Contra Haeresim Nestorianam Nestorii Blasphemiarum Capitula XII

THE TWELVE CHAPTERS OF NESTORIUS’ BLASPHEMIES. To the letters sent to him by the holy Coelestinus, bishop of the city of Rome, and by Cyril of Alexandria, he objects, and by responding with very brief disputations, he attempts to refute the twelve chapters of faith that had been sent to him. Now we have set down first the chapters of Bishop Cyril, which the Roman Church approved by true judgment; and then those of Nestorius, both translated from Greek into Latin. THE FIRST ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone does not confess that the one who is Emmanuel is God in truth, and that, for this very reason, the holy Virgin is the Mother of God; for she gave birth in the flesh to the Word, which is from God, made flesh (according to what is written: And the Word was made flesh (John 1:14)); let him be anathema. THE ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices. Against this Nestorius said: If anyone says that the one who is Emmanuel is the Word of God, and not rather God with us, that is, that he inhabited that nature which is according to us, by reason of his being united to our mass, which he took from the Virgin Mary; and if he calls the holy Virgin the Mother of the Word of God, and not rather the Mother of the one who is Emmanuel, and says that the Word of God himself was turned into the flesh which he took for the manifestation of his divinity, so that by his habit he might be found as a man (Philippians 2:7); let him be anathema.

In the published books. If anyone says that he who is Emmanuel is true God, and not rather God with us—that is, that he inhabited that [nature] which, apart from that which is united to ours, he took from the Virgin Mary; and if he calls her mother of God the Word, and not rather mother of him who is Emmanuel; and if he says that God the Word himself was turned into the flesh which he took for the display of his divinity, so that he might be found in habit as a man—let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. To these wicked statements the Catholic replies thus: “He says these things as if God the Word did not dwell in us, which is quite foreign to pious understanding. But it is full of singular folly and impiety to say that the Word of the Father is not Emmanuel; but that he who was born of Mary, who [because] he inhabited the nature of our mass, which he took from the Virgin: since every human race holds in confession that Emmanuel, as we have not ourselves invented, but have learned from the mistress and interpreter Scripture, signifies ‘God with us.’

Again, what man’s mind could doubt that this must be understood, that is, God with us? For when we desire and invoke God to be with us, what else do we wish but that the majesty of his power be present? Although it is wholly everywhere and never divided, yet we ask and desire to be aided by his help, so that he may be with us, namely, helping us. Therefore, if according to this distinguished—nay, depraved—teacher, that does not belong to the Word of God, that is, that he be what is invoked as with us, let him see to it himself with his blasphemy. But if, as he wishes, this is again the one with us to whom the name Emmanuel belongs, that is, who had the firstfruits of our mass, then there were undoubtedly two gods, according to his most prudent—nay, most senseless and impious—definition: one who is not Emmanuel, that is, God with us; and another who, from four hundred years and more, began to be a certain recent and novel God with us.

He also adds that if anyone calls the holy Virgin the mother of God the Word, let him be anathema. But, as his supporters wish, after a warning he corrected his wicked first opinion, by which he generated scandal for the whole world, denying that she is that; for they say that after the warning he spoke or pronounced otherwise. Therefore it became clear to you, both how he spoke then, and how much he has now progressed for the worse. Therefore, as he wishes, the Virgin is not the mother of God the Word, but of Emmanuel; so according to his most wise disputation, he wishes this one to be called “with us” because he is united to our mass, which he assumed. What will he do when “God” is said? For he is not called only Emmanuel, that is, “with us,” but also *het*, that is, God. Therefore this God—whom the erroneous master compels us to confess—of what authority will he be, of what power, temporal and recent? While Scripture cries out: “There will not be in Israel a God recent and new” (Psalm 80:8).

Then he says that ancient God of his, whom he does not wish to be with us, is God, or only the Word of the Father? (perhaps not substantial, but, as Paul of Samosata once held, a proffered and commanding word). Who therefore from this does not understand, who does not perceive that he most clearly savors the heresy of that same Paul, who, under the pretext of preaching one God, that is, monarchy, defines only God the Father as true God; but his Word is a word that presides over operations by command, like a man’s proffered word, which fulfills the works it has determined? He calls Emmanuel, however, not God by nature, but by the grace of God, through participation or association with that Word, and, as he is accustomed to say more explicitly, by conjunction, or even by unition, and sometimes by unity: which unity, when he very rarely mentions it to deceive inexperienced hearers, while preserving his own meaning, he understands just as that which is said in the Gospel: Holy Father, make these also one in us, as we are one (John 17:21). When this clever unity of his has sounded in the ears of the inexperienced people, they acclaim, and we are called sycophants and envious: Behold, they say, he said one; what more do you want?

