Contra Sermonem Fastidiosi Ariani Ad Victorem Liber Unus

Saint Fulgentius: One Book Against the Sermon of the Arian Fastidiosus, Addressed to Victor. Chapter One. When I was reading your letter, dearest son Victor, which contains the sweetest fragrance of faith and charity, with complete delight and eagerness of mind, I found attached the sermon of Fastidiosus, which you sent for me to refute. Upon reading it, I grieved as much for the lost man as I was compelled to shudder at the blasphemer; whom we know, after the Christian faith, after the profession of a monk, after the honor of the presbyterate, which he received in the sight of men but did not have before the Lord, turned away from the path of truth and utterly forgetful of his own redemption, became a slave to fornication and luxury, and from this rejected the service of the divine majesty. Hence it is that, having become a heretic from a Catholic, and bringing forth evil from the evil treasury of his heart, he not undeservedly spews out that sermon, stuffed with the poison of impiety, against the right faith, against Catholic truth, when he rejects the bread of life and, as his name indicates, fastidiously casts away the wholesome food of true faith. In that profane sermon, however, calling us "Homoousians," a name with which the Arians are accustomed to taunt us, he set down these words: "The Homoousians," he says, "asserting an inseparable and individual Trinity, that the Son was not inferior to the Father, nor that the Father, being unbegotten, was the maker of His own Son.

Pay attention, I ask, to these words of Fastidiosus: some are so badly placed that they can never be rightly asserted; others are so impiously spoken by him that they can, if piety is present, be both spoken and heard aright. For that statement by which he thought we were to be reproached—because we speak of the inseparable and individual Trinity—he set forth so badly and impiously that no one could utter it rightly. For who does not see with how great impiety a separable Trinity is asserted by the Arians? The blessed Apostle says concerning us: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or danger, or famine, or persecution, or the sword?" (Rom. 8:35). And a little later: "I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor the present, nor the future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ibid., 38).

CHAPTER II Since, therefore, the blessed Apostle trusts that through the grace of God we cannot be separated from His love, how do they not feel themselves entangled in the deadly snare of impiety, who do not hesitate to proclaim the holy Trinity as separated, when they cannot demonstrate that its works are in any way separable? For in what the Evangelist says of the Son: "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made" (John 1:3); and in what the blessed David sings: "How magnificent are your works, O Lord! You have made all things in wisdom" (Psalm 103:24); and since the blessed Apostle professes Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God, of whom it is said: "Because in him all things were founded in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers, all things were created through him and in him" (Colossians 1:16); it is manifest that all the works of the Father are the same works of the Son, and the same works of the Holy Spirit. For the holy Trinity works inseparably: nor is there any work that the Father has done and the Son has not done, or that the Son has done and the Holy Spirit has not done. For it is written: "The heavens were strengthened by the Word of the Lord, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth" (Psalm 32:6). Also concerning the wisdom which we say was created in the angels, we read written in the book of Ecclesiasticus: "Wisdom was created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from eternity" (Sirach 1:4).

In order to show that by the Word of God, through which all things were made, even the angels were made, holy Scripture immediately subjoined: “The fountain of wisdom is the Word of God, and the entrance to it is eternal commandments” (Ibid., 5). And a little later, to show that the angels pertain to the works of the Holy Spirit, it is said: “One most high creator is omnipotent, a powerful king, exceedingly to be feared, sitting upon his throne and ruling. God created that by the Holy Spirit” (Ibid., 8). What, therefore, will be denied to have been made by the Holy Spirit, by whom the power of the heavens is read to have been established, and whose works wisdom is proclaimed to have created? For also concerning the divine gifts which God bestows upon His Church, when the blessed Apostle was speaking and had said: “Now there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same God, who works all in all” (1 Cor. 12:4); then, after enumerating the diversity of heavenly gifts, he added: “All these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each as he wills” (Ibid., 12). But what in all creatures, in which wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and arranges everything gently (Wis. 8:1), can be found alien from the operation of the Holy Spirit, since Christ, who is the power and wisdom of God, declares that he casts out demons in the Spirit of God? For he himself said: “But if I cast out demons in the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God comes to you” (Matt. 12:28).

How, then, does Fastidiosus deny the inseparable Trinity, when no Christian would dare to deny that the works of the Trinity are the same and inseparable in all creatures? For one God, namely the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, works inseparably. For the Only-begotten of God testifies that his own works are the same as those of his Father, saying: "For whatever the Father does, these same things the Son likewise does" (John 5:19). And yet what the Son does, he does in the Holy Spirit, in whom he casts out demons. CHAPTER III. Lest, however, because we have said that the Son also does whatever he does in the Holy Spirit, the Arians should wish to raise some question of diversity, thinking that he in whom something is done ought to be considered lesser than the one who does it, let them hear our Savior resisting this perversity in every way in what he says: "But he who does the truth comes to the light, so that his works, which are done in God, may be made manifest" (John 3:20). Here let the Arians choose how they wish to understand God named in the Son, whether as the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit? For if they think that the Father is to be understood as the one in whom good works are done by men, they themselves destroy what they blasphemously object against the person of the Holy Spirit. For they will not dare to call the Father lesser, to whom, according to divinity, they are unwilling to proclaim the Son equal.

And so, when a person does good works in the Father, and Christ casts out demons in the Holy Spirit, let them recognize the equality of the Father and the Holy Spirit. But if they say that the Son is to be understood here from the fact that good works are done in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, not only are they compelled to confess that the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal, but they will also confess that the works of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same and inseparable. For the blessed Apostle testifies: "All things are wrought by one and the same Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:12). But if the Arians think of the Holy Spirit, it is necessary that from this passage they be compelled to confess that the Holy Spirit is God. For it does not say "the spirit of the Lord" who makes the truth, so that his works, which are done in the Holy Spirit, might be made manifest; but rather, "which are done in God," which we do not say are done in the Father alone, nor in the Son alone, nor in the Holy Spirit alone, but in the holy Trinity itself, which is one God, we confess that truth is done by a person, in which the blessed David suggests that virtue is performed by the faithful, saying: "In the Lord we will do virtue, and he himself will bring our troublers to nothing" (Ps. 59:14). For he is the one God of whom the blessed Apostle says, "Since from him and in him are all things: glory to him forever" (Rom. 11:36).

