Eutherius Thyanensis

III. EUTHERIUS OF TYANA. PREFACE OF MARIUS MERCATOR. Concerning Eutherius, bishop of the Nestorian party, and his discourses against certain statements of Saint Cyril and the Catholics. Now that the blasphemies of Nestorius, Theodoricus, and Theodoret have been laid bare, let us demonstrate that the impiety of Eutherius was the same as theirs, but insinuated into the minds of the faithful more cunningly, and therefore more dangerously, from the discourses he composed against certain statements of the Catholics, and especially that of the blessed Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, which he uttered concerning Christ, saying: “He suffered impassibly.” This statement, fortified by the authority of Catholic truth, strives to assert that one and the same Son of God is believed to be impassible according to His divinity, and passible according to His flesh; just as Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in his book on the Incarnation of Christ, sets forth in these words (Book on the Incarnation, ch. 5): “He was dying, and not dying; He was being buried, and not being buried; He was rising, and not rising, because He was raising His own body; because what fell, this rises; what did not fall, does not rise.

But the followers of Nestorius, dividing the one into two sons, separate the wills of one and the passions of the other; they do not believe that God was born of the Virgin according to the flesh; nor do they say that he suffered the injury of the cross according to the flesh; but, asserting these insults to belong to the man, they separate the mystery of the saving economy from the Word of God, and thus are shown to be ungrateful for his many benefits. The words of Marius Mercator. But now let the crafty perversity of the aforementioned Eutherius be exposed, which will no longer avail among the faithful. FRAGMENT From a sermon of Eutherius the Nestorian against Saint Cyril, translated by Marius Mercator. O considered wisdom of inconsiderate luxury, and discipline building up and destroying at the same time, as we see children playing in the sand: He suffered impassibly. Before I hear that he suffered, the understanding flees from what he suffered: for the addition of "impassibly" does not allow "he suffered" to remain. If he suffered, how did he suffer impassibly? If impassibly, how did he suffer? Let us speak fabulously ineffably, and feel insensibly. Who ever saw one falling without a fall, rising without a resurrection, grieving without grief, being wise without wisdom, helping without help, loosing insolubly? And I will admit: He suffered impassibly.

Paul, he says, ascending to the third heaven and hearing ineffable discourses in heaven [Baluz. paradise], brought forth nothing of the sort, perhaps leaving this most sublime exposition to them. For he did not say: He suffered impassibly, but: He learned subjection from what he suffered (Heb. 5:8); and: Tempted in all things according to the likeness without sin (Heb. 4:15); and thus he removed far off such ravings of words. For he who was tempted in all things according to the likeness, if he suffered, he suffered passibly [Baluz. impassibly], so that the likeness might be preserved in all things, or else let others be shown to have suffered impassibly, so that the likeness which he bore might be preserved. Therefore, either the Savior must be confessed to have truly suffered, or it must be believed that any others [Baluz. also] suffered impassibly, to whose likeness the Lord is proclaimed to have been tempted.

What demonstration of patience will there be, if he suffered impassibly? How will the patience of Christ be proclaimed, if he felt no pain while enduring suffering? How, moreover, will the ineffable and incomparable love of Christ for humanity be shown, if his passion was accomplished without pain? Who would not choose to suffer, not only for friends but even for enemies, if it were permitted to suffer impassibly? Why, moreover, did the Lord say: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:42), if he was beginning to undergo the passion without pain? Why did he cry out to the Father: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me" (Ibid., v. 39)? For what reason did he also offer prayers and supplications to him with loud cries and tears, to him who could snatch him from death (Heb. 7:7)? EPILOGUE. These things we have set forth in passing, lest we seem to exceed the measure of the book, intending to expose more fully, at a suitable time and with God’s favor, the virulent contagions of many who deceive the simplicity of the faithful.

But now it is permitted to refute this same Nestorian perfidy at the end of this work with a few examples. Tell me, O ungrateful, cruel, and impious heresy, to which the voluntary emptying of our Lord Christ for us is displeasing [Baluz. shameful], and the humility of divine condescension seems unworthy; you who, with the Jews and Gentiles, consider the cross of Christ a scandal and a folly, and do not confess that God made man endured sufferings impassibly; if the Nile of Egypt, persisting in its own nature, was blood for the Egyptians (Exod. 7:20), but drinkable water for the Hebrews; if the day showed light to the Israelites (Exod. 10:23; Wis. 18:1), and poured out darkness upon the enemies, which they deserved; if the Babylonian furnace bedewed the three youths, but burned the Babylonians with fire (Dan. 3:24); why does it seem unworthy or impossible to you that one and the same Son, on account of each nature, suffered impassibly for us? If this is the power and capability of a creature, why could the Creator not accomplish the same, who did everything he wished, in heaven and on earth, in the sea, and in all the abysses (Ps. 134:6)?

But lest the followers of Nestorius and the Eutychians hurl their usual slander against those who resist their nefarious dogma—for it is a trait conjoined in both heresies that, when a Catholic disputant rises against either one, he does not escape the charge of suspicion from the other, since when we refute Eutychian madness they do not cease to call us Nestorians, and conversely the accomplices of Nestorius, convicted by Catholic truth, falsely claim that their refuters are Eutychians—we have indeed deemed it necessary to expose both perversities, which creep along through the ignorance of many, by the discourses of the most blessed Father John, bishop of the city of Tomi in the province of Scythia.