He adds his empty argument, by which he thinks to exclude the catholic faith, which according to the evangelist John says and holds: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14); so that from this he thinks it is established that if this is said, it is declared that the Word of God was turned into flesh, which indeed is very foreign to right faith. For the Word of God, always remaining in the nature and essence of the Father, in one and the same essence in which it was and is unchangeably, was made man for our salvation, which it was not, so that it might make each of us, who were not, its sons. This the reasoning of the creed, and the Nicene faith, and the definition of all the ancient writers held, and transmitted down to us. Moreover, this man adds, for the sake of his own display, that the Word of God took on a mass, that is, as he says, so that it might be found as a man in appearance, as God in display: and this vain and impious Greek speech of his declares. Which is: If anyone says that the Word of God was turned into the flesh which it took, for the display of its divinity, so that it might be found as a man in appearance, let him be anathema. That there is a difference, all Greeks recognize: for they understand that [term] where there is not truth, but rather a pretense or fiction assumed to deceive the senses; but [the other term] itself signifies the truth of appearance: which two we may call display and habit; so that display is deceptive, but habit is the showing forth of all nature.

What then does this new and empty teacher want, we would like to know. By what means has this new god of his made himself appear? For he is to be called his god, not that of Christians; by what contrivance has he been found as if a man? Do you see that this man, whether by most wicked will or by foolish ignorance, has even fallen into the opinion of Manichaeus, who does not wish to believe that God is a true man, but a phantasmal, that is, a putative Christ the Son of God? THE SECOND ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone does not confess that the Word of the Father is substantially united to the flesh, and that there is one Christ with his own flesh, and that the same is without doubt both God and man, let him be anathema. THE SECOND ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In manuscript codices. In published books. Nestorius said: If If anyone has said that in the conjunction of the Word of God which was made to the flesh, a change of the divine essence from place to place has occurred, and that the flesh is capable of his divine nature, or that it is partially united to the flesh, or again that the flesh has been co-extended to the infinite uncircumscribed divine nature for the purpose of containing God, and that the same nature is both God and man; let him be anathema.

has said that by the union which was made with the flesh, a change from place to place was made by divine decree, and has said that the flesh is capable of his nature, and that he is partially united to the flesh, or again that God is to be taken as of an infinite, uncircumscribed nature when they extend the flesh, and that he himself by nature both is God and says he is man; let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. It is contradicted by the Catholic: As if this follows, and compels one to understand that if anyone has said that the Son of God is substantially united to our mass, immediately that absurdity presses him, which compels him to confess a change of God, and extension, and inclusion after the manner of bodies; but it is not so, since the human soul does not suffer this in its own body: how much less is this to be thought concerning the divine nature. Then he says that the same Christ is not naturally God and man, but one Son Christ. What is this novelty so unheard of, which is obscured by such labyrinthine twists and turns, as it were? He defines that one Son ought to be spoken of, and against his will, indeed stifled, by this clever little argument of his, two proceed: for if Christ, whom he also wishes to be Emmanuel, is not naturally the Son of God, but the Word of the Father is Son by nature; there are without doubt two Sons, one by nature

by nature], the other not by nature but by grace; one from eternity, the other from time: “But one,” he says, “for this reason, because he who is by nature was adopted into association or conjunction” [Baluze adds: “the one by the other”]. Let any Catholic who reads this note how vain and how impious the whole thing is. For according to the right and true faith, the Son of God is one, God the Word with his man, whom, when he willed, he assumed from a rational soul and a true and solid body; he is neither divided nor twofold, as this man dreams, but one, and, so to speak, whole and the same, God and man—indeed, to speak more precisely, God-man and man-God. THE THIRD ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone divides the substances in the one Christ after the union, connecting them only by association according to dignity, authority, or power, and not rather by a coming together into a natural unity, let him be anathema.

ANATHEMATISMUS TERTIUS NESTORII. In manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone does not say that Christ, who is also Emmanuel, is one according to conjunction, not according to nature; and does not confess that from each substance, both of God the Word and of the man assumed by him, there is one connection of the Son, which they even now preserve without confusion; let him be anathema. In published books. If anyone does not say that Christ, who is also Emmanuel, is one according to conjunction, not according to nature; and does not confess that from each substance, both of God the Word and of the man taken up by him, there is one connection of the Son, which we even now preserve without confusion; let him be anathema. CONTRADICTIO MARII MERCATORIS. It is contradicted. He follows himself entirely, and never departs from his own most wicked intention, by which he strives to introduce one Son naturally; the other joined by association, who is said to be either Son or God not naturally but positively, yet is not so in truth [Baluze adds: God].

ANATHEMATISMUS QUARTUS S. CYRILLI. Cyril said: If anyone distinguishes by two persons or substances those expressions which are contained in both the evangelical and apostolic writings, or even those which are said about Christ by the saints, or by Christ himself about himself; and believes that some of these are to be applied as to a man, apart from the Word of God, who is to be understood in a special sense; but others as worthy of God, assigns only to the Word of God the Father; let him be anathema. ANATHEMATISMUS QUARTUS NESTORII. In manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone receives those expressions which are written about Christ, who is from both natures, in both the evangelical and apostolic writings, as if about one nature, and attempts to attribute to the Word of God himself the passions, both according to the flesh and the passions he has endured, both in flesh and in divinity; let him be anathema. In printed books. If anyone receives those expressions which are written about Christ, who is from both, in both the Gospels and the apostolic epistles, as if about one nature, and attempts to attribute passions to the Word of God himself, both according to the flesh and the passions he has endured, both in flesh and also in divinity; let him be anathema.