CHAPTER IV. How, then, is the holy Trinity said to be separable by the impious, when it operates inseparably, and, as far as can be understood, is not even thought of as separated in spirit, as the truth of the matter demands? For from our God, that is, from the holy Trinity itself, nothing can be locally separated, because the same supreme, true, and good God, just as He made all things, so He contains and fills all things, being immense. He is not, however, corporeal, nor local, and therefore not even corporeal things can be locally separated from God; because every body is in a place, and there is no place without God. For God is contained by no place in such a way that He Himself contains every place; in whom there is no bulk, and whose power is immense. Since, therefore, bodies, which cannot exist without a place, cannot be locally separated from God, without doubt neither can the spirits which God created be locally separated from God. For every spirit which God created, in whatever place it is, there God is: who, although He is not in evil spirits by grace, through which He bestows holy life and blessedness upon whomever He wishes, yet by natural power He is always so present in all His creatures that no creature or particle of a creature can be found in which God is not present by power. That nature, therefore, can be separated from God which could or can be subject to sin. Nor is there any other thing which can depart from God, except a substance which can or could sin by its own will.

For Isaiah says: Behold, the hand of the Lord is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is His ear made heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities divide between you and your God (Isaiah 59:1-2). In the book of Wisdom as well, it is shown that men are separated from God not by places, but by perverse thoughts and unjust deeds. For there it is said: For perverse thoughts separate from God. But proven virtue corrects the foolish: because wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul, nor will it dwell in a heart subject to sins; for the holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the feigned, and will withdraw itself from thoughts which are without understanding (Wisdom 1:3, 4, 5). Here, however, who does not see the Trinity of persons intimated by their properties? For it was said that perverse thoughts separate from God, by which name the person of God the Father is recognized. Then it was added that wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul, by which name Christ is shown, whom Paul calls the power of God and the wisdom of God. Then it was said that the holy Spirit will flee from the feigned, and will withdraw itself from thoughts which are without understanding.

Lest anyone should think that any wicked or impious persons could be locally separated from this holy Trinity, which is one, true, and good God, Scripture speaks a little later thus: "For the Spirit of Wisdom is humane, and it will not free the accursed from his lips, since God is witness of his reins, and true inspector of his heart, and hearer of his tongue. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world" (Wisdom 1:6-7). Therefore, the divine utterances do not cease to profess the immensity of the holy Trinity. The blessed David certainly knew this, and so he said: "Whither shall I go from your Spirit, and from your face whither shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present" (Psalm 138:7-8). Also concerning Wisdom, that is, the Son of God, Scripture says that it reaches from end to end and orders all things sweetly (Wisdom 8:1). Since, therefore, no thing is locally separated from the holy Trinity, which is everywhere whole, but only iniquities and perverse thoughts separate from God, as we have already said, whoever tries to assert that the Trinity is separable must necessarily say that either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit can naturally be subject to perverse thoughts and iniquities.

But who could extricate himself from the snare of such great impiety as to suspect any separation in that Trinity, where there is natural unity, when through received grace, as we have demonstrated above, Paul the faithful trusts that he can in no way be separated from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Moreover, the blessed apostle John confirms both that love is from God and that love is God in these words: "Dearly beloved, let us love one another, since love is from God, and everyone who loves is from God" (1 John 4:7); and "God is love" (1 John 4:16). Love certainly cannot be separated from itself, because it is inseparable. For since it possesses men, who can be separated from one another, not only as inseparable itself, but also makes from many hearts and souls one heart and one soul, what madness it is to call love itself separable, which is accustomed to unite separate minds with inseparable affection? Hence it is that Paul said: "For although I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order" (Colossians 2:5). And in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32); which certainly does not happen except by the spirit of faith and love. For the love of God is diffused in our hearts (Ephesians 4:4). And through that same Spirit it happens that all believers, as the Apostle says, are one body and one spirit.

Hence in another place he says: "For in one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, whether Greeks or barbarians, whether slaves or free, and we have all been given to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). Moreover, that all nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the only-begotten Son of God commanded with his own mouth. CHAPTER V. Therefore, when baptism is given in the name of the Trinity, it causes all the faithful to be baptized into one body, so that by this they all become one body, as the blessed Apostle says, because we are one body in Christ, and each of us is a member of one another (Rom. 12:5). Also, the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul through the charity which is diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Surely it is evident with how great impiety that Trinity itself is said to be separable, when indeed any creature is separated from God not by place, not by time, but only by its iniquities. Hence it is that God says of some: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Matt. 15:8). And yet he himself says: "I am a God who draws near, and their God from afar. If a man is hidden, shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth" (Jer. 23:23-24)? Yet David himself says: "Behold, those who distance themselves will perish before" (Ps. 72:27). And to show what it means to be far from God, he added, "You have destroyed all who fornicate away from you" (Ibid.).

Therefore, one withdraws in heart from God, to whom one also approaches in heart. For it is clear that God is everywhere in his entirety, but is in no way contained in a place. For God is spirit, the creator, certainly, not created, the unchangeable maker of all bodies and all spirits, eternal, immense, just, and good. He never departs from all the things he made through the immensity of his nature. For it cannot happen that from any thing which has its being from God, God himself departs through his power. And yet, through mercy and judgment, by which the Church does not cease to sing to him (Psalm 100:1), it is not incongruously said that he is present to the faithful and far absent from the unfaithful. For as pertains to nature, because everything that is created, whether corporeal or spiritual, the holy Trinity alone, that is, the one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, made with one will, one operation, one power, one benevolence, and one omnipotence: just as the Father fills the whole creation, certainly by power, not by bulk, so the Son fills it wholly, so the Holy Spirit fills it wholly. For the Trinity does not fill the whole creation in such a way that the Father fills a part, the Son a part, the Holy Spirit a part, nor yet is it wholly filled by the Father alone, nor by the Son alone, nor by the Holy Spirit alone.

