Ad eos qui in Euphratesia et Osrhoena regione

154. Theodoretus to the monks in Euphratesia, Osrhoene, Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia. Seeing the present condition of the Church, and the storm that has recently risen against the sacred ship, the violent squalls, the assault of the waves, the deep darkness, and in addition to these the strife of the sailors, the battle of those who have been assigned to row, the drunkenness of the helmsmen, and in a word the untimeliness of the evils, I am reminded of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and with him I cry out: "My belly, my belly aches, and the perceptions of my heart—my soul is agitated, my heart is torn asunder," and I seek fountains of tears, so that by the streams of my eyes I may dispel the great cloud of despondency. For in such a wild storm it is necessary that the helmsmen be wakeful, and fight against the surge, and care for the safety of the vessel; and that the sailors, ceasing from their strife against one another, dissolve the dangers by prayer and skill; and that the passengers sit quietly, and not quarrel with one another or with the helmsmen; and that they beseech the Master of the sea, that by a nod he may change the gloomy circumstances. But none of these is willing to do anything; as in a night battle, ignoring one another and abandoning the enemies, we expend all our missiles against ourselves, and wound our own kindred as if they were foes; while those standing nearby laugh at our drunkenness, and take delight in our misfortunes, and rejoice seeing us being consumed by one another.

The authors of these things are those who, having striven to corrupt the apostolic faith, dared to impose an alien teaching upon the evangelical doctrines; and who, having received the impious chapters—which they sent with anathemas to the imperial city—and, as they thought, confirmed them with their own subscriptions, which clearly spring from the bitter root of Apollinarius. This teaching also partakes of the impiety of Arius and Eunomius; and if one should wish to examine it accurately, it is not without a share in the impiety of Valentinus and Marcion. For in the first chapter it rejects the economy that took place for our sake, teaching not that God the Word assumed a human nature, but that He Himself was changed into flesh; and it dogmatizes that the incarnation of our Saviour took place by semblance and illusion, not in truth. These are the offspring of the impiety of Marcion, Manes, and Valentinus. In the second and third chapters, as if forgetting what it set forth in the prologue, it introduces the union according to hypostasis, and a conjunction according to natural union, teaching through these terms that some kind of mixture and confusion of the divine nature and the form of a servant has taken place. This is a product of the heretical innovation of Apollinarius. In the fourth chapter it forbids the distinction of the evangelical and apostolic utterances, and does not allow, according to the teachings of the orthodox Fathers, that the divine utterances be understood of the divine nature, while the lowly and humanly spoken ones be attributed to the assumed humanity.

And so from this it is possible to discern the kinship of impiety among those who think rightly. For Arius and Eunomius, asserting that the only-begotten Son of God is a creature, from non-being, and a slave, have dared to attach to His divinity the things spoken humbly and humanly by the Lord Christ, thereby constructing the heteroousion and the anomoion. In addition, to speak concisely, they proclaim that the impassible and immutable divinity of Christ itself suffers, is crucified, dies, and is buried. This, moreover, goes beyond even the madness of Arius and Eunomius; for not even those who dare to call the Creator and Demiurge of all a creature have drifted into this impiety. He also blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, saying that it does not proceed from the Father, according to the Lord’s saying, but has its existence from the Son. And this is the fruit of the seeds of Apollinarius; it also borders on the evil cultivation of Macedonius. Such are the offspring of the Egyptian, truly more evil progeny of an evil father. These things, which ought either to have been aborted while gestating or destroyed immediately upon birth by those entrusted with the healing of souls, as deadly and poisonous to our nature, these noble men nurture and deem worthy of great zeal, to the ruin of themselves and of those who endure lending them their ears. But we strive to keep the ancestral inheritance inviolate, and we preserve the faith which we received, with which we were baptized and with which we baptize, untouched and undefiled.

