THEODORI MOPSUESTENI EPISCOPI FRAGMENTA

Fragments of Theodorus, Bishop of Mopsuestia. I. From the second codex of the fourth book, folio ten, against Saint Augustine defending original sin, and arguing catholicly that Adam was made mortal through transgression. "Since so many things exist which demonstrate that Adam was formed from earth in such a way that he was entirely mortal, I wished to occupy the discourse with the matter of food itself, and, not being able from that to perceive the truth, but rather, for a true dogma, joining a seductive falsehood, he does not say (Gen. 2:17): 'You will be mortal,' but 'You will die by death,' threatening to inflict the experience of death upon those who were already mortal by nature, which experience, according to the custom of his own benevolence, he also deferred from bringing to effect. For just as when he says: 'Whoever sheds a man's blood, his blood shall be shed for it' (Gen. 9:6), he does not say this because whoever kills a man will be mortal, but because he is worthy of being condemned to such a death; so also in the present instance he said: 'You will die by death'—not that they would then become mortal, but that they were worthy of receiving the sentence of death for their transgression. But also pay attention to the divine sentence which God seems to impose upon Adam after the sin.

For thus he says: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I had commanded you not to eat from this alone, from that you have eaten, the earth is cursed in your works; in sorrow you will eat it all the days of your life; it will bring forth thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the hay of the field, and in the sweat of your face you will eat your bread, until you return to the earth” (Gen. 3:17-19). By all these things, however, he threatened that he would have a life full of hardship, thereafter taking with labor the fruits from the earth by which he would be nourished and sustained, no longer having, as before, such great abundance set before him as he enjoyed from the bounty of paradise. For God did not give the tilling of the earth as a punishment, as if transferring men from an immortal nature into mortality, since he also assigned paradise to him to till and to guard. But on account of such great former abundance and pleasure of paradise, he threatens his wretched sustenance from the fruits of the earth. For, made mortal, he then needed the fruits of paradise, just as he now seeks the fruits of the earth, and as a punishment, deprived of his former delights, he is penalized by this most wretched and laborious mode of life. Hence, at the end, he fittingly added: “You who are earth, and will return to the earth” (Gen. 3:19), thereby also signifying the mortality of nature.

For he did not compose this word for the earth as if it were immortal and now for the first time beginning to receive the sentence of death, as the most wise defenders of original sin—or rather, the marvelous fathers of sin—assert; but rather, divine Scripture judged that this name was fitting for the earth from the beginning, as it was naturally made mortal, often using this word for human beings to indicate their corruptible and dissoluble nature. For it says, “He remembered that we are dust: man, his days are like grass, and like a flower of the field, so he will flourish, because the spirit has passed through him, and his place will be no more” (Ps. 102:14). He means that we are all corruptible and dissoluble, like grass that blooms for a little while and soon perishes. For we live for a brief time; then we come entirely to non-existence. Thus also Abraham says, “I am earth and ashes,” as if to say: I am not worthy to speak with so great a God, a man made earth, and destined to be this entirely. Therefore he should rather have said, “Because you will be earth, and you will return to earth,” if indeed the nature were now for the first time becoming mortal.

II. From the second codex, book three, four folia before the end of the book. "But the marvelous defender of original sin could foresee none of these things, since he was by no means trained in the divine Scriptures, nor had he learned the sacred letters from infancy, according to the voice of the blessed Paul (2 Tim. 3:15). But whether declaiming often about the senses of Scripture or about dogma, he frequently and impudently brought forth many inept things, both properly and commonly, concerning the Scriptures themselves and very many dogmas. For fear of his power allowed no one to speak against him, but only those who had knowledge of the divine Scriptures disparaged him easily. Finally, however, he fell into this novelty of dogma, by which he said that 'God, in anger and fury, decreed that Adam be mortal, and because of his one transgression condemned all men, even those not yet born, to death.' But in arguing thus, he is not ashamed nor confounded to think such things about God, which no one, even among those who are sane and have some care for justice, would ever attempt to imagine about men. Nor did he recall that divine voice, that this parable would no longer be spoken in Israel: 'The fathers ate a sour grape, and the teeth of the children were set on edge' (Ezek.