Who would dare to think thus about the Trinity, that is, about the one God—I do not say a fool, but a completely sacrilegious person—since the power and divinity of God must necessarily be as naturally immense as it is naturally eternal? But men given over to carnal senses cannot think even of God except in a carnal way. And they suppose that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be separated from one another just as men are separated from each other; who, just as they are distinguished by the shape and size of each one's body, must necessarily also be distinguished by places. Such men, while they roll their souls in the flesh, deceived by their own phantasms and weighed down by the burden of vanity, the more they occupy themselves in thinking about those things that present a corporeal mass to the bodily eyes, the less they are able to ascend to an understanding of the divinity. Nor do they heed the command given by the Lord God through the holy Isaiah, that we should not wish to think of Him as we do of the creatures that we know were made by Him; because He Himself does not think as we men think. Hence Isaiah says: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord; for as the heavens are raised above the earth, so are my ways raised above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8).

CHAPTER VI Thus God the Father, and His Word, and the Holy Spirit—that is, the holy Trinity—alone, one, true, and good God, just as there is in Him no thought that varies with the flux of time (for He does not, like men, think one way before He made the world, another way after He made the world, or yet another way after the figure of this world has passed away; because the counsel of the Lord endures forever [Psalm 32:11]), so is He inseparable, just as He is immutable. For the Trinity, one God, is neither a body nor a created spirit; because a body is confined by place, and every spirit that is created is bounded by the measure of its own nature. But the Trinity, one God, just as it is eternal, and no times are coeternal with it, so is it immense, whom no creature can confine; and because it is immense, it is everywhere whole; because it is neither contained by place, nor stretched out or contracted by space. Thus God is wisdom, God is truth, God is love. This the Father is, this the Son is, this the Holy Spirit is, this the Trinity itself is, who is one, true, and good God. If, therefore, anyone can teach that there is any division in wisdom, or in truth, or in love, let him dare without hesitation also to assert division in the Trinity. But if neither wisdom, nor truth, nor love is in any way divided, then from this the Trinity is recognized as indivisible and inseparable.

It is evident, therefore, how great was the impiety of Fastidiosus, who thought we were entirely to be blamed because we confess the inseparable and undivided Trinity: since, of course, as the preceding discussion has taught (which not only reason, but also a sufficient abundance of divine testimonies has strengthened), the immense nature of the Trinity can be contained by no place, nor can any person in the Trinity be subject to sin: because the Trinity itself is naturally eternal, perfect, and of immutable justice. The heretical depravity, indeed, strives to assert that the Son is lesser; but, with piety preserved, Catholic truth confesses Him equal. For heretics, thinking of the incorporeal divinity only in a corporeal manner, when they say that the Son is lesser according to nature, under the image of the Christian name, which they deceitfully put forward, they involve themselves in the nefarious crime of idolatry. For what is it to speak of a greater god and a lesser god in individual persons, except to place idols of a different kind and different power, not on walls, but, what is worse, in hearts? For by this the Arians clearly show that they worship two gods, while they deny that the Son is equal to the Father; and when they assert that He is lesser, not by the assumption of flesh (which the truth of the faith holds), but by the nature of the immense divinity, since it is said of Him, who is the wisdom of God, who is the radiance of eternal light (Wisdom 7:26).

Concerning him it is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Who is the splendor of grace, and the figure of his substance" (Heb. 1:3). But let them attend to the brightness of the eternal light, and acknowledge that, just as that light is eternal and immense, so also its own brightness is naturally neither posterior in any degree nor lesser; but eternity has immensity, immensity has equal eternity. CHAPTER VII. Therefore the Christian faith, which knows the Only-begotten God, both born solely from the nature of the Father and created from the Virgin Mary, recognizing in him that each substance truly remains, so confesses him truly equal to God the Father from God, that it may proclaim him also lesser without the crime of falsehood and impiety. For because he has one natural divinity with the Father, and one natural humanity with the mother, in that the Son is equal to the Father in which he is true God from the Father, and in that the Father is greater than the Son in which the Only-begotten God himself is true man. This, therefore, is the true faith, this is holy piety, this is Christian belief: in one and the same Son of God, both to believe the nature of the Father's divinity and not to deny the substance of the mother's humanity; neither to believe the divinity of the Son diverse from the divinity of God the Father, nor to separate the humanity of the Son from the humanity of the Virgin mother, but in the same true God to believe the true and entire humanity of our race, in the same true and entire man to believe the true and full divinity of the Father's nature.

For he who denies the unity of the Father's substance in the Son is polluted by Arian impiety; but he who denies the truth of flesh in the God the Only-begotten is defiled by the crime of the Manichaean pest; and he who denies in the same Son of God a human, that is, a rational soul, is at once stained by the sacrilege of the Apollinarists. CHAPTER VIII Therefore, when the truth of both paternal and maternal natures in the God the Only-begotten is believed to its fullness, and the natural property of the twofold substance is preserved in the one person of Christ, the Son is piously and truly said to be both equal and lesser than the Father, piously and truly proclaimed both coeternal and later, piously and truly asserted both always born and born in time, both always immutable and changed in time. And thus the Son is equal to the Father, because he always has this from the Father. He is also lesser than the Father, because he received this temporally from the Virgin. Therefore, just as the Son is piously said to be equal to the Father when the humanity by which he is lesser than the Father is not acknowledged, so the same Son is impiously said to be lesser when the unity and equality of divinity with the Father is naturally denied. Therefore we say the Son is naturally equal, and we say he is lesser. We say he was born equal according to the form of God, and diminished according to the form of a servant. We say he is equal to the Father, in whom we recognize him born of the Father without beginning; we say he is also lesser, because when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son made from a mother, made under the law (Gal. 4:4).