And we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and a body, born from the Father before the ages according to his divinity, and in the last days for our sake and for our salvation from Mary the Virgin; the same being consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, and consubstantial with us according to humanity. For a union of two natures has taken place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; for we neither dissolve the union, nor do we believe it to have occurred without distinction, obeying the Lord who says to the Jews: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it.” But if a mixture and confusion had occurred, and one nature had been produced from both, he ought to have said: “Destroy me, and in three days I will be raised.” But now, showing that the God is one thing by nature and the temple another, yet Christ is both, he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it,” clearly teaching that it was not the God who was destroyed, but the temple. And the nature of the latter underwent dissolution, while the power of the former raised what was dissolved. And we confess Christ as God and man, following the divine Scriptures. For that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, the blessed John the Evangelist proclaims: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this one was in the beginning with God; all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing that came into being came into being.” And again:

The true light, which illumines every man coming into the world." And the Lord himself clearly teaches, saying: "He who has seen me has seen my Father." And: "I and the Father are one; and I am in the Father, and the Father is in me." And the blessed Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Who is the radiance of the glory and the character of his hypostasis, bearing all things by the word of his power." And in the Epistle to the Philippians: "Let this be thought among you, he says, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God; but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." And in the Epistle to the Romans: "Whose fathers and from whom Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed unto the ages. Amen." And in the Epistle to Titus: "Receiving the blessed hope and epiphany of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." And Isaiah cries out, that "A child was born to us, a son was given to us, whose beginning is upon his shoulder, and his name is called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counselor, mighty God, ruler, prince of peace, Father of the coming age." And again: "Behind you, he says, they will follow bound in handcuffs, and in you they will pray, because in you there is God, and there is no God but you. For you are God, and they did not know, God of Israel the Savior." And the name Emmanuel signifies both God and man, for it is interpreted, according to the teaching of the Gospel, as "God with us," that is, God in man, God in our nature.

And the divine Jeremiah also foretells, saying: "This is our God; no other shall be compared to him; he discovered every path of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After these things he appeared on the earth and lived among men." And one could find countless other voices from the divine Gospels and the apostolic writings, and from the prophetic oracles, showing that our Lord Jesus Christ is true God. But that he is also called man after the incarnation, the Lord himself teaches, speaking to the Jews and crying out: "Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?" And the blessed Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians, says: "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man." And showing of whom he speaks, he interprets what was said, speaking thus: "For just as in Adam they die, so also in Christ all will be brought to life." And writing to Timothy he similarly says: "One God, one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." And in the Acts, speaking in Athens: "God, then, overlooking the times of ignorance, now commands all everywhere to repent, inasmuch as he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness, through the man whom he appointed, having given faith to all, raising him from the dead." And the blessed Peter, speaking to the Jews, says: "Men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus the Nazarene, a man demonstrated by God to you through signs and wonders, and through the powers which God performed through him. And the prophet Isaiah also, foretelling the sufferings of the Lord Christ, whom he shortly before named God, calls him a man, saying: "A man being in a plague, and knowing how to bear weakness; this one bears our lawlessness, and is pained on our behalf." And I would have collected other harmonious testimonies from the Holy Scripture and placed them in the letter, if I were not aware that your piety has the study of the divine oracles as its life, according to the man blessed in the Psalms. Therefore, leaving the collection of testimonies to your diligence, I will proceed to the matters at hand. So we confess our Lord Jesus Christ as true God and true man, not dividing the one into two persons, but believing that two natures are united without confusion. For in this way we will be able to refute easily the manifold blasphemy of the heretics; the error of those who have risen against the truth is great and varied, as we will immediately show. For Marcion and Manes say that the God Word did not assume human nature, nor have they believed that our Lord Jesus Christ was born from a Virgin; but they say that the God Word himself

was formed into human form and appeared as a man, using illusion rather than truth. Valentinus and Bardaisan accept the birth but deny the assumption of our nature, saying that the Son of God used the Virgin as a kind of pipe. Sabellius the Libyan, and Photinus, and Marcellus the Galatian, and Paul of Samosata say that a mere man was born from the Virgin, and they explicitly deny that Christ is the pre-eternal God. Arius and Eunomius say that the God Word assumed only a body from the Virgin. Apollinarius adds to the body also an irrational soul, as if the incarnation of the God Word occurred for the sake of irrational beings, not for rational ones. The teaching of the apostles, however, teaches that a perfect man was assumed by a perfect God. For the verse, "He who exists in the form of God took the form of a servant," makes this clear; for form stands in place of nature and essence. It shows that, having the nature of God, he took the nature of a servant. Therefore, when debating with the first inventors of impiety, Marcion, Mani, and Valentinus, we strive to demonstrate from the divine Scriptures that the Lord Christ is not only God but also man. And making clear to the ignorant the incompleteness of Arius, Eunomius, and Apollinarius concerning the economy, we declare from the divine oracles of the Spirit that the nature assumed is perfect.

