Epistola Juli Episcopi Romani ad Dionysium Alexandrinum Episcopum

Letter of Bishop Iulius of Rome to Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria. (Coust. App. p. 61.) I. I am astonished when I hear some confess the Lord as God incarnate, yet fall into that division which the Paulianists perversely introduced. For those who are devoted to Paul of Samosata say that one is from heaven, confessing him as God, but another is from earth, affirming him as man; and that one is uncreated, the other created; that one is eternal, the other of yesterday; that one is Lord, the other servant: acting impiously, whether they adore him whom they call servant and created, or whether they do not adore him who redeemed us with his own blood. But those who confess that God who is from heaven took flesh from the Virgin, and is one with the flesh, vainly stir up tumults, babbling things that smack of their impiety. II. For they themselves also say, as I hear, two natures, although John clearly shows one Lord, saying, The Word was made flesh, and Paul, when he says, One Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things. If, therefore, he who was born of the holy Virgin is called one, and the same is he through whom all things were made, there is one nature: since having one person, he is not divided into two, because body is not his own nature, as deity is his own nature through the incarnation; but just as man is one nature, so also Christ was made in the likeness of men.

If they do not at all acknowledge that which is one according to the union, they can also divide that which is one into many parts and speak of many natures; for the body is multiform, since it consists of bones, sinews, veins, flesh, skin, nails, hair, blood, and breath, all of which differ among themselves, yet the nature of man is one. Therefore the truth of the divinity is also with the body, and is not divided into two natures. For it would not be right to call that which descended from heaven the Son of man, and that which was born of a woman the Son of God, if it admitted a division of two natures: but that which descended from heaven would be called Son of God, and not of that man; it can be said that the Word became flesh, because the person of the flesh in no way took up the nature of the Word. But that which was born of a woman would be called Son of man, not Son of God. And this is consistent with the Paulianist division.

III. But we are taught by divine Scripture, and when we hear of both the descent from heaven and the birth on earth from a woman, we understand both to be spoken of one Lord. Therefore those who understand thus should not go so far as to use the words of those who think otherwise, nor speak perversely with their mouth while thinking rightly in their mind. For those who speak of two natures must necessarily adore one and not adore the other; be baptized into the divine and not be baptized into the human. But if we are baptized into the death of the Lord, we confess one nature of the impassible divinity and the passible flesh, so that in adoring God, one who adores God will be found to adore the same, and our baptism is accomplished into the death of the Lord. IV. Indeed, we do not fear that slanderers will divide the Lord into two persons, if they curse us for asserting the evangelical and apostolic union, as if we were saying that the flesh came from heaven. For neither, when we say that the Son of God was born of a woman, can we be blamed, as if we were saying that the Word is from the earth and not from heaven. But we say both: from heaven entirely on account of the divinity, and from a woman entirely on account of the flesh, not knowing any division of the one person, nor severing the earthly from the heavenly or the heavenly from the earthly; for such a severance would be impious.

Therefore, let those who speak of two natures give no cause or occasion for division: for the body is not a nature in itself in the one Christ, because it is not life-giving through itself, nor can it be cut apart and separated from the life-giving Word; nor, again, is the Word divided in itself into its own nature, which it has according to that which is without flesh; since the Lord is in the flesh, and has not dwelt in the world without flesh; nor does the created body separate from the uncreated divinity, so that one might separate the created nature; for the uncreated Word has not sojourned among us without a body, that one might divide the nature of the uncreated. But if each is one according to union, conjunction, and composition endowed with human form, a single name also befits the composite, which indeed has from the divinity that it is without passion, from the body that it is subject to passion. And just as when we hear Paul, who calls Christ passible, we do not take it divisively, nor do we consider the divinity passible; so also ‘created’ and ‘servant’ are not said divisively, nor do they make the divinity created or of servile nature. And again, ‘uncreated’ neither makes the flesh uncreated, nor is it said separately of the divinity alone.

V. Those who think thus should remain quiet, avoiding superfluous questions, lest we disagree in our opinions because of words. By common consent, therefore, it is agreed and confessed that the body is from the Virgin, the divinity from heaven; the body was formed in the womb, the divinity is uncreated and eternal, so that when the Word is united to the body, the divinity remains undivided. But if it is customary for Scripture to call the whole both God and also man, let us also follow the divine voices, and not divide what is undivided; neither separating the divinity from the body, as if we then speak better when the body is said to have been formed from the womb; nor dividing the body from the divinity, as if confessing the presence when the uncreated divinity is glorified. VI. How, then, is it not to be lamented that those who rightly confess or think these things, as they have also received them handed down from their elders, disagree with each other because of words? When some use the name of the body when speaking of the Word, as John says the Word was made flesh; others, however, take the name of divinity when the whole is the subject of their discourse, as Paul: I say, moreover, the last Adam into the life-giving spirit. According to the flesh, Christ confesses that he worships the Father, saying: We worship what we know, and the divinity is not divided. He is worshipped according to the divinity, and the body is not separated when we worship the divinity.

We do not separate the body from the divinity (for that cannot be), when we adore that body as having suffered death; nor is the divinity separated, for it is united, since it was necessary that death be conquered by God, and it was conquered. VII. But admonish those who vainly disagree in these questions, and let consensus be preserved in doctrine, lest we dissent because of words. For it is impious to differ in doctrine and to feign concord in words; but for those who agree in doctrine to disagree because of terms is vain and foolish. Moreover, holding this concordantly—namely, that Christ is God incarnate, and that he is from heaven and from earth, the same in form as a servant and in power as God—let them remain in concord, and not vainly disagree, nor fall into the verbal strife familiar to heretics, but rather emulate the simplicity of the Church. Farewell.