Epistolae

Capreolus of Carthage Letters Letter 1 To the Council of Ephesus On the one person of Christ, God and man, against Nestorius. I had wished, most pious brothers, that your venerable synod had been convened at a time when it would have been possible for us as well, having chosen by common consent some of our brothers and fellow bishops, to send a delegation fully instructed, rather than an excuse worthy of lamentation—had not various obstacles hindered this disposition of our mind. For first, the letters of our most religious lord and son, the Emperor Theodosius, when brought into our hands, were of such a kind as demanded with particular insistence the presence of our brother and fellow bishop of blessed memory, Augustine. But since those letters found that he had already departed from among the living, I, taking up that imperial communication—although it seemed especially destined for the aforementioned Augustine—wished to convene a suitable synod by sending appropriate letters and customary addresses to all the provinces of Africa, so that from among the number of our brothers and bishops some might be selected to be sent to the venerable synod of your blessedness. But at this time every approach by road has been blocked.

For indeed the poured-out multitude of enemies, and the immense devastation of provinces everywhere, which offers to the eyes the wretched spectacle of desolation, spread far and wide in every direction, with the inhabitants partly destroyed, partly put to flight, restrains that ready ability to come. Thus hindered by these obstacles, the bishops who had that intention were prevented from being able to assemble together from the whole circuit of Africa. To these disadvantages was added that the emperor's letters were brought to us during the days of Easter, when scarcely a space of two months remained from then until the universal venerable synod. Which interval of time, even if no difficulty from the enemy had been presented at present, would scarcely have been sufficient for convening an African synod. Hence it came about that, although we by no means wished to send some solemn legation, nevertheless, on account of the reverence and observance which is due to ecclesiastical discipline, we have sent my son Besula the deacon together with this letter of excuse to you, venerable brothers.

II. Therefore I desire that your sanctity be entreated again and again (even though I am certainly confident that the catholic faith, through so great a synod of venerable priests, with the help of our God, will be stable and firm in all things), that, with the Holy Spirit cooperating, whom I do not doubt will be present to your hearts in all that you are about to do, you may, instructed by the strength of ancient authority, drive out from the midst new doctrines and those previously unheard by ecclesiastical ears, and thus resist whatever new errors; lest those which the Church formerly attacked, and which in these times are sprouting again, and which the authority of the apostolic see and the unanimous sentence of the priests have suppressed, should seem, under the pretext of a second discussion, to renew a voice already long silenced. For if by chance something of new controversies should arise, it ought to be subjected to discussion: so that either what is rightly said may be approved, or what is worthy of condemnation may be rejected. But if anyone allows those things which have long since been judged to be called again into dispute, he will certainly be considered to do nothing other than to doubt the faith which has prevailed up to now. Then, for the sake of an example to posterity, so that those things which are now defined for the catholic faith may obtain perpetual firmness, it is necessary that all those things which were established in earlier times by the holy Fathers be preserved unshaken and unmoved.

For whoever wishes to retain that perpetual stability which has been established by the reason of the catholic faith, he ought to confirm his own opinion not by his own authority, but by the judgment of the ancient Fathers: so that, by that reasoning, partly confirming his own views by the decrees and opinions of the ancients, partly by those of more recent times, he may show that he asserts, teaches, and holds the unique truth of the Church, which runs from the very beginning down to the present time with simple purity and unconquered constancy and authority. I wished to suggest these things to your venerable ears on behalf of the present legation of the Africans, which the necessity mentioned above hindered; earnestly begging in the meantime that, having regard to the calamities of affairs and of the present times, you may be willing to ascribe our absence not to pride or negligence, but to this manifest necessity. Cyril, bishop of the Church of Alexandria, said: And this letter of the most reverend and most pious Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, which has been read, since it contains a clear opinion in itself, let it be inserted into the acts of the faith. For he wishes the ancient dogmas of the faith to be confirmed, but those which are new and absurdly contrived and impiously disseminated to be rejected and proscribed.

All the bishops cried out together: These are the voices of all: this we all affirm: this is the prayer of all. LETTER OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD VITALIS AND CONSTANTIUS, SPANIARDS, TO SAINT CAPREOLUS, BISHOP OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF CARTHAGE. To the lord and venerable and most blessed servant of God in Christ, our lord Capreolus, Vitalis and Constantius, sinners. With the first wishes of our humility, we greatly salute your holy, perfect, and venerable blessedness, and we desire always to hear that you are safe and well, with God propitious: because, although we are placed far from your holy apostolate, with the sea as a boundary, yet we are always present to you in the prayers of your holiness, lord Father. That indeed was a great desire of ours, to write to your holy honorificence through our most dear brother Numinianus. For our littleness has discovered the preeminent fame and teaching of your holiness: through which we also write to your blessedness, as the Psalmist says: Their sound has gone out into every land, and their words to the ends of the earth (Psalm 18:5). We also consult your honorificence, that you order to be irrigated from the good treasury of your heart into our inmost being, what the catholic faith rightly holds. For there are some here who say that God ought not to be said to be born. For this also is their faith, that a pure man was born of the virgin Mary, and after this God dwelt in him.