even the divinity; let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. It is contradicted: He thinks it follows that one is forced to confess the divine nature to be passible, if one says that the Son of God, God, suffered for us; does he not know that the whole common man, consisting of soul and body, when he suffers in the nature of the body, suffers nothing in the nature of the soul from the pain? Furthermore, he is not wiser than the Fathers established in the Council of Nicaea, who, expounding more broadly the faith of the symbol handed down to us by the apostles, on account of the impiety of Arius which had then emerged, pronounced thus: We believe, saying after the confession of God and Father, and in one Lord our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God from God, true God, light from light, consubstantial with the Father, which the Greeks call, begotten, not made, through whom God the Father made all things, who for us and for our salvation in the last times descended from heaven, was incarnate, suffered, was crucified, died, was buried, rose again on the third day, will come to judge the living and the dead, and the rest.

By no means did they understand one Jesus Christ, who would be Emmanuel and passible, and another, the impassible Word of the Father; but one and the same eternal God, with his own body assumed in the last times, impassible in his divinity, passible in his body; in which, and with which, as his own, he was born, was seen, suffered, and rose again on the third day, and will come again from the heavens to judge the living and the dead. THE FIFTH ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone dares to say that Christ is a man using or bearing God, and not rather that he is God in truth, as the only Son, who, according to the Word having become flesh, has made us partakers similarly of flesh and blood, let him be anathema. THE FIFTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices.

Nestorius said: If anyone, after the assumption of the man, dares to say that the Son of God is naturally one, since he is Emmanuel, let him be anathema. In the published books. If anyone, after the assumption of the man, dares to say that the Son of God is naturally one, since he is Emmanuel, let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts: Therefore, according to you, most foolish and impious one, there are two Sons: one who is naturally, and another who is by position; and how is this not impious? THE SIXTH ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone says that the Word of God the Father is the God or Lord of Christ, and does not rather confess the same himself to be both God and man together, as the Word made flesh, according to the Scriptures, let him be anathema. THE SIXTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone, after the incarnation, has named the Word of God as someone other than Christ, and has attempted to say that the form of a servant has no beginning with the Word of God, and that this is uncreated, as he himself is, and does not rather confess it to be created by him, as by a natural Lord, and creator, and God, which he also promised to raise by his own power, saying to the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19), let him be anathema.

In the published books If anyone, after the incarnation, has named the Word of God as someone other than Christ; if he has attempted to say that the form of a servant has no beginning with the Word of God, and is uncreated, as he himself is, and does not confess that it was rather created by him, who is by nature Lord, Creator, and God, than that he promised to raise it up by his own power, saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"; let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. This speech seems to be that of foolish ostriches, who think themselves hidden up to the neck, and expose the rest of their body to dangers. He says that Christ is one, and does not see his own most impious earlier statements, quickly forgetting his Emmanuel. Finally, from whom did he ever hear that the Lord's body is co-eternal with him? (although from the moment he deigned to assume it, it is perpetual) as if what is his is also co-eternal with him. Would that he here understood one Son of God, the Word of God according to the symbol of faith, together with the perfectly assumed man, consisting of a rational soul and body, who, as it is written: "He himself bore our infirmities, and suffered for us" (Isaiah 53:4), namely suspending them in his body upon the wood (1 Peter 2:24); and that he did not descend to this vain impiety of Paul of Samosata, dividing the merits of two natures and persons!

THE SEVENTH ANATHEMATISM OF ST. CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone says that in Jesus, as in a man, God the Word was inoperative, and that the dignity of the Only-Begotten is to be attributed to someone other than him existing separately, let him be anathema. THE SEVENTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone says that the man who was created from the Virgin is the Only-Begotten, who was born from the womb of the Father before the morning star (Ps. 109:4), and does not rather confess that, on account of the union with him who is naturally the Only-Begotten of the Father, he has been made a participant in the appellation of the Only-Begotten; and if he says that Jesus is someone else besides Emmanuel, let him be anathema. In the published books. If anyone says that the man who was created in the Virgin is the Only-Begotten, who was born from the womb of the Father before the morning star; and does not rather confess that, on account of the union, he who is naturally the Only-Begotten has been made a participant in the appellation of the Only-Begotten of the Father; and if he says that Jesus is someone else besides Emmanuel, let him be anathema.

CONTRADICTION BY MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. Turning over the same and through the same things, he pays off his loan in the same mire; for he comes forth again, hissing from his twisted caverns in the manner of his father, the serpent. For he brings forward the Only-Begotten, whom he wishes to be understood as the Son of God by nature; yet he does not deem him to be God with us, because he does not attribute to him the name Emmanuel as natural, but only a significative appellation of the word: just as he does not bestow the name of the Only-Begotten as natural upon his temporal Emmanuel; but on account of the coupling or conjunction of that natural Only-Begotten, he has left an empty designation. THE EIGHTH ANATHEMATISM OF ST. CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone dares to say that the assumed man ought to be co-adored with God the Word, and to be co-named God as one with another (for the addition of this syllable, co-, will compel this to be understood); and does not rather venerate Emmanuel with one reverence and pay one glorification, according to which the Word became flesh (John 1:14), let him be anathema.

EIGHTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone has said that the form of a servant is to be worshipped on its own account, that is, according to the principle of its own nature, and that it is the mistress of all things, and not rather on account of the union by which it is joined and connected to the blessed and by nature naturally lordly nature of the Only-begotten, let him be anathema. In published books. If anyone has said that the form of a servant is to be worshipped for its own sake, that is, according to the principle of its own nature, and that it is not the mistress of all, and not rather on account of the union by which it is joined to the blessed and by nature naturally the Lord’s nature of the Only-begotten, let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION BY MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. No Christian has ever separated and divided, by a distance or difference of merits, the one and the same God the Son of God, Jesus Christ, so as to show him as double in himself in diverse dignity, and thus unequal.

NINTH ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone says that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Holy Spirit as by an alien power, which He used through Him, and that He merited from Him the ability to work against unclean spirits, and that through Him He accomplished divine signs, and does not rather say that the Holy Spirit is His own, as also of the Father, through whom He worked the signs; let him be anathema. NINTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone has said that the form of a servant is consubstantial with the Holy Spirit, and not rather that through the mediation of that form it had from the conception itself a coupling or conjunction with God the Word, through which among men In printed books. If anyone has said that the form of a servant is consubstantial with the Holy Spirit, and not rather that through the mediation of that form which is towards God the Word, and from the conception itself it had a conjunction, through which it sometimes exercised common and wondrous healings among men, and from this there came to be the power of driving away spirits; let him be anathema.

work through you was its power; let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. What mediation between God the Word and the Holy Spirit he brings forth, unheard of in all ages and by all men, we cannot know, since the divine Scriptures testify that there is one mediation, by these words of the apostle Paul: For there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5). And again: For He Himself, who made both one, and dissolving the middle wall of the fence, the enmities in His own flesh, emptying the law of commandments in decrees, so that He might join the two in Himself in one new man, making peace (Eph. 2:14). And other things, which it is long to insert. What, then, does this unheard-of novelty mean, unless he also wishes to separate Christ from the substance of the Holy Spirit, and that He could not, from Himself, work signs and virtues without this mediation or even help?

The Tenth Anathematism of Saint Cyril. Cyril said: The holy Scripture indicates that Christ became the high priest [Baluz. adds: and apostle] of our confession; for he offered himself to God the Father for us as a sweet fragrance (Eph. 5:2). If, therefore, anyone says that our high priest and apostle became someone other than God the Word himself, when he became flesh and, according to us, man, but as if another, distinct from him, a man specially from a woman; and if anyone says that he offered the offering for himself, and not rather for us alone—for he who knows no sin had no need of an offering—let him be anathema. The Tenth Anathematism of Nestorius. In the manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone says that the Word in the beginning became the high priest and apostle of our confession, and offered himself for us, and does not rather say that the apostleship belongs to Emmanuel, and divide the offering according to the same principle between the one who united and the one who was united, not assigning to the single fellowship of the Son, that is, to God what is God's and to man what is man's, let him be anathema.

In the published books. If anyone says that the Word in the beginning became the high priest and apostle of our confession, and that he offered himself for us, and does not say that he is the apostle of Emmanuel, and attributes the offering according to the same principle to him who united, if anyone united, to one community of the Son, that is, to God what is of God and to man what is of man, let him be anathema. CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. Behold again with his Emmanuel, as he must always be called, how manifest he has appeared! To whom he assigns separate merits, as to one lowly and far inferior to that other whom he determines not to be God with us; yet naturally God, who by the condescension of union, by title or appellation, but not by nature, makes him God. THE ELEVENTH ANATHEMATISM OF CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone does not confess that the flesh of the Lord is life-giving, as being the very own flesh of the Word of God himself, but as of some other person besides him, indeed united to him according to dignity, or as having only divine habitation, and not rather, as we have said, that it is life-giving because it became the own flesh of the Word of God, to whom it is possible to give life to all things, let him be anathema.

THE ELEVENTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone says that the flesh united to the Word of God [Baluz. God] is, by the possibility of its own nature, life-giving, while the Lord and God Himself declares: “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh, however, avails nothing,” let him be anathema. In the published books. If anyone says that the united flesh is, by the possibility of its own nature, life-giving, while the Lord and God Himself declares: “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh avails nothing” (John 6:63), let him be anathema. And he adds: “Spirit is God” (John 4:24), and it is not pronounced. Therefore, if anyone says that the Word of God became flesh carnally according to substance, and this in such a way and especially preserves it, and especially in the Lord Christ after His resurrection saying to His disciples: “Touch and see, because a spirit has no bones and flesh, as you see me to have” (Luke 24:39), let him be anathema.