XVIII, 2), showing through these that God does not at all punish one for another, contrary to the error of some, but each will render account for his own offenses. The blessed Paul also adds things consonant with these. "God," he says, "who will render to each according to his works" (Rom. 2:6); and: "Each of us will bear his own burden" (Gal. 6:5); and: "Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ" (Rom. 14:10). But the marvelous man, moved by such great fury on account of one sin, judged that God would subject him to the most atrocious punishment, and would promulgate a like sentence to all his descendants, and among them it is not easy to count how many just men there have been. From these it was especially fitting for him to consider that it would seem very incongruous that Noah, Abraham, David, Moses, and the rest of the innumerable just should be rendered liable to punishment on account of his one offense, and that one approved from the tasting of a tree, and that God should extend his anger so far beyond the measure of justice, so as to cast aside all the virtues of so many just men, and to consign them on account of the one sin of Adam to so great a punishment.

For even if nothing else, at least considering the mind of Abel he ought to have judged appropriately; who, being the first just man, was the first to die. And if indeed God had established death as a punishment for men, how was it not the utmost impiety that the one who was the cause of sin should live, that Eve the inventor of wickedness should also live with him (I pass over the devil, who has so far persisted in immortality), but that the first just man and discoverer of virtue and the first to take care of divine worship should have been struck down before nearly all sinners? But the most wise man ought also to have carefully considered Enoch, who did not die. For he was not endowed with such great virtue or piety that he excelled all others—I mean Moses, and the prophets, and the apostles, and all the rest, of whom the most blessed Paul says that the world was not worthy (Heb. 11:38)—so that, while they died, he alone should persist without experiencing death. But from the beginning God had this determined within himself, that first men should become mortal, but afterwards enjoy immortality; thus he himself arranges things for our benefit. And a little later,

More clearly,” he says, “God showed the same thing when He translated Enoch and made him immortal. For if God had introduced death as a punishment for sin, and had not long before determined this within Himself, dispensing all things ineffably for us according to His own wisdom, then Enoch would by no means have become immortal, nor would the Lord Christ have come to experience death.” And a little later: “For this reason,” he says, “the Lord became the author of all good things for men, so that just as Adam was the beginner of the first and mortal state, so He Himself, being the initiator of the second and immortal state, would first preserve the natural characteristics of the prior Adam, in that He is born from a woman, is wrapped in swaddling clothes, and gradually undergoes the increments of age (for Jesus, he says, advanced in age and wisdom and grace before God and men), in that He undergoes circumcision, in that according to legal custom He stood before God in the temple, is subject to His parents, and is bound over to lawful conduct. Thus also, for the completion of the rest, He finally undergoes death, as a tribute to nature, so that, dying according to the law of human nature, and rising from the dead by divine power, He might become the beginning for all men, who undergo death according to their own nature, that they might rise from the dead and be changed into an immortal substance.

For just as we have all been made conformable to Adam according to the present state, so in the future we shall be made conformable to Christ the Lord in the flesh. For He transfigured the body of our humility to be made conformable to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21), and as the earthly one is, so are the earthly ones, and as the heavenly one is, so are the heavenly ones; and just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, let us also bear the image of the heavenly one (1 Cor. 15:48-49), showing that, having been made partakers of the first state of Adam, we necessarily also obtain a share in the future state of the second Adam, Christ the Lord, according to the flesh, inasmuch as He arose from this same nature, and took up all things that belonged to the nature, and therefore underwent death, so that, by taking up the death of nature and rising from the dead, He might perfect nature free from death. And He indeed took up death, but sin by no means; rather, He remained entirely immune from this. For what was of nature, that is, death, He undoubtedly assumed; but sin, which was not of nature but of will, He in no way took up. But if sin had been in nature, according to the utterance of this most wise man, He would necessarily have taken up sin existing in nature.

III. From the second codex, from the third book, folio eighteen “If,” he says, “God did not know that Adam was going to sin, let this be the wisdom of the wisest men, and this the answer: that it is utterly insane even to conceive of such a thing. It is manifest that He knew he would sin, and for this reason, without doubt, that he would die. How then is it not the height of madness to believe that He first made him mortal in six hours (for that was the time from his creation until the commission of the sin, since he was made from the earth on the sixth day, and, eating contrary to the divine command, was driven from paradise), and then, after the sin, showed him to be mortal? For it is certain that, if He had wished him to be immortal, neither would the intervening sin have changed God’s sentence; because He did not make the devil from immortal to mortal, even though he is the origin of all evils.” IV. From the second codex, from the third book, folio twenty-five.

