but making a manifestation only of their difference being preserved after the union. And we confess a union by natural union, that is, true and real, according to Saint Cyril, and we honor the all-holy Virgin as properly and truly Theotokos; not simply, but as having conceived truly and ineffably the very God the Word begotten of God and the Father before all ages, and having given birth to him ineffably incarnate from her. And we speak of the same one's miracles and sufferings, as being evidently one Christ who works the divine and the human things: the divine things in a fleshly way, because through the flesh he put forth the power of miracles by a natural energy (not being devoid of it); and the human things in a divine way, because without natural compulsion, by authority, he willingly accepted the experience of human sufferings. Of the same one are the cross and death and burial and resurrection, and the ascension into the heavens;

From these things, having come down without flesh, he did not change places by moving about—he who is contained by no account in existing things. For he is free from every circumscription; but he appeared through flesh as one who by nature loves humanity, capable of being contained through a true birth from a woman, as he willed, having become ours. Therefore we bring to him, even when he has become flesh, one worship together with the Father and the Spirit.

If, then, with soul and mouth we call the holy Virgin properly the God-bearer, and we confess the union according to hypostasis, and we say that a union has taken place according to a natural union, and we proclaim one Lord and Christ and Son, and one nature of God the Word himself, having become flesh; and we believe that Christ is one of the holy Trinity, worshiped together with the Father and the Spirit and numbered together with them—how is it that we are reviled as dividers by those who are fearless and dare to say all things falsely, merely because of the bare sound of the number, spoken by us only to indicate, as has often been said, the preserved difference of the natures after the union? If, then, number necessarily produces a division of the quantity of things, let someone show this, and we accept the slander as true. But if they only abuse and slander those who proclaim the true faith of the mystery, for the sake of the love of glory by which they are sick, they themselves will give an account to God in the day of judgment, says the divine Apostle, for the things into which they have been carried away in error—they who have completed the long course of the present life. But may those who survive have God changing them and leading them to the knowledge of the truth, of the present

being fought against by them. For thus it is fitting to speak, because of the commandment that bids us pray for those who curse us. I, then, have set these things before you in summary concerning what you asked, O servant of God, for the sake of your full assurance; not holding one thing in my soul, as some of those who take pleasure in Severus prattle, and speaking another to those I meet—do not suppose this, but as I was taught and think and believe, and received from the Fathers, so I speak. And to speak more authoritatively, I bring forth my very thought embodied in words. But if the word is false, may I not attain the blessedness that is there; but may I carry away alienation from the promised good things as the fruit of falsehood. But you, because of my readiness to obey, deem me worthy to be repaid with your prayers, so that Christ our God, the salvation of those who fear him, may heal the wounds of my soul by the power of the mystery of his life-giving sufferings for us; he who alone with the Father and the Holy Spirit is glorified forever. Amen.

SCHOLIA

1. In the definition, he says, the commonality of things that are the same in essence is contemplated. 2. He says that the properties that characterize the composite hypostasis are common to its parts. 3. A precise definition of hypostasis. 4. A definition, that is, an outline of what is enhypostatic. 5. A generic definition of difference. 6. A generic definition of identity. 7. Quantity is called a genus, of which number is declarative. 8. He spoke properly, because their proper definitions do not change into one another. For things whose definition is not one have not one account; and things whose account is not one have a different mode of being; and things whose mode of being is different do not have identity in all respects. Therefore nature and hypostasis are not the same, because the mode and account and definition of being of these is not properly one. So it will be spoken of as hypostasis loosely, and perhaps in relation to something, but not properly.

LETTER 16. To the Same.

16. Of the same author, to the same.

(Though I was being savaged by many lashes of grief over the things that happened through the slander of those who do not fear the Lord, your sacred letter, holy Father, arrived beforehand and consoled me—I who am kept safe by the noble guardian of the virtues, the lord George. It did this both by bringing good tidings of your health, which is longed for by all, and by making known the firmness of your right confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our true God. This confession, confirmed by the testing of sufferings, has been transformed for you into steadfastness, since you counted the adversity of the present life as nothing; its prosperity, which you once had, you held to be easily despised, and you transferred the whole desire of your soul to the things hoped for alone.