CONTRADICTION BY MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. Christian ears must be closed, lest they hear so great and so open a blasphemy. For he says that the flesh of Christ is not life-giving by its own nature, and he adduces the evangelical testimony, and thinks it suits his impiety, which, however wickedly and violently he has dragged it in, the evangelical truth itself strikes his eyes. For there it was then said: "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh avails nothing"; when Christ was teaching the apostles that they ought to live according to the inner man, that is, not carnally but spiritually, and to understand what they heard accordingly. To this the saying rightly applies: "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh avails nothing." And this most insane man, in order to persuade that the flesh of Christ is useless and fragile and weak, has violently dragged this saying of the Savior to his blasphemous meaning, as if He had said that concerning His own flesh, that the flesh avails nothing. And where is that saying of the Lord? "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in yourselves" (John 6:54). We have deemed it necessary and more than useful to insert this whole evangelical context to refute him or his followers.

Then Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, Moses did not give you bread from heaven; for the bread of God is that which descends from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then they said to him: “Lord, always give us this bread.” Then Jesus said to them: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst; but I told you that you both saw me and did not believe. Everything that the Father gives to me will come to me, and I will not cast out the one who comes to me; because I descended from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, so that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Therefore the Jews murmured about Jesus because he said: “I am the bread that descended from heaven,” and they said: “Is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say that he descended from heaven?” Then Jesus answered and said: “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. For it is written in the Prophets: ‘And all will be taught of God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned comes to me; not because anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God has himself seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who believes in me has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate manna in the desert, and they died; this is the bread which descends from heaven, so that whoever eats of it does not die. I am the bread of life, who descended from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. Therefore the Jews argued among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day; for my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. For just as the Father sent me, and I live through the Father, so whoever eats me will live through me. This is the bread which descends from heaven, not as your fathers ate manna in the desert and died; whoever eats this bread will live forever. He said these things teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. Therefore many of the disciples, hearing, said: This speech is harsh; who can hear it? But Jesus, knowing within himself that his disciples had murmured about this, said to them: This offends you; if, then, you see the Son of man ascending into heaven, where he was before.

It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail (John 6:63). But why should we be surprised that he did this with the testimony of the Gospel, when he likewise violently twisted and abused that other testimony to the impiety of his own understanding, by which he thought to lend strength to his position with evangelical authority, where it is said: "What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). For he employed this testimony in that most foolish treatise in which he first discoursed on the virginal birth. In that passage he spoke thus: "Mary did not give birth to God, best of men (ibid.); for what is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit; but she gave birth to a man, an instrument of the Divinity, and a man bearing God." At that time, when the discourse was to Nicodemus, the archisynagogue, who then did not believe the words of the Savior, and because he thought carnally, when he heard: "Unless someone is born again, he cannot be saved" (John 3:3), he replied: "How can that happen? Can an old man enter again into his mother's womb to be reborn (ibid.)?" And then, his folly having been noted, by which, as I said, he thought not spiritually but carnally [Baluz. separates], he clearly heard: "Unless someone is born again from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God"; or as it is written elsewhere: "Unless someone is born again"; where he added: "What is born of the flesh is flesh.

This being so, when and where did he think to apply this saying: "What is born of flesh is flesh"?—namely, to deny that God Christ was born of the Virgin. For what does this testimony avail him, except that he who was born flesh from the flesh of the Virgin is only a mere man, in whom God the Word deigned to dwell? THE TWELFTH ANATHEMATISM OF SAINT CYRIL. Cyril said: If anyone does not confess that God the Word suffered in the flesh, and was crucified in the flesh, and tasted death in the flesh, and became the firstborn from the dead, according as he is both life and life-giver, as God: let him be anathema. THE TWELFTH ANATHEMATISM OF NESTORIUS. In the manuscript codices. Nestorius said: If anyone, while confessing the passions of the flesh, also attributes these to the Word of God and to the flesh in which he was made, without distinction of the dignity of the natures: let him be anathema. In the published books. If anyone, while confessing the passions of the flesh, attributes them also to the Word of God, as he applies them also to the flesh in which he was made, not distinguishing the dignity of the natures: let him be anathema.

CONTRADICTION OF MARIUS MERCATOR. The Catholic contradicts. Why does he rage in vain? Why does he rave to no purpose? No one, unless he is mentally deranged—yet still a Christian—attributes to that ineffable divine nature, according to its own living essence or nature, either the passions which our flesh suffers or the perturbations and agitations of the soul, whether from joyful or sorrowful things, because he does not assign bodily pains even to the human soul; for it is impassible in these matters, since it is also immortal, although it has its own passions, as we recalled above, arising from mobility. Yet as long as it dwells in the company of its flesh, so that it necessarily feels compassion for that flesh’s pains from sorrow, it itself suffers nothing of pain, as we have said, in its own essence or nature. Thus, incomparably, inestimably, and ineffably, that Word, the Son of God, God, bearing the composite man of soul and body, is rightly said to have suffered whatever that humanity endured; for that whole human substance was his own, which he had undertaken to heal, joining it to himself, making himself one whole with it, and, while remaining God what he was, also existing as man.