We refute the impiety of Sabellius, Photinus, Marcellus, and Paul, using divine Scripture as witness and showing that the Lord Christ is not only a man but also a pre-eternal God, consubstantial with the Father. For that he assumed a rational soul, the Lord himself teaches, saying: "Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this reason I came to this hour." And again: "My soul is deeply grieved unto death." And elsewhere: "I have authority to lay down my soul, and I have authority to take it again; no one takes it from me." And the angel said to Joseph: "Take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel; for all who seek the child's soul have died." And the evangelist says: "Jesus advanced in age, wisdom, and grace before God and men." Now it is not the ever-perfect divinity that advances in age and wisdom, but the human nature, which comes to be, grows, and is perfected over time. For this reason we affirm that all the human aspects of the Lord Christ—I mean hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleep, timidity, sweat, prayer, ignorance, and all such things—belong to our firstfruits, which the God Logos assumed and united to himself, working out our salvation. But the running of the lame, the resurrection of the dead, the springs of loaves, the transformation of water into wine, and all the other miracles we believe to be works of divine power.

As the same one, I mean the Lord Christ, both suffers and resolves sufferings: suffers according to the visible, resolves sufferings according to the ineffably dwelling divinity. The history of the holy Gospels clearly reveals this. And we learn from there that, lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, he was proclaimed by a star, worshipped by magi, and hymned by angels; and we piously distinguish that the rags, swaddling clothes, the poverty of the bed, and the great lowliness are proper to the humanity. But the journey of the Magi, the guidance of the star, and the chorus of angels proclaim the divinity of the hidden one. Thus he flees into Egypt, and by flight escapes the madness of Herod; for he was a man. But he shakes, according to the Prophet, the hand-made idols of Egypt; for he was God. He is circumcised and keeps the law and offers purificatory sacrifices; for he sprouted from the root of Jesse. And he was under the law as a man; and he later dissolved the law and gave the new covenant; for he was a lawgiver, and he promised through the prophets that he himself would give it. He was baptized by John; this shows our [human] side. He is witnessed from above by the Father and shown by the Spirit; this proclaims the pre-eternal one. He hungered, but also fed many thousands from five loaves; this is divine, that human. He thirsted and asked for water, but he was a spring of life; and the one was of human weakness, the other of divine power. He slept in the boat, but also calmed the storm of the sea.

This belongs to the passible nature, that to the active and creative nature and the one that has granted being to all. He grew weary from walking, but also made the lame straight-limbed, and raised the dead from their tombs; and the one was of the supercosmic power, the other of our weakness. He feared death, and he dissolved death; and the one is indicative of the mortal, the other signifies the immortal, or rather the life-giving. He was crucified, according to the blessed Paul, from weakness; but he lives from the power of God, according to the same. Let the name of weakness teach not that the all-powerful, and boundless, and unchangeable and immutable was nailed, but that the nature, given life by the power of God, according to the Apostle's teaching, died and was buried; both belong to the form of the servant. He shattered bronze gates and broke iron bolts, and destroyed the dominion of death, and in three days raised up his own temple; these are the marks of the form of God, according to the Lord's saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Thus in the one Christ, through the sufferings we behold the humanity, through the miracles we understand his divinity. For we do not divide the two natures into two Christs. And we know that the God Word was born from the Father, and from the seed of Abraham and David our first-fruits was assumed. Whence also the blessed Paul says, discoursing about Abraham:

He did not say, 'And to your seeds,' as in the case of many, but as in the case of one, 'And to your seed,' which is Christ." And writing to Timothy, "Remember, he says, Jesus Christ risen from the dead, from the seed of David, according to my Gospel." And writing to the Romans: "Concerning his Son, he says, who was born from the seed of David according to the flesh." And again: "Whose fathers and from whom Christ is according to the flesh." And the evangelist: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham." And the blessed Peter in the Acts: "David, he says, being a prophet, and knowing that God swore to him by oath that he would raise up Christ from the fruit of his loins and seat him upon his throne, spoke beforehand concerning his resurrection." And God says to Abraham: "In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed." And Isaiah also: "A rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will rise from the root, and upon it will rest a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and piety, a spirit of fear of God will fill it." And a little later: "And it will be, he says, the root of Jesse and the one who rises to rule over nations; upon him nations will hope.