Therefore, just as we undoubtedly proclaim him born, so too we undoubtedly proclaim him made. For we say that he was born without beginning from the heart of the Father; we say that he was made in time by the work of the Trinity. For the Father both begot his own Son from his own nature and made him from the nature of the Virgin. But whatever he made, he made with the cooperation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Father alone indeed begot his Son, but he did not make him alone. For in the Only-begotten Son, there is the sole eternal generation of the Father, and in that same Son made, there is one entire operation of the Trinity. For the Only-begotten God, the creator of man, was created as man, and the same one who made woman from man was made man from woman. Hence it appears that the testimonies which Fastidiosus impiously brought forward from the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and Solomon do not remove the unity of the Father's nature from the Son, but rather show the mystery of the divine incarnation. Knowing this most certainly, John the Baptist said: "This is he of whom I said: After me comes he who was made before me" (John 1:15). Proclaiming the truth of this mystery, the apostle Peter says: "Therefore let every house of Israel know most certainly that both that he is God, and that God made this Jesus, whom you crucified, Christ" (Acts 2:36).

He fittingly said that he was made, whom he proclaims was crucified. For God the Only-Begotten, incomprehensible and immortal, made by no one, and the eternal maker of all things, deigned by his own work to become Christ, so that he could be crucified by the work of the Jews; because the cross would by no means have borne the Redeemer of the world when handed over, unless the womb of the Virgin had brought forth the maker of the world when conceived. Therefore he himself, also through Solomon, intimating the truth of his generation and creation, said: "The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways in his work" (Prov. 8:22). But before he said this, he prefaced a clear indication of his future incarnation, saying: "If I announce to you what happens daily, I will recall what is from eternity" (Prov. 8:21, according to the LXX). Then, enumerating, he subjoined: "The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways in his work." This creation is certainly from eternity, not before eternity. For later he says, "Before the ages he founded me"; and a little after: "Before all hills he begot me." Here, what he says, "before the ages," and "before all hills," he intended to signify the eternity of the divine nativity. Both before the ages and after the age is eternity. And thus the eternity of the Son of God before the age has no beginning, just as his eternity after the age has no end.

Thus, placing a past tense for a future time, Wisdom says, "The Lord created me," instead of "He will create me"; and so she spoke as if it were done what was certainly to be done. Just as through blessed David he said: "They dug my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones. But they looked and beheld me. They divided my garments among themselves, and cast lots for my clothing" (Psalm 21:18-19). Therefore, by saying, "The Lord created me," he shows how he was made. And by saying, "They dug my hands and my feet," he shows how he was crucified. Just as this was certainly future, which the Son of God through David sang as if already done concerning his passion, so it was future, which through Solomon the same Wisdom of God prophesied as if already done concerning his incarnation. For Solomon himself said a little earlier: "Wisdom built a house for herself, and hewed out seven pillars" (Proverbs 9:1), which pertains to the origin of the Lord's incarnation. Isaiah also speaks of Christ's passion in such a way that he says what is future as if it were past. For he says of Christ: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before the shearer without a voice, so he did not open his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7). For the very nativity of the Only-Begotten of God, according to the flesh from the Virgin, he not only sometimes predicts as future, but sometimes speaks of as past.

Finally, in a certain place it says: "Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and will bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14). In another place, as if indicating something done and completed, it says: "A boy has been born to us, and a son has been given to us" (Isaiah 2:6). Who, therefore, does not see that everything which was said through the prophets concerning the humanity and passion of the Only-begotten of God was at that time in truth future, just as now it is in truth past? But to show the unchangeableness of the divine plan, it came about that prophetic Scripture speaks in the past tense of what was awaited as future in deed. For God, of whom the prophet here says, "Who has made what is to come" (Isaiah 45:1, according to the Septuagint), wished to relate as already done what had to be done, because things which are done changeably in time, he has established with the unchangeable eternity of his disposition. And so, even in those things in which the effect of the work is not yet present, the disposition of the creator remains firm in eternity. Thus, therefore, the Son of God, when he was to be created by his own work, said that he was created, just as he did not hesitate to say that he was crucified.

CHAPTER IX Moreover, with a perverse heart and a sacrilegious mouth, Fastidiosus, raging, sought to assert from this that the Son is separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit, because it is established that He alone entered the bridal chamber of the virginal womb. Concerning this, it is said in the Book of Psalms: "And He Himself, like a bridegroom coming forth from His bridal chamber" (Psalm 18:6). Then, desiring to strengthen the opinion of his perversity, he did not hesitate to assert even that blasphemy, saying that the Trinity could in no way be separated, since it is established that it is not divided at all. Therefore, did the whole Trinity assume flesh? Did the whole Trinity suffer the injuries of the passions? Did the whole Trinity lie in the tomb? Did the whole Trinity penetrate hell? Did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day? Did the whole Trinity ascend into heaven on the fortieth day? At whose right hand does the whole Trinity sit, or whom did the whole Trinity send the Spirit upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, or to which God could the whole Trinity say on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" or to which Father does the whole Trinity say, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"? Let them say, if they can. But if they cannot say, they destroy themselves with their own darts, who contend that the Trinity is inseparable.

CHAPTER X. Thus far the words of Fastidiosus in that profane sermon are directed against the catholic faith. In it, however, except for those things which he blasphemed to the insult of the holy Trinity, he wickedly usurped almost everything, both preceding and following, from the sayings of others. Finally, everything that he set against the Donatists he stole from two certain letters, in which, when we were established in exile in Sardinia, it was necessary for all to reply to the religious daughter of the Church, Stephania, against the Pelagians and Donatists; they are found inserted in the very same order of words with which that same wicked man fraudulently placed them under his own name. But so that you might not lack knowledge of this matter, I have had two letters, which the aforementioned Stephania sent to us and which we wrote back to her, appended to this little work. So that you may recognize that in that sermon there were only those things of Fastidiosus with which, rushing forth with a blind heart to the injury of the holy Trinity itself, he attempted to attack the catholic truth.