Man also, as God, is to come to judgment, according to the prophet’s saying, who declares that the visible one will come: “They will see,” he says, “the one whom they pierced” (Zech. 12:10). And another prophet: “He is both man and who knows him?” In the Acts of the Apostles, however, the angels say to the same apostles: “Men of Galilee, why do you marvel, gazing into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come just as you saw him going into heaven” (Acts 1:14). DISSERTATION OF MARIUS MERCATOR, OR APPENDIX TO THE CONTRADICTION (??) OF THE NESTORIAN ANATHEMATISM. Which is a refutation of the second sermon, and a retractation of the two later ones, and of the second anathematism. Moreover, that statement of his, which is read in the earlier sermon or treatise, near the end of the quaternion, at the place where the asterisk mark is, ought not to remain undiscussed, where he attempts to introduce unheard-of meanings of great mockery. For he wishes that Christ be proclaimed by Matthew as being of neither nature. But if this is so—which God forbid—then he will be of no nature, unless perhaps, as was said at the risk of his own head, of a beastly nature.

This madness, the ultimate impiety, he begets from his perverse opinion, by which he proclaims a twofold Christ, as if man and God were divided in nature from each other, a most cautious disputant, as it were, of clear reasoning; and he does not see another heretic, with a more empty caution, running to meet him, who would thrust upon him a threefold Christ fabricated by himself, namely from soul, body, and God. What if Apollinaris also should come before his face, who defines any common man as consisting of soul, body, and mind, wishing mind or reason to be one thing, soul another, of different nature and different substance; who, although he raves with impiety that in Christ there was no mind or reason, but a soul without mind, and in its place the Word of the Lord, which would fulfill the office of mind; yet if he had prevailed, which God forbid, that a common man, as we have said, should be believed to be threefold, would not this most insane teacher have imposed upon us a fourfold Christ, from soul, body, mind, and God?

Setting aside these ravings, we confess Christ as God the Word from eternity, made flesh—that is, made man—with a rational soul and a body, while the divine nature remains in him unchangeable and inconvertible, one whole with the Father and the Holy Spirit, undivided from his flesh and his rational soul, as we have said. He is not to be called twofold or threefold, just as no ordinary man, consisting of a rational soul and a body, could ever be called twofold or threefold, but in the singularity of his state he is one and one substance. So too that ineffable divine majesty of the Son of God is one in his person and substance, with his assumed soul, possessed of its mind or reason, and his solid and perfect body, admitting none of these most vain and impious appellations of twofold or threefold, on account of the unity or singularity in which it pleased him to take up and bear man, and from himself and that man to make one Lord Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, remaining one God in the Trinity for ever. Concerning this, the apostle John says in his first epistle (1 John).

What was from the beginning, what we heard and saw with our own eyes, what we examined and our hands touched concerning the Word of life, and life was made manifest, and we saw, and we bear witness, and we announce to you eternal life, which was with the Father, and appeared to us; what we saw and heard, we announce to you, so that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. Let the cautious and prudent reader also attend to what is contained in the second folio of the ninth quire of this codex (where this sign is), spoken by him. For since this man is of astonishing foolishness and madness, but of the most absurd impiety, it is remarkable that this so senseless a man could have had followers or hearers of any sense. Lest, therefore, he confess holy Mary the Virgin, let us carefully see what the vain man says: "Nowhere," he says, "did the Council of Nicaea dare to say that the Word God was born from Mary the Virgin; for it says: 'And we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.' Attend, because they first placed Christ with the Father, which demonstrates the conjunction of two natures, they did not say 'in one God the Word,' but they took the name which signifies both," etc.

Therefore, since Jesus Christ is for this same council nothing other than the Lord, who is undoubtedly the Lord, the Word of God, and the Son of God, and who, with his assumed body and rational soul, was made a complete man, formed and begotten in the womb of that holy woman, and proceeding forth now wholly God and wholly man, is entirely and inseparably one and the same. This same insane teacher, from where does he call Jesus Christ at least "Lord," if the Word of God is not he? For no dominion belongs to anyone except God alone. Does this distinguished doctor not know this? Therefore, if Jesus is not also God for him, from him, and in him, and with him in conception and birth, so that she is rightly the Mother of God, that is, according to the most correct definition of the ancient Fathers, from where did he at least seem to be Lord? Then, who told him the name "Christ," or where did he dream that it is a name signifying two natures, when rather this name expresses a man among men? For it must be understood that it is derived from anointing, as if "anointed," which did not pertain to the nature of God.

There follows that point of his inestimable folly, in which he claims that the holy council said: "We believe also in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten, who was born of God the Father, consubstantial, that is, with the Father, who descended for us." Jesus, certainly, as he himself wishes, is a man; let it be said, I ask, how is he, either to him or in his view, consubstantial with God the Father, unless as God born of God the Father? Or again, how is he not God, who is from Mary? If he was born in this way, how did the Council of Nicaea understand and declare, and was it content to confess only this word? What then is solid? What sound? What whole in him? There follows also another raving of impiety, of him saying that those Fathers omitted to declare that they believed in God the Word, the only-begotten Son; but they said, he asserts, that they believed in one Lord Jesus Christ, consubstantial with the Father, true God from God, light from light, through whom all things were made; as if God the Word is not the Son for him, as is more openly declared in his earlier discourse. What is this vanity of his? What madness? What mockery rather in such an inconstant speech, no less foolish than impious? That the Word of God, the Son of God, is not for him; that Jesus is for him half God, half man, and yet the same Word of God cannot be the Son?