We, your humble servants, resist that affirmation, that it should not be said thus: but we confess, as the evangelist says, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary, saying: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: and therefore that which will be born from you, holy, will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). II. We confess, therefore, that God was in the womb of the Virgin Mary, that he assumed some part, that he fashioned for himself a man from God, that he was born true God and true man, whom he assumed for the salvation of the human race, as the Apostle says: When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made from a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (Galatians 4:4). And again: But think this in yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus: who, when he was in the form of God, did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God: but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, death on the cross (Philippians 2:5-8). And again: The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Because the mediator can neither be called purely God alone without the man he assumed, nor man without God: because there is a double meaning in the one person of the mediator, God and man: while God from God is God, and according to the flesh the same is the son of man. Therefore he is true God and true man, this mediator, as from the form of God and the form of man.

For also at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans the holy Apostle speaks thus: That which he had previously promised through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was born to him from the seed of David according to the flesh: who was predestined to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification, from the resurrection of the dead, of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:2-4). And indeed Isaiah, the chief of the prophets, speaks thus: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb, and will bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). But they say that a mere man hung on the cross, having been seized: they claim, God departed from him. To these our littleness speaks thus: God never departed from the assumed man, except when he said from the cross: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matt. 27:46)? And therefore, prostrate on our knees, we, your humble servants, beseech your holy apostolate, that you may inform our littleness in these matters as to what the catholic faith holds to be right: and that you may grant pardon for our ignorance or inexperience, if we have proceeded in any way through ignorance. The Lord Christ is able, through your holy prayers, to grant us pardon, lest we fall into the depth of evils. Pray for us, holy, venerable, and most blessed lord pope.

SUBSCRIPTION. May our Lord Jesus preserve your venerable health for a longer time, holy and venerable lord pope. LETTER II OR RESCRIPT TO VITALIS AND CONSTANTIUS. Concerning the one person of Christ, true God and man, against the recently condemned heresy of Nestorius. To the most beloved and religious sons Vitalis and Constantius, Capreolus, bishop. I. Having taken up and read through your letter, which you transmitted through Numinianus, a religious man, most beloved sons, I greatly rejoiced at your zeal and devotion, by which you hold and defend the rule of the established and ancient catholic faith with inviolable piety, and I observed that the Nestorian heresy, a new and unspeakable pestilence, just as it had already begun to sprout in certain places, also wishes to cast the seeds of its tares into the hearts of the inexperienced among you. But I believe and trust that our perfect husbandman, the Lord, the creator of all, has and always has had in every place of his dominion worthy laborers of the evangelical harvest; who, although before the time of harvest the unclean seeds ought not to be uprooted, nevertheless always keep watch with continuous prayers and preachings: so that those seeds, if it can be done while there is time, may be converted and changed into wheat: or at least that the enemy of the human race may not be able to suffocate the tender growing kinds of grain everywhere through adulterous intermixture.

For already—and I do not doubt that this has also reached your notice—within the regions of the East, where that plague first arose, a glorious synod of priests was gathered, at which our legation was not absent, and in its very entrance it was crushed together with its author and champion, and extinguished by the ray of apostolic light. Nor should your Charity be surprised if, even after its condemnation, among dying spirits a fetid breath still puffs forth Datus. For the audacity of heretics is always stubborn, and it persists in its evil perdition, urged on by the weight of its sins. But if perhaps you have not yet learned this, you may come to know it by an easy reading. II. Therefore, although for Christian and devout minds the authority of the universal Church itself is fully sufficient, and your assertion in this matter—as the discourse sent by you has fully taught—does not seem inferior, yet, lest I too should appear to deny a necessary response to the holy petition and inquiry, we confess that this is the one true doctrine which evangelical antiquity holds and hands down.