CHAPTER XI. Now therefore, with the Lord’s help, I respond to his blasphemies. The whole Trinity did not assume flesh, nor did the whole Trinity suffer the injuries of the passions, nor did the whole Trinity lie in the tomb, nor did the whole Trinity penetrate hell, nor did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day, and whatever other things there are which are shown to pertain, in that sacrament of the incarnation, to the person of the Son alone. For these things, which Fastidiosus, full of falsehood and perversity, has cast against catholic truth, can truly be cast only against the Sabellians, that is, the Patripassians, in whom indeed those who contend that the holy Trinity is, just as one nature, so also one person, are confuted and convicted and fail. There their perversity consequently hurls them into this absurdity, that they by no means believe in a divine nativity; but they accordingly assign to the Father the nature according to the flesh, and likewise the passion and death, the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven, and all those things which in the sacrament of the incarnation pertain to the person of the one Son. But the catholic Church, divinely inspired, holding the truth of the faith, just as it knows how to assert the one nature of the holy Trinity, so it most cautiously assigns its own to each person. Therefore the Son of God, about to redeem us mercifully, is rightly believed to have assumed alone, because he did not take up human nature in such a way that a single nature of divinity and flesh came to be in him.

For in Christ the divinity could not be what the flesh was, because, with each nature retaining its own property, it could not happen that either of them would either cease to exist or pass entirely into the other by complete abolition. If that were to happen, it would rightly be said that the whole Trinity assumed flesh, when the Son would convert his own flesh into that divinity which we profess remains common to him with the Father and the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER XII. But now, because we say that in Christ there is one divine nature and another human nature, for that reason we believe and confess that the human nature, that is, the flesh and rational soul, was assumed not by the whole Trinity but by the Son alone. For the Only-begotten God assumed flesh and soul into the unity of the person, not into the unity of nature, because the person of the Son is certainly not the same as that of the Father or the Holy Spirit. Therefore the unity of the person, with the property of each substance remaining intact, just as it did not make the person in Christ twofold, so it did not make the assumption of human nature common to the holy Trinity. For the Son of God does not have a person that is one and common with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the same way that he has a nature that is one and common with them.

CHAPTER XIII. It is therefore the property of the Son alone mercifully to have taken on the form of a servant. For that acceptance of the form of a servant pertained to the person of the Word of God, which did not pass into the divine nature by confusion. Therefore, that acceptance of the form of a servant, according to which the Son of God, who is the Lord of all things and in whom dwells the whole fullness of divinity, became true and complete man, took nothing away from his divine fullness, removed nothing from his dominion: because in that one person the divine and human natures remained without confusion. Hence it is that in one and the same Christ, both the truth of the human nature shone forth and the eternal immutability of the divine nature remained. For neither was anything in him diminished or changed, which he naturally had in eternity, by that which he received in time. For he became a servant in habit, but he did not cease to be naturally the Lord of all things. And he became poor according to the flesh; nevertheless, he remained richest according to the divinity. Hence it is that the blessed Apostle asserts that Christians are enriched by poverty, saying: "You know by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he became needy for our sake when he was rich, so that by his poverty you might be rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). But he would in no way make us rich by his poverty if, having become poor, he did not have in himself the riches of natural divinity.

Therefore he became poor according to the form of a servant, but remained rich according to the form of God. Thus the poverty of the servile form is not common to him with the Father and the Holy Spirit; because after the human poverty assumed in the unity of the person, the divine substance remained rich in him. But what was the poverty of the rich Son of God, if not our infirmity and our mortality? Whatever the Only-begotten God endured in infirmity and death according to the flesh, the divinity did not feel. For God sent the Son into the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), in which there was true flesh, but there was no pollution of sin. Therefore that likeness of the flesh of sin was in the flesh of Christ, although that was not the flesh of sin, because it was weak, because it was passible and mortal, because it was subject to wound and subjected to pain. Nevertheless, all these things are common to the divinity and humanity of Christ not substantially, but personally. But the person of Christ is altogether distinguished from the person of the Father and the Holy Spirit. This one person of divinity and humanity in Christ so remains that it neither allows one nature to be separated from the other, nor permits both to be confused. Therefore Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the true life, is the way for us because he had true infirmity in the truth of the flesh; and he is the true life for us because true virtue remained in his true divinity. The Apostle, discerning this, says, "For even if crucified.

Therefore, in one and the same Christ, just as the weakness of human flesh could not give or restore life to itself, because that power of laying down the soul and taking it up again came not from human weakness but from divine power, so the eternity of divine power, to which it is naturally proper to live unchangeably and unfailingly, could experience no weakness or death on the cross. Thus the only-begotten Son of God is recognized as true God born from the Father, and as true man made from a mother, because he both displayed signs of weakness in the truth of the flesh and showed proofs of power in the truth of divinity; showing, that is, in the unity of person that one thing is naturally common to him with us, another with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For with us Christ has a natural communion of soul and flesh; with the Father and the Holy Spirit, however, he has a natural communion of divinity. Therefore, just as the Son of God could not have what belongs to the flesh in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, since he in no way confuses his flesh with his divinity, so it does not prejudice the catholic faith that we believe our nature was assumed in the unity of person by the only-begotten Savior, while we confess that one substance of the Holy Trinity remains.

divine power. That humanity of His the whole Trinity made, but not as the whole Trinity made it did the whole Trinity assume it, because the person, which the Son does not share with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is itself in Christ the one of divinity and flesh. But where any distinction of persons or substances is found, not everything that is found in the communion of the work is always referred to the communion of the assumption. Because this seems obscure, while it is uttered by speech alone, it is better that ease of understanding be provided by a suitable example, as far as the matter permits. CHAPTER XV. I There is indeed a likeness ready for the faithful to know, which God has placed in His own likeness. But this image is the human mind. For it is written that the Lord said: Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). In which statement the Arian heretics are greatly to be lamented, who read the holy Scriptures and do not understand; and, confused by blindness of heart, they do not recognize the natural unity in the holy Trinity, in which they distinguish the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by preaching. Whereas in that testimony which we set forth above, the Trinity itself, which is one true and good God, both shows the unity of its divinity and clearly demonstrates the indication of the three persons.