Let it be that he is consubstantial and born of God the Father, true God from true God, light from light; but afterwards he naturally has none of these things as his own, but only by title is a participant in divine dignity, like a man born in time. Certainly Christian ears should be closed when it is said that the name Son does not signify that Word of the Father which is from him and in him. To which testimony, reader, be attentive: "He sent," he says, "his Son made from a woman, made under the law" (Gal. 4:4); evidently so that, because one born from a woman is not God, the Word is not the Son, but another who could be born by a woman's childbirth. Certainly above it had pleased him that the fathers' opinion was that Jesus Christ is consubstantial with God the Father, true God from true God, light from light; and it had pleased him most rightly. What suddenly seemed to him again about the Word of God, which in the beginning was with God and was God, that the Son of God is not? Or that Jesus Christ, who is consubstantial with God the Father, and true God from true God, and light from light, as it had pleased him excellently, the fathers of the Nicene council defined that he is not God, so that entirely and wholly, one and the same and one thing, whatever he is and whatever is said of him, must be understood and felt. Although he was made man, as John the evangelist, the most faithful and truthful witness, testifies, because the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), and this is not in doubt.

It is not to be denied—though he feigns blushing at it—that he was made subject to the law, and took upon himself in his own person all that, as a man made, he was bound to bear. But this is not to be denied; on the contrary, it is to be confessed with all one’s might, so that, while the impassible nature of his divinity remains intact in every respect, these things taken on by him are believed to have been assumed. But who, moreover, could calmly endure this other raving of his, in which he says that Christ Jesus is his own Lord? These are his words: “But I say this,” he says, “that you may know how preeminent and supreme a certain union existed, even in the infant himself, when the Lord’s flesh was seen; for he was both infant and Lord of the infant.” Who was ever said to be lord of himself? But he who here wishes and attempts to introduce a fourth person and substance into the holy Trinity is of astonishing stupidity and stained with the blemishes of impiety. We also warn that his fourth treatise, which is contained in this codex, is to be considered more diligently and carefully; its beginning is this: “The preceding doctor set before us a sweet table of charity,” etc. At the places in it which we have taken care to expound here, the reader will find signs of labyrinths (that is, asterisks) placed.

For there, between Paul of Samosata and Photinus, his teachers (while striving to clear himself, as if foreign to their teaching), he has labored to show what difference there is, and says: Paul indeed, in that he says Christ is only a man, and that he had his beginning from the time he was born of the Virgin, etc. All that evil of impiety was drawn from Photinus, from Ebion, and more from the Stoic philosopher. At that time, still within the lifetime of the apostle John in Asia, he arose, and dared to preach that Christ was a common man born of Joseph and Mary, and that he surpassed the whole human race by the merit of his life, and for this was adopted as the Son of God, asserting that he followed the authority of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke. At which time the apostle John composed his gospel against this man, in which he said in the preface, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the Father, and the Word was God (John 1:1). After the preface, descending, to show that the man whom those three evangelists had written was also God, he says: That which was made in him is life (John 1:4). And after a little: And the Word was made flesh (John 1:14).

This Ebion, then, as a philosopher, Marcellus of Galatia followed; also Photinus, and in recent times Bonosus of Sardica, who was condemned beforehand by Damasus, bishop of the city of Rome. Paul of Samosata, however, who was bishop of Antioch in the time of the emperor Aurelian, indeed defines Christ in common with others as a man born from both parents; but he understood and declared the Word of God the Father not as substantial, but as proffered or imperative, not as the catholic faith holds, the Word as consubstantial in substance or essence, that is, the Son of God the Father. Photinus, however, held a view equal to the most insane Nestorius, not indeed denying that the Word of God exists in substance; but that this Word dwelt peculiarly from outside in that Jesus, who was born from Mary in the common manner of conjugal union, and performed through him all those miracles on earth which we read in the Gospels. — Truly, what this most insane man says, not knowing what he speaks, Praxeas first, and then not long after Montanus, with his Prisca and Maximilla, declare.