That is: that the Son of God, true God and true man, is entirely and inseparably one person; and we do not believe that the divine fullness came into Christ Jesus as if from outside, as it dwelt or dwells in other patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and the rest of the most holy and illustrious men; but in a certain proper and ineffable way, the Son of God also became the son of man: so that he who remained and remains the only-begotten of the Father’s unbegotten substance, by miraculously taking on man, became the firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29); and he who was in the beginning the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). From the time, therefore, when the mystery which was hidden from the ages (Col. 1:26) in God began to work through the angel in the virgin’s womb, and the Holy Spirit came upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35); God deigned to be born in man, he who always was, so that man might be born, such as had not been before. For he who was eternally begotten without a mother in heaven, he himself on earth was created without a father in the virgin’s womb from the Holy Spirit. And therefore we believe that in Christ Jesus the person of God and man can in no way be separated or subdivided: lest the Trinity in the Godhead be counted not as three but as four.

III. When the blessed apostle Paul was exhorting the faithful to put off the old man and put on the new, he said: "The first man is of the earth, earthly; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthly man, so are the earthly; and as is the heavenly man, so are the heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47-49). I ask them to tell me: how is this man from heaven, if he is not God conceived in the womb? Or what distinction is there of flesh and blood in the man Adam and in the man Christ, if this man is not full of God? For what does "the second man from heaven" mean? Did a transmitted flesh descend, and not, as it is written, the Holy Spirit come upon the virgin? But because the Word became flesh (John 1:14), he is therefore called the heavenly man. Nor for that reason did he lack true flesh, because he descended from heaven; for God took on flesh. Rightly the same Lord said of himself: "No one ascends into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man who is in heaven" (John 3:13). Certainly he was still speaking on earth, and had not yet ascended to the Father after the victory of his passion and the glory of his resurrection; and yet he said that the son of man was already in heaven.

This he certainly attests with all truth, because on account of man God dwelt on earth, and on account of God man dwelt in heaven. Whence also the Apostle: "He who descended," he says, "is the same who ascended above all heavens, to fill all things" (Eph. 4:10). Likewise elsewhere, when the Savior himself was speaking mystically about the food of his flesh and the drink of his blood, knowing that his disciples, offended by this, would murmur, saying: "This saying is hard; who can hear it?" (John 6:61), he speaks thus: "Does this scandalize you? If, then, you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before" (John 6:62)? Behold, here too you note how, on account of the unity of the person of God and man, he declares that the Son of Man will ascend where he was before, he who is known to have been formed in the womb of the virgin, so that from that point he might have taken the beginning of human birth. IV. Let no one, therefore, with a sacrilegious spirit dare to separate what is seen to remain in heaven and on earth in inseparable unity. For just as the man Christ Jesus cannot be alien from the omnipotence of the Godhead, so too God cannot be separated from those things which were done in or concerning the man. Therefore, a man was born who had not yet existed, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). In like manner, the impassible suffered through the passible whom he assumed, and the immortal died, and he who never dies rose again.

Nor indeed was God absent from that man in his passion: otherwise the Lord of glory would not have been crucified (1 Cor. 2:8). Or shall we say that God, in the man he assumed, was not even among the dead? Or is it truly to be feared that the divinity was there as if under penalty—that divinity which no quality affects, no dimension circumscribes, whose greatness no one comprehends, whose presence no one escapes, whose secret no one finds, whose splendor no one attains? Do you fear to enclose the immeasurable? to hold the omnipotent? to hide what is diffused everywhere? He could not be subject to such a condition as to resolve, as it is written, the birth-pangs of the underworld, in which the Lord of things willed and as he willed (Acts 2:24). Hear him, many thousands of years ago, while he proclaimed to blessed Job the works of his wonders through a cloud, as if reproaching him, and among his innumerable powers he also heaped up this: "Did you not take away the light from the impious, or break the arm of the proud? Or did you come to the ends of the sea, or walk in the tracks of the abyss? Or," he says, "will the gates of death be opened for you in fear, or will the gatekeepers of hell, seeing you, be afraid? Or did you know the breadth under heaven?" (Job 38:15-18, according to the Septuagint). If this is the voice of the Father, then nothing is difficult for the omnipotent, because he is everywhere, nowhere is he not. When also the prophet says, from the person of someone: "Where shall I go from your spirit, and from your face where shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present" (Ps.

CXXXVIII, 7, 8). This altogether testifies and demonstrates that God, with whose majesty all things are filled, in some incomprehensible and indeed inexpressible manner is also present among the dead. But if, which is more probable, in these things which were so long before predicted in prophecy concerning him and fulfilled, it is the voice of the Son of God, since through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made (John 1:3): he himself in the man deigned to visit the hidden places of the dead, and by the presence of his unconquered majesty terrified the rulers of death, and for the sake of those he wished to free, commanded the gates of the dead to be unbarred. V. Concerning this indeed the apostle John speaks thus in the Apocalypse: He placed his right hand upon me, saying: Do not fear; I am the first and the last; and living, I who had been dead; and behold I am living on the watch of the ages; and I hold the key of death and of the dead (Apoc. 1:17, 18). On account of the divinity indeed he is the first, because he is the beginning which also speaks to us (John 8:25); on account of the humanity indeed the last, because he did not disdain to undergo the cross and death for us. And therefore he to whom in his Divinity nothing of the creatures is closed, also in the man he assumed holds the keys of death and of the dead. So far then is it from being possible that God the Son of God, immutable and incomprehensible, could be confined among the dead, that we do not believe even the soul of the assumption itself was either fatally taken up or tenaciously abandoned.