He said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," lest the unity of substance be denied in three persons; nor did he say, "I will make man in my image and likeness," lest it be believed that in that divine nature there is only one person; but he wholesomely mixed the plural with the singular number, and when we read God saying, "Let us make man in our image and likeness," we define that this which we speak of in the singular is of nature, and in the plural is of persons. Therefore this image, that is, the inner man, is found naturally to have three things within itself: memory, understanding, and will. Memory, then, is the power of the soul by which we remember. Understanding is that by which we turn over in thought those things which memory has conceived. Will is that by which we either desire something or avoid it: that is, by which we are found either to love something or to hate it. These three, although they do not have their own persons in man, yet they are distinct from one another by distinction; and thus in these three there is one person of one man and one substance of the human mind, yet in that same nature of the rational soul, in which the image of God is agreed to be, we find one memory, another understanding, and still another will.

For although we can think nothing, nor love nor hate anything, that we do not hold in memory—because what forgetfulness has removed from the heart cannot be found there by thought or will to any extent—nevertheless, to recognize the distinction among memory, thought, and will, we often recall things that we neither turn over in thought nor desire by will; likewise, we think of some things that we do not love. Our thought, therefore, which is born and formed in memory, is fittingly called the inner word. For what is thought but internal speech? On account of which it is written: "What you say in your hearts and in your chambers, be pricked in conscience" (Psalm 4:5). For also in the Gospel, when the Lord Jesus had said to that paralytic whom he had healed, "Your sins are remitted to you" (Luke 5:20), the evangelist Luke added, saying: "And the scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: Who is this who speaks blasphemy? Who can remit sins except God alone? But when Jesus knew their thoughts, he answered and said to them: Why do you think evil in your hearts?" (Luke 5:21-22). Now what Luke said, "The scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying," Matthew says thus: "And behold, some of the scribes were saying within themselves: He blasphemes. And when Jesus saw their thoughts, he said: Why do you think evil in your hearts?" (Matthew 9:3-4).

Also in the book of Wisdom it is said of certain persons: "They said within themselves, thinking not rightly" (Wis. 2:1). It is therefore clear that to think is the same as to speak within oneself. There, then, one thinks invisibly. Without the noise of a bodily voice, each person speaks what he thinks, which nevertheless he brings to another's hearing only by means of bodily speech. CHAPTER XVI. That word, therefore, which is born from memory, according to the sole nature by which it is found to be born from memory, cannot be brought to the ears of any man without a bodily voice. Hence, so that it may be uttered to others, it is clothed in the habit of a bodily voice. A bodily voice from the mouth is joined to that word. And thus it happens that that word, which was entirely in the mind spiritually, both comes to others through a bodily voice and does not depart from the mind from which and in which it spiritually remains. For it is necessary that it remain entirely in the mind, even when it is entirely uttered in the voice. Nor, however, can we say that the utterance of the word alone is not made by memory or by will. For everyone who speaks both remembers and thinks what he speaks, and for that reason he speaks, because will equally works that utterance together with memory and thought. For to such an extent does a man who speaks knowingly not speak except willingly, that whatever a man is compelled to say unwillingly, he does not say, as long as the will is in no way inclined to speak.

Hence it is that not only those who, now constrained by fear or pain of temporal things, tribulations, or torments, abandoning the truth of the Catholic faith, have crossed over to impiety and perfidy, will be able to find no excuse to say that they denied the true faith unwillingly, since it appears that they did this by their own will. For even if the mind is led by tribulation or torment to deny the faith, it does not, however, deny it unwillingly. For in order to deny the faith, it first thought and willed, and thus brought forth that denial: because for this to happen, thought together with will decreed it. CHAPTER XVII. Therefore, to return to what I was doing, in the image of God itself, that is, in the human mind itself, thought which is born and formed from memory, and is rightly called word, receives only a bodily voice so that it may be heard by bodily ears. Thus, in that holy and divine Trinity, only the Word of the Father, which is the Mirror without stain and the Image of the goodness of God (Wis. 7:26), that is, the splendor and figure of His substance (Heb. 1:3), when it was in the form of God, did not think itself to be seized as equal to God; but emptied itself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7). Therefore, only the Son took on flesh, so that He might be seen by bodily eyes and touched by hands; only He took on human nature in such a way that He made it His own, and through it mercifully poured forth the knowledge of His divinity as well.

He, however, revealing himself, certainly revealed the Father in himself. For by granting knowledge of His own divinity, he at the same time bestowed knowledge of the Father. For the divinity, which is one of the Father and the Son, causes the Son not to be known without the Father, and the Father not to be known without the Son. Hence it is that he says: "I have been with you for so long, and you have not known me. Philip, who sees me, sees also the Father" (John 14:9-10). Thus, therefore, the Son, who alone took on flesh, naturally shows the Father in himself by right of the one divinity; just as a speaker, while uttering the truth which he remembers, indicates what he has brought forth from himself, and shows that this is stored within in the mind. But that corporeal voice with which the spiritual word is clothed, so that it may be brought forth to the knowledge of the hearers, is produced simultaneously by memory, and by thought, and by will; but it is received from thought alone, that is, from the inner word, so that it may proceed to the corporeal ears of those present by the agency of inner thought. Moreover, that word, just as it goes forth entirely to the hearers having taken on the habit of a corporeal voice, so it is found spiritually whole in the heart with memory and will. Therefore, whoever has observed this image in the human mind will more quickly deride the empty talk of heretics, who, thinking carnally about spiritual things, are unwilling to believe that in that holy Trinity anything was done by three persons which was undertaken by one person alone by divine arrangement: since that human nature indeed of the whole...