After these events, however, Sabellius and Marcellus, at the time when the most impious Arius arose, thinking that they ought to retain the monarchy in the substance of the Divinity, deceived by a nefarious error, dared to assert that God the Father Himself is the Son to Himself, Himself is the Father to Himself, Himself is the Holy Spirit to Himself, that He Himself became incarnate, suffered, was crucified, that He Himself endured everything from the Jews, rose from the dead, and accomplished everything which we believe and confess that Christ, in His own person, bore for the salvation of the human race. The difference, therefore, between the Samosatene and Photinus is only this: that Paul understood the Word of God, that is, a proclamatory and effectual Word of power, not a substantial one, which the Greeks call λόγος οὐσιώδης. Photinus, however, the teacher of Nestorius, denies that this Word of God exists in substance, but does not wish it to be the Son of God; rather, he raves with impiety that it dwelt particularly, or adhered to, Christ Jesus born of Joseph and Mary, and that this one was nothing more than a man, who surpassed all men entirely by the merit of his life.

to call Photinus the Roman Church, and the partakers of such depravity, Homuncionitae; but it calls the Sabellians, together with their more ancient like-minded, Patripassians; because, as has been said, they hold that the Father Himself and the Son Himself are one and the same by reason of the union of name, who at one time is Father, at another time Son, one and the same being to Himself, and also the Spirit. Now Nestorius, to be sure, differs from his author Photinus only in this, that he asserts Christ was born from the Virgin Mary; in all other respects, however, he is entirely his follower, standard-bearer, and vanguard, and especially in that which was mentioned above, that the Word of God is not the Son of God, nor ought to be called so, and that no one except Jesus born from Mary is to be called the Son of God, who, having become a temple of the one dwelling in him, from the undivided association and conjunction between himself and the Word of God, merited to be so called, yet is not by nature the Son of God, as one who has obtained the privileges of the Divinity from this union, not possessing them by nature, but by grace.

That this kind of impiety is not contained and read in this particular chapter, but in other writings inserted in this same codex, and in treatises. And hence it is that the Catholic who reads must be cautious about the variety and inconsistency, whether it proceeds from cunning or from folly to entice the hearer, is not easy to know; yet in any case, it is evident that he is variable and contrary to himself. Who, moreover, would not recognize such a man, either as a cunning trapper to be fled, or as a senseless one, as being opposed to himself and confused by variety, in no way to be followed? In those same twelve chapters, by which the holy bishop Cyril, writing to this same Nestorius, set forth the right and sound faith, and here, by responding to each of them on the contrary, he thought to contradict, according to the second chapter of his contradiction, it must be reconsidered. For there it says thus: If anyone says that in the conjunction of the Word of God with flesh, a change from place to place or a conversion of the divine substance took place, and that the flesh was capable of the divine nature, or that the Divinity was partially united to the flesh; or again, that he coextended the flesh with the infinite and uncircumscribed divine nature to contain God, and that he calls the same both God and man by nature—let him be anathema.

As if any madman like him would not at least think of the angels themselves, who, as it is written, are fiery spirits; for it is said of them: "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning flame" (Ps. 103:4). Therefore, that angels, whom we read and also believe have been frequently and at various times sent to various saints, so that they could be visible to those to whom they were sent, have assumed human form, having taken up bodies, is certain. But whether only bodies were assumed by them in which those spirits, dwelling for a time, fulfilled the ministry of rational souls, or whether they inspired animated bodies from without, in the manner of prophets, it is not easy and rash to affirm either of these. This presumptuous and uncertain opinion, treated as if certain, and minimally expressed in the Scriptures, deceived Apollinaris of Laodicea, and later the Arians (but not Arius himself), and also Eunomius, and finally perhaps Macedonius, so that they felt and declared that Christ the Son of God assumed only the body of a man, and not also a soul, but that the Son of God the Word of the Father dwelt in that assumed body instead of a soul.

If this is so, they are truly deceived by the error of their own foolish understanding; for that human assumption of the Savior is found to be incomparably far, and farther than can be estimated, from that of the angels. Because this was to be for the redemption of the whole human race, it was necessary that the Savior should bear the whole and entire human nature, which was to be saved and raised up to heaven with him, and was to remain inseparable in eternal life—the whole, I say, it was necessary for him to bear. But this temporal corporeal assumption of the angels, for the purpose of performing a divinely commanded office, whether it was done in one of two ways—that is, whether they are said to have had animate or inanimate bodies—in no way harms the Catholic faith. Although later Apollinaris, as if correcting for the worse, confessed that there was a soul in Christ, he raved with impiety that reason or mind was not in that human soul, but that the Son of God stood in its place.

Therefore, as we have said, so many times and on so many occasions, have angels, whether by taking on bodies alone or even by assuming animated ones, ever been said or believed by anyone to have been changed and transformed from their spiritual and angelic nature into corporeal or even animate beings? Certainly not. So what is this insane teacher trying to thrust upon the ignorant, to cast clouds of confusion? Thus, if anyone says that the Son of God, God the Word, according to the Gospel, became flesh or became man, he is immediately accused as most impious, as if he were declaring that the Divinity was turned into flesh. Let us now see how impious and how vain is that which he placed last in this very chapter. He says, therefore: "If anyone says that the same one is by nature both God and man, let him be anathema." Wishing to introduce a double Christ, or to think incongruously, he did not know what he said. For he did not see that it could immediately be objected to him that he said that Christ is neither God nor man by nature; because the same Christ, since he is God and man—or rather, to speak more precisely and cautiously, since he is man God and God man—is not except by nature. If, as it seemed to him, he is not by nature (may such a statement and such impiety be turned back upon his own head), then he cannot be anything at all, because what cannot be by nature can be nothing whatsoever.