Nestorii Epistolae Tres

I. THE THREE LETTERS OF NESTORIUS. a. LETTER I Nestorius to Pope Coelestinus of the one Rome. We owe each other fraternal conferences, as if (with true concord among us, according to the Scriptures, prevailing) we were to fight against the devil, the enemy of peace. To what purpose this preamble? Certain men—Julianus, Florus, Orontius, and Fabius—calling themselves bishops of the Western regions, have often approached the most pious and most renowned emperor, and have bewailed their own causes, as if they were orthodox suffering persecution in orthodox times. They have often lamented the same things before us as well, and, though often rejected, they have not ceased to do the same, but persist day by day, filling the ears of all with tearful voices. We have indeed addressed them with the words that were fitting, since we were ignorant of the true state of their affair; but because we need a clearer knowledge of their causes, lest our most pious and most Christian emperor suffer annoyance from them so often, and lest we, ignorant of their causes, be divided concerning the defense of the matter, deign to grant us knowledge of them; lest some, in ignorance of the justice of the truth, be disturbed by untimely commiseration, or lest they judge the canonical indignation of Your Beatitude, which has perhaps been approved against them on account of religious sects, to be something other than it is. For novelty of sects merits no defense from true pastors.

Therefore we also, finding here among some a not insignificant corruption of orthodoxy, daily employ both anger and gentleness toward the sick. For the illness is not slight, but akin to the rottenness of Apollinaris and Arius. They indiscriminately confuse the Lord’s union in man with a kind of blending of mixture, to such an extent that even some clerics among us—some from inexperience, others from heretical fraud long concealed within them (of which many instances also occurred in the times of the apostles)—are sick as heretics and openly blaspheme, saying that God the Word, as if He had taken the beginning of His origin from the Virgin, was built together with His temple and buried with the flesh; and they say that this same flesh did not remain after the resurrection, but passed into the nature of the Godhead. To put it briefly, they refer the Godhead of the Only-Begotten both to the origin of the joined flesh and cause it to die with the flesh; but they blasphemously claim that the flesh joined to the Godhead passed over into the Godhead, using even the very word “deification,” which is nothing other than to corrupt both.

But some have now dared to call her Virgin; yet they do not shrink from this name, when those holy Fathers, beyond all preaching, at Nicaea are read to have said nothing more about the holy Virgin than that our Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary: and I pass over the Scriptures, which everywhere proclaimed the Virgin as mother of Christ, not of God the Word, both through angels and through apostles. On account of these things, what great struggles we have endured, I think the preceding report has taught your Beatitude, also noting this, that we have not striven in vain, but many of those who were perverse have been corrected by the grace of the Lord, learning from us that there must be a birth for the one giving birth; that there is no mixture of God the Word with man, but a union of the creature and of the Lord's humanity joined to God from the Virgin through the Spirit. But if anyone proposes this name, on account of the born humanity joined to God the Word, and not on account of the one giving birth, we say indeed that this term is not fitting for her who bore. For a true mother must be of the same essence as that which is born from her; yet it can be tolerated on account of the consideration itself, and because this word is only spoken of the Virgin on account of the inseparable temple of God the Word from her, not because she is the mother of God the Word; for no one gives birth to one older than herself.

I think this indicated the preceding report; but we also set forth what has happened, and show by the facts that we wish to know the business of those we have mentioned with a brotherly spirit, not from a desire of importunate curiosity, since we also relate our own affairs, as brothers to brothers, mutually disclosing to each other the novelty of sects, so that the beginning of my letter may be most true: for I said, when I began this letter, that we ought to have brotherly conversations with each other. We, and those who are with me, greet the whole brotherhood that is with you in Christ. LETTER II Nestorius to Pope Coelestinus. I have often written to your Beatitude concerning Julianus, Orontius, and the others, who usurp for themselves episcopal dignity, and make very frequent approaches to the most pious and most renowned emperor, and cut us down with constant lamentations, as if they were cast out of the West in orthodox times. But up to now I have not received any writings on these matters from your Veneration: if I had them, I could answer them, and would give a concise reply to their words. For now, from their uncertain statements, one has nothing to which to turn: some calling them heretics, and therefore saying they were cast out of the Western regions; they themselves swearing that they have suffered calumny, and undergone danger for the orthodox faith through subreption.

Of these two possibilities, whichever is true, our ignorance is grievous: for to grieve with them, if they are truly heretics, is a crime; and again, not to grieve with them, if they suffer calumny, is harsh and impious. May your most God-loving soul therefore deign to inform us, who up to now are divided between both impulses, that is, between hatred and pity for them; for we wish to be taught what judgment we should hold concerning them. For we put off these same men day by day, dissembling, in hope and expectation of your Beatitude. For it is not, O most venerable one, as you know, a trivial matter to examine a pious sect; nor is the testing of those who do this a small thing. For even for us great labor is here undertaken, while we strive to root out the foulest impiety of the most wicked opinion of Apollinaris and Arius from the Church of God. For I know not how some among the churchmen, conceiving a certain image of mixture from the divinity and humanity of the Only-begotten, sicken with the sickness of the aforementioned heretics: while they dare to ascribe the passions of the body to the divinity of the Only-begotten, and pretend that the immutability of the divinity has passed over to the nature of the body, and they confound both natures (which are adored in the supreme and unconfused conjunction in one person of the Only-begotten) with the mutability of mixture.

Blind are those who neither remember the exposition of those holy Fathers, nor see clearly those who cry out against them: "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary." For this word, "in the Lord," signifies both natures; indeed, Christ is of the divinity of the Father; the humanity, however, born in later times from the holy Virgin, is worshipped together by angels and men on account of the conjunction of the divinity. Therefore, consider him who here, on account of the depravity of the sects, is wearied by so many labors, and what he must again suffer if he is ignorant of the business of the aforementioned men, and fears too much lest, placed here through ignorance, he make an addition of heretics. Hence I ask that it be diligently attended to by your holy soul to grant knowledge of the aforementioned men; especially since the most faithful intermediary of letters, Valerius the chamberlain, can himself set forth to your Beatitude the troubles of these men.

All the brotherhood in Christ that is with you, I and those who are with me greet most warmly. LETTER III Nestorius writing back to Coelestius. Do not take it ill, venerable one, that you suffer at the hands of those who ought to do what is laid upon them, and especially from those who assert the truth and who shrink from communion with the polluted or contaminated: for even the saints who lived before our time found hardships welcome; and these hardships were indeed temporal, but the truth is eternal. Thus John the Baptist, rebuking Herod for his sin, and that though he was a king, was condemned to be beheaded; but he did not fear, for he had Christ as his head, which could not be cut off. Thus Paul, in this way also, and Peter were put to death. And what more need be said? So it has always been done, with piety running its course through various trials.

Do not, therefore, failing from the truth, betray it (since the letters sent to the bishops by the council of the West and by the Alexandrian have, by many replies, made our own opinion manifest to us), that is, by prudent men of the same orthodox profession; for perhaps something useful to the churches of the right faith will come about, with the Lord cooperating. We greet the whole brotherhood. And in another hand: May you be granted to us, most religious brother, safe and strong in spirit, and praying much for us.