and his resting place will be honor." It is clear, then, from what has been said, that Christ was, on the one hand, a descendant of Abraham and David according to the flesh, and possessed the same nature as them, but according to divinity, He is the pre-eternal Son and Word of God, ineffably and superhumanly begotten from the Father, and co-eternal as radiance, image, and Word. For just as word is inseparably related to mind, and radiance to light, so the only-begotten Son is to His own Father. We therefore say that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God and the firstborn: only-begotten both before the incarnation and after the incarnation; firstborn after the birth from the Virgin. For the name "firstborn" seems in a way contrary to "only-begotten," because "only-begotten" is said of one who is the sole offspring of someone, while "firstborn" is the first of many siblings. But the divine Scriptures say that only the Word of God was begotten from the Father. And the only-begotten becomes also firstborn by taking up our nature from the Virgin, and deigning to call those who have believed in Him brothers; so that He is the same, only-begotten as God, and firstborn as man. Thus, confessing the two natures, we worship the one Christ and offer Him a single adoration. For we believe that the union occurred from the very conception in the holy womb of the Virgin. Therefore we call the holy Virgin both Theotokos and anthropotokos. Since the Lord Christ Himself is called both God and man by divine Scripture.

And Emmanuel also proclaims the union of the two natures. If we confess and say that Christ is God and man, who is so foolish as to flee the phrase "bearer of the human," placed alongside "Theotokos"? For in the Lord Christ we place the two appellations; therefore the Virgin has been honored and called blessed. Who then, being of sound mind, would refuse to name the Virgin from the names of the Savior, she who is honored by the faithful on account of him? For it is not he who is from her that is venerable because of her, but she is adorned with the greatest appellations because of him who is from her. If, then, Christ is only God, and he took his beginning from the Virgin, from this alone let the Virgin be named and called Theotokos, as having given birth to God by nature. But if Christ is both God and man, and the one was always (for he did not begin to be, being coeternal with the begetter), while the other sprouted from human nature in the last times, let him who wishes to teach weave the appellations for the Virgin from both sides, showing which belong to nature and which to the union. But if someone wishes to speak in a panegyrical manner, and to weave hymns, and to go through praises, and desires necessarily to use the more august names, not teaching as I said, but celebrating and marveling as is fitting at the magnitude of the mystery, let him enjoy his desire, and let him use the great names, and let him praise and marvel. For we find many such things among the orthodox teachers; but let moderation be honored everywhere.

I praise the one who said that moderation is best, even if he is not of our flock. This is the confession of the ecclesiastical faith; this is the dogma of the evangelical and apostolic teaching. For this we will not refuse to die three times and many times, with the grace of God, of course, assisting. We have been eager to teach these things also to those who are now wandering, and we have often invited them to a discussion, striving to show them the truth, and we have not persuaded them. For, suspecting the obviousness of the refutations, they fled from the contests; for falsehood is truly rotten, and yoked to darkness. "For everyone," he says, "who does base things does not come to the light, so that his works may not be revealed by the light." Since, therefore, after much labor we have not persuaded them to recognize the truth, we have returned to our own Churches, both disheartened and rejoicing: the former because of the corruption of our members, the latter because of our own freedom from error. Therefore I entreat your holiness to earnestly beseech our philanthropic Master, and to

Cry out: "Spare, O Lord, your people, and do not give your inheritance up to reproach. Shepherd us, O Lord, that we may not become as in the beginning when you did not rule over us, nor was your name invoked over us. See, O Lord, that we have become a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us; because evil dogmas have entered the inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple, because the daughters of the foreigners have rejoiced at our misfortunes. Because we who formerly were of one mind and one voice have been divided into many tongues. Our God, O Lord, give us the peace which we have lost, having neglected your commandments. O Lord, we know no other besides you; we name your name; make both one, and dissolve the partition wall of the fence, the impiety that has sprung up. Gather us one by one, your new Israel, building Jerusalem and gathering the dispersions of Israel. Let us become again one flock, and let us all be shepherded by you; for you are the good shepherd, who has laid down your life for the sheep. Awake, why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise and do not reject us utterly; rebuke the winds and the sea; and give calm to your Church and deliverance from the waves." These things and suchlike I entreat your piety to cry out to the God of all; for being good and philanthropic, and always doing the will of those who fear him, he will hearken to your supplication and the present...

the darkness more gloomy than the Egyptian plague, and will grant his own beloved calm, and will gather the scattered, and will receive those who have been thrust aside. And again a voice of rejoicing and salvation will be heard in the tents of the righteous. Then we too will cry out to him: "We rejoiced because of the days you humbled us, because of the years in which we saw evils." And you, having obtained your request, will hymn him and say: "Blessed is God, who did not turn away our prayer, nor his mercy from us. To him is the glory for ever. Amen.