and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, the work of the Trinity was done, yet it was assumed into the unity of the person by the Son alone. For just as it is certain that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1), so it is certain that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). But what have we received? The Lord's Word and God with whom the Word was, not the Father and the Son. Chapter 18. By the name of the Word, therefore, the distinct person of the Father and the Son is shown; but because He was God, the one substance of the Father and the Son is taught. So we do not attribute to the Father, nor to the Holy Spirit, that flesh which belongs to the Word alone, because with the Word of God there is no communion of one person with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, according to the common operation of the divinity, in which there is a Trinity of persons, just as the Son received it, so the Father and the Holy Spirit received it. For that Son who according to divinity was naturally born alone from the Father alone, it was fitting that he should naturally be born according to the flesh from a Virgin. But in that Trinity, just as there are not two Fathers, nor two Holy Spirits, so there will not be two Sons either. For that Trinity has in itself one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit. But one Father and one Holy Spirit according to the divine nature; one Son, however, according to the divine and human substance. Thus the Trinity is distinct in persons, although in nature the one divinity of the Trinity is not divided or separated.

Therefore, the human nature is found assumed in the person of the Son alone. Thus, according to nature, the operation of the holy Trinity is always one; according to the persons, however, the human assumption belongs to the Son alone. Nevertheless, while we discuss these things for the instruction of the faithful, we must also consider the heretics, who are certainly carnal and animalistic, and for this reason incapable of spiritual matters, concerning whom the Apostle says: "But the animal man does not perceive what pertains to the Spirit of God. For it is folly to him, and he cannot understand, because it is examined spiritually" (1 Cor. 2:14). Moreover, apostolic authority testifies that heretics are especially carnal or animalistic. For the blessed Paul places heresies among the works of the flesh. Likewise, the blessed apostle Judas calls those who separate themselves from the Church animalistic, saying: "These are they who separate themselves, animalistic, not having the Spirit" (Jude 19). This is certainly what we have shown the blessed Paul to have said: "But the animal man does not perceive what pertains to the Spirit of God." Therefore, it should not be surprising that those who do not have the Spirit of God are unable to understand divine things. For it is written in the book of Wisdom: "But who will know your thought, unless you give wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from on high" (Wis. 9:17)? Hence it is that even the holy Apostle asserts that things pertaining to God are revealed only by the Holy Spirit, saying: "For God has revealed to us through His Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:10).

And a little later he says: "But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we may know what things have been given to us by God" (1 Cor. 2:12). Nevertheless, it is good that we, insofar as we are divinely assisted, imitating the blessed Apostle, should strive to become all things to all people, so that we may gain all (1 Cor. 9:22). CHAPTER XIX. Since, therefore, the Arians do not grasp what we have set forth—that in that one divine nature something was done by the whole Trinity which was not taken up by the whole Trinity, nor is it believed possible that the whole Trinity made that flesh which, nevertheless, one person of the Trinity took up—let us become, as the Apostle says (1 Thess. 2:7), like little children in their midst, and let us set before them this example, to nourish the breadth of spiritual understanding, which the narrowness of the heretical heart should neither weary nor disturb. Know that the divine Trinity alone is inseparable and indivisible, whose one nature can neither be divided by a Trinity of persons, nor can the three persons be confused by the unity of an indivisible nature. For even the mind itself, in which we have said the image of God exists, has received this in such a way that it possesses within itself a certain likeness of the holy Trinity, but does not have a distinction of three persons within itself. For this the divine Trinity has kept as its own property.

Just as in a human mind there are memory, intelligence, and will; these are indeed three, but they cannot be three persons: because in each individual human being, in whose mind, or whose mind is the divine image, not only of that mind itself, but of soul and flesh together, one person is found to exist naturally. In creation, therefore, as far as the magnitude of the matter of which we speak permits, seeking an example, we perhaps find something of the kind in natures which we cannot find in persons. For we have said that the whole Trinity made the humanity of the Son of God, which nevertheless not the whole Trinity, but only the Son, received into his own person. For that flesh was made by the whole Trinity, that is, by the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; but only the Word became flesh. Since, therefore, as we said above, as far as concerns creation, we cannot find three persons in one mind, that is, in one flesh, we labor to find at least two natures in one person. For the person of each living human consists of a rational soul and a body: by which, however, many things are done in such a way that, although they are done by soul and body together, they sometimes pertain to the soul alone or to the body alone. For who does not know that the body alone is refreshed and nourished by carnal food, in the consumption of which there is a common operation of flesh and soul?

For the soul acts through the body, indeed together with the body, when the body eats; and yet only the body receives what is taken in, although the soul acts together with the body for it to be taken in. In that eating, therefore, there is one operation of soul and flesh, but the reception belongs to the flesh alone. For flesh alone is nourished by bodily food to such an extent that, if it receives it, it alone grows fat. But the refreshment and fattening of the soul consists not in bodily bread, but in spiritual bread. For man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Yet in the reception of that word, by which the soul is nourished with its own food, the flesh is joined to it in the work. For this happens when the soul applies the bodily ears to words in order to hear, or applies the bodily eyes to scriptures in order to read. Behold, in this too there is a joint operation of flesh and soul, where the reception belongs to the soul alone. Let the Arians see these things in creatures, and let them not doubt that the divine nature of the holy Trinity is one, and that it could have happened—indeed, that it did happen—that that flesh was made by the one and inseparable operation of the whole Trinity, while in the sacrament of the incarnation it pertained to the person of the only-begotten God alone.

CHAPTER XX. Therefore, the whole Trinity did not assume flesh, nor did the whole Trinity suffer the injuries of the passions, nor did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day, nor did the whole Trinity ascend into heaven on the fortieth day; but, as I have shown above, one sole Son assumed flesh: in whom, because a single, unconfused property of each nature remains, therefore he is one and the same who, according to true divinity, remained entirely impassible. For that divinity naturally suffers nothing, just as it is naturally not changed. But it is of a mutable nature to be subject to passions. Therefore, no passion could befall that nature in which natural change could not exist. The Son alone also lay in the sepulcher, but that nature of the Only-begotten God could be buried which could die. Therefore, according to the nature of flesh, the Only-begotten God lay buried in stone, according to which he hung fixed with nails on the cross. For how could his divinity be confined in a sepulcher, which can be confined neither by earth nor by heaven? Therefore, personal unity made that passion and that burial one in Christ between divinity and flesh; but the property of each substance in Christ made only the flesh of Christ naturally subject to passion and death, while the impassibility and immortality of the divine and unchangeable substance remained.