But we do not believe that his flesh was infected by any contagion of corruption. For his own voice is in the psalm, as the apostle Peter interprets: "You will not leave my soul among the dead, nor allow your holy one to see corruption" (Ps. 15:40; Acts 2:27). He himself, because of our fault, became like a man without help (Ps. 87:5): on account of his innocence and his power, he was found free among the dead. For then truly, as it is written (Ps. 68:5), he was paying what he had not taken. It is not therefore surprising if some place receives God, yet does not contain him: it perceives his presence, does not impede his majesty: it stands in awe of his omnipotence, does not enclose his substance. For that supreme and perfect blessedness and inextinguishable light [or light] can neither be darkened by shadows, nor varied by places, nor affected by passions, nor diminished by conditions, nor changed by times. Therefore God did not abandon his own son, a man, among the dead, nor did he leave him among the dead. By whose power and majesty, then, were the bodies of the ancient saints seen to have risen (Matt. 27:11, 52), if God never visited the underworld? Who is it that caused rocks to be split, the earth to be shaken, the sun to be darkened, the day to flee, the temple veil to be torn into two parts? Was it only a man? Was it not also God? Therefore he was absent from him neither on the cross, nor in death, nor in the tomb, nor among the dead.

Nor is it otherwise, or concerning another, that what is said in the psalm is usually understood: "Take away your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the king of glory will enter" (Ps. 23:7). Whence, as they are terrified and ask, "Who is this king of glory?" (Ps. 23:8), the answer is given: "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle" (ibid.). What battle? If not that in which he trampled death by death, extinguished sin by the slaughter of the innocent, and bore back the trophy of victory from the devil and his angels. VI. But when he himself said on the cross: "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps. 21:2). But this is the voice of the assumed man. Pay attention to whence it is taken, and there see what follows: "Far from my salvation," he says, "are the words of my transgressions" (ibid.). This voice is also similar to that which says: "My soul is sad unto death" (Matt. 26:38). Did he not himself say shortly before to the disciples: "You are saddened because I am going to my Father, and you will no longer see me" (John 16:6); and, "If you loved me, you would rejoice because I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). In what, then, does he bid his disciples to rejoice? How is it believed that the master is saddened, unless to show in the man the passions and fluctuations of a true man? For he who had come to redeem, instruct, and confirm us, endured in himself all kinds of our infirmity.

For we do not have a priest who cannot suffer with our infirmities (Heb. 4:15): for, as the Apostle says, He experienced all things according to the likeness without sin. Similar to this is also that saying: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: but not what I will, but what you will (Matt. 26:39). Did he not come for this, that he might drink this cup for us, and expel the poison proffered by the serpent with such an antidote of salvation? Did he not have the power to lay down his life, and the power to take it up again (John 10:18)? Had he not himself said: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself (Ibid.)? And yet now he speaks as if doubting and refusing: so that there the divine power may appear, and here the human condition may recognize itself. Is this not the mystery which the Apostle proclaims was hidden in God before eternal times (Col. 1:26)? Or did Christ, as if something sudden, dread what he had arranged with the Father in eternity to be done at a certain time? These things, therefore, and suchlike, when they are said or done, as has often been said, demonstrate true human infirmity and frailty, and do not thereby evacuate the presence of divine majesty.

VII. Whoever you are, O man, who think that the God Christ was separated from the man Christ at the time of the Passion, you do not recall Him faithfully promising His presence to His disciples who were about to suffer, when He says: “When they have delivered you up, do not think about how or what you should say; for at that hour it will be given to you what you should say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matt. 10:19-20). Did He, who promised, granted, and exhibited His divine presence to servants doing the Lord’s will—in whom, with no sin existing, He underwent an innocent death for our salvation, in order to do the Father’s will—deny divine assistance to Himself during the time of the flesh? And did God abandon the man whom He assumed, compelled by no necessity, for the sake of these sufferings, in the very performance of them? He is present speaking among the torments of the martyrs, and does not permit them to meditate on anything else, and did He abandon Himself on the gibbet of the cross? For He is the same—and this must be said often and always—and the person of God and of man cannot be distinguished, although in Him