For,” he says, “He is not going to bestow the resurrection as some great reward upon those who, from Adam up to the coming of Christ the Lord, were involved in such great impieties and iniquities as the blessed Paul expressed in his own words, as has been declared in his earlier statements, if He hands them over to certain punishments without end and without correction. For where will the resurrection be counted as a gift, if punishment without correction is inflicted upon those who rise?” And a little later: “Who,” he says, “is so insane as to believe that such a great good becomes the material for infinite punishment for those who rise, for whom it would have been better not to rise at all than to endure the experience of such great and such evils after the resurrection in punishments that are virtually endless?” V. From the eighth sermon of the Catechesis 2, folio seven. “For,” he says, “if we say that there are two natures in Christ, it does not necessarily follow that we assert two sons or two lords, because to think this is proved to be the height of madness. For all things that are two in one respect are one in another respect; the unity does not destroy the division of each. For I and the Father are one (John 10:30). But because we are one, the property of each is not to be denied. And elsewhere, speaking of man and wife, he says: ‘They are no longer two, but one flesh’ (Matthew 19:6). But because man and wife are one flesh, they are not no longer two, but one flesh; for they remain two in respect of what they are as two, and one in respect of what they are as one.

In this manner, there are here also two natures, but one by conjunction: two natures, because of the great diversity of natures; but one by conjunction, because the assumed [nature] shares an undivided veneration with the one who assumes it, just as his temple remains undivided. For all things that are called two then maintain the usage of two when one is believed to be indifferent to the other, according to which they receive the name and enumeration of two. For example: Divine Scripture commemorates four beasts (Dan. 7, seq.), a bear, a leopard, a lion, and another which surpasses these in savagery, and they are four because each beast is proven to be nothing less in substance than the other beasts. "The testimony of two men is true" (John 8:17), because each is the same in nature as the other. Likewise, "No one can serve two masters" (Matt. 6:24), because each master is nothing less a master to the one offering service; so also here, if each were son and lord according to substance, they could in some way be called two sons and two lords according to the number of persons.

Since indeed here one exists as son and lord according to substance, while the other is shown to be neither son nor lord according to essence, but is known to have shared in the same by the conjunction made with him, for this reason we speak of one son and lord, understanding principally as son and lord the one who is believed and called truly both according to substance; but also embracing in thought that one who is inseparably joined to him, and through the ineffable union with him is considered a partaker of son and lord. Thus, wherever divine Scripture mentions this son who was taken up, we say that he is called son by relation to the one receiving, according to the unity. For when it says, “Concerning his son, who was born to him from the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3), it does not yet speak of the Word, but of the assumed form of a servant. For God is not according to the flesh, nor was God born from the seed of David, whom blessed Paul clearly calls son. We understand him as son, not because he is called son in himself, but because by that conjunction which he has with the one who is truly son, he is so named.

The Creator took pity on his lost creature, and without any mingling forms the infant, leads him to manly age, suggesting the likeness of nature by the process of growth according to the measure of credulity, but secretly existing as joined to him: he was not absent when he was being formed, he was not divided when he was being born, joined and present to him when speaking, persisting in his actions, and there preserving his connection without sin. VI. From the fifth book of the Commentary on Creation. "Therefore neither did he bring death upon men unwillingly and against his own judgment, nor did he give entry to sin for no benefit, nor indeed could he not do this, being unwilling: but because he knew it was useful for us, and more so for all rational beings, that first there should be entry for evils and worse things, but afterwards these should be wiped out and better things introduced: therefore God divided creation into two states, the present and the future; in the latter he would lead everything to immortality and immutability, while in the present he meanwhile dismisses creation to death and mutability: for if he had made us immortal and immutable from the very beginning, we would have no difference from irrational beings, not knowing our own good. For being ignorant of mutability, we were ignorant of the good of immutability; not knowing death, we did not know the gain of immortality; being ignorant of corruption, we did not praise incorruption; not knowing the burden of passions, we did not marvel at impassibility.

To speak concisely, lest I make a long discourse: not knowing the experience of evils, we could not merit the knowledge of those goods.