Therefore Christ, who is not the Trinity but one person in the Trinity, truly hung on the cross according to the truth of the flesh, and lay dead in the tomb, as the Apostle says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:5). All these things, which Christ endured in the unity of his person, pertain to the truth of the flesh alone according to natural property. Likewise, according to the soul alone, he descended into hell. For at one and the same time, which is found between the death of Christ and his resurrection, one and the same Christ both truly lay in the tomb according to the truth of the flesh, and truly descended into hell according to the truth of the rational soul. And by this, according to the truth of human nature, from the moment Christ, suspended on the cross with bowed head, gave up his spirit, until he rose from the dead upon receiving back his spirit, he was not where he was according to the flesh in the same place as he was according to the soul. For according to the flesh he lay dead in the tomb; according to the rational soul he descended into hell; but according to the divinity, by which he is one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he filled the whole creation, being immense. Therefore, according to the flesh he was only in the tomb, so that according to the soul he was only in hell; according to the divinity, however, by which he is confined to no place but is everywhere (etc.).

everywhere) is found wholly and ineffably, so he did not abandon his flesh in the tomb, nor did he leave his soul in hell, just as he can never be absent from earth or from heaven. Likewise, the same Son of God, who according to the flesh lay in the tomb and according to the soul alone descended into hell—since he himself had said of his soul: "I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again" (John 10:18)—after he laid down the soul and took it up again, ascended into heaven according to his whole humanity, and sits at the right hand of the seat of God, as the evangelist Mark testifies, saying: "Indeed the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19). All these things, however, which were done temporally in the Only-begotten God—partly according to the soul alone, partly according to the flesh alone, and partly according to both soul and flesh together—just as they are fittingly referred to the one person of divinity and humanity that is in the Son of God, so they can in no way be referred to his divine substance. And by this, none of these things can be attributed to the person of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, because the person of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is not one.

No one can ascribe the passion or assumption of flesh to the Father or to the Holy Spirit, because it is impious to proclaim the divine nature as mutable in any respect or passible: according to which nature Christ, who was always born of the Father without beginning, remained so when he received the beginning of conception and nativity from his mother; and incomprehensible, when he permitted himself to be comprehended; and impassible, when he suffered the injuries of the passion; and immortal, when he was subject to death; and invisible, when he lay in the tomb according to the flesh, and descended according to the soul into the lower parts of the earth; and immeasurable, when he ascended to the height of heaven from the lowliness of this earth. CHAPTER XXI. If wretched Fastidiosus did not deny this faith, without doubt he would not perish. But since he denied it both by deeds and by words, it is not surprising that he became utterly wicked in work, and already perverse in speech, and walking in darkness he stood forth as an enemy of light. For carnal fornication, which first took possession of his mind and flesh, subsequently drew him to the precipice of spiritual fornication. For he took away the members of Christ, and made them members of a harlot. And therefore he did not hesitate to lose the chastity of faith, because he did not grieve to have lost the chastity of the body. Behold how great an evil the lust of the flesh is, which was able to lead that wretched man even to the denial of the truth! This was, this was the tempest which snatched the chaff from the Lord's threshing-floor and fixed it in the briars of heretical impiety.

This made him speak against his own conscience and to turn with perverse speech to the insult of the Trinity itself. For he did not believe what he said to be true, but, already with a double heart, he preferred to say something other than what he believed. Possessed by such despair, that he might himself take away the hope of remission, he wished to fulfill the delights of lust through license. Thus from his mouth, by which he ought to have been justified, he received an increase of condemnation, when his tongue, which ought to have uttered words of penance, brought forth words of blasphemy. Therefore that wretched Fastidiosus preferred to cross over to where he might both bark with sacrilegious impudence against God and, because he had no fear of God, not even fear man in his fornications. Woe to that wretch, who wished to be deprived of ecclesiastical communion so that he could never lack punishment; and who wished to sin without any fear so that he might deserve to burn without end.

CHAPTER XXII. Where now are those two years which Fastidiosus considered fortunate, because he spent them, as he wished, in licentious fornication? How quickly they passed! And even if they had been not only two hundred, but even two thousand, they would have passed with equal swiftness. What will that wretched man do when he comes before the judgment of the one he denied? What will he receive for such deeds and words? What will he receive—that man who was licentious in body, blind in heart, blasphemous in error? He who first violated the temple of God in himself through fornication, then also separated from the Church in body. What will he receive from that undivided Trinity, he who preferred to be a slave of lust and perfidy? What indeed but eternal fire, which is prepared for such works? And in this time, Fastidiosus’s fornication quickly ended, yet his eternal burning in that fire will not end. Therefore, let Christians flee both forms of fornication which wretched Fastidiosus incurred; so that, guarding their souls, they may preserve chastity of both heart and body. Let them hold fast to the Catholic faith within the Church. Let them believe and confess the inseparable and undivided Trinity, which in its divine nature has nothing made, nothing in any way begun; by whose one and inseparable work all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, were made.

Let them nonetheless believe and confess that the Only-begotten is God, born from the Father solely according to true divinity, and created from the Virgin solely according to true humanity; and by this, that the flesh and rational soul were assumed by the work of the Trinity in the unity of the person for the salvation of the world. Holding this most firmly, let them bring forth and persevere in good works. For in Christ Jesus, only the faith that works through love avails (Gal. 5:6); if anyone departs from it, he himself will be the accuser of his own soul. But everyone who perseveres in it until the end, this one will be saved (Matt. 10:22).