Faith and a good conscience are naturally able to characterize this: the one preserving the pious doctrine, stained in no way by false opinion; the other producing a life pleasing to God, set right by the keeping of the commandments. For both are needed—I mean doctrine and life—by one who has earnestly preferred the fellowship of wisdom above all things, so that we may also piously proclaim the mystery of the unchangeable emptying of the God of all for our sake through the flesh, confessing Christ to be truly God and at the same time man: on the one hand being without cause, for his own sake; on the other, becoming later for our sake. He did not set aside what he was because of what he became—for he is unchangeable. Nor did he deny what he became because of what he was—for he is a lover of humanity. For to him alone, who properly exists, was it possible by abundance of power to become, without change and without confusion, what he was not, and for both to remain properly what he was and what he became: the singleness at the summit of his own hypostatic unity not admitting division, because of the difference of the things from which he was composed being naturally preserved in him after the union—since, having been united hypostatically to a flesh endowed with a rational soul, by his miracles he was shown to remain unchangeably what he was; and by his sufferings he appeared to preserve without alteration what he had become; and through both—I mean miracles and sufferings—he granted us both the removal of sin and the grace of deification. And let us honor the calling of grace by a manner of life adorned with the commandments, shaken by no pleasure, nor by any kind of pain whatsoever.

And let us show by what we do or suffer that we are held fast by God alone, who gave himself as a ransom and an exchange for us, having entrusted to him our whole life, both the present and the life to come; as being from him by the principle of our creation, and through him by the manner of our guidance, and into him by the mystery according to grace of the hoped-for deification, we shall attain our end; and let us receive back the ever being well, through what now seems to be woe, showing by what we suffer our disposition toward God that is hidden, in no way altered by any of the painful things that befall us.

Let us not, then, grow faint in afflictions, honored Father, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces proof, and proof produces hope, and hope does not put to shame, having as firm the eternal enjoyment of the good things for which we suffer; but let us bear what happens nobly, looking to Jesus the author of our salvation; who, being true God, willingly accepted death for us; so that suffering we may rejoice, having become united with him, being leavened through death unto resurrection of indissoluble life. Since it is the will of the divine law that we, doing good, suffer unjustly, as disciples of Christ, unto the condemnation of sin; which the noetic serpent, by deceit, brought in, having persuaded man to transgress the divine commandment and to prefer the temporary to the eternal; whom we have received authority to trample underfoot, keeping the guarding grace guarded by the keeping of the commandments;

which is achieved for those who love the Lord by bodily hardship alone, both voluntary and involuntary, through prudent reasoning. Having nailed all your desire to him, you do not perceive grievous things, holy Father, since you have the present affliction conquered by the joy of the things hoped for; may we all attain these things, Christ our great God and Savior distributing them to us as he knows, as each one is worthy, through the intercession of his immaculate and all-holy Mother, ever-virgin, and of all the saints. Amen.

LETTER 17.... TO JULIAN THE SCHOLASTICUS OF ALEXANDRIA... 17. Of the same, to Julian the Scholasticus of Alexandria, concerning the ecclesiastical doctrine of the incarnation of the Lord. (With great joy and spiritual gladness he filled me, the humble and sinful one, and, as it were, with me the whole holy catholic Church of God — the precious letter of my God-protected master, bringing us good tidings of the firm and unchangeable resolve, both of him and of my master with him, lord Christopemptus the most wise Scholasticus, concerning the right and pious and saving confession of our true God in Christ

of faith: the one who for this reason became man, in order to gather the nature of men to himself, and to halt it from being carried away badly toward itself—or rather, from being in revolt and divided against itself, and having no stability, because of the unstable motion of the will in each person. Therefore, all of us, giving thanks to God on your behalf, most honored ones, make supplications unceasingly, even if we are sinners, that he may preserve you unshaken and unmoved for all time in the saving confession of the faith; believing that the Son and Word of God and the Father, having truly become man from men, for men, among men, without sin, was not turned from being God even when he became man; nor indeed has he been diminished from being truly man, having remained what he was, and is, and will always be by nature God; but (being God in essence and nature through himself, immutably by economy for our sake he has truly become man, by the assumption, clearly, of flesh having a rational and intelligent soul. Therefore he is also God by nature and truly the same, as being the same without deficiency in truth in both this and that; since indeed some of the things pertaining to the mystery of his incarnation, that is, of his perfect becoming man, namely the natures brought together for union according to hypostasis, has in no way denied itself because of the union, but keeps its own essential principle and definition, that is, its natural property, unconfused and unchanged in relation to the other after the union. For the union does not destroy the difference of the things brought together into one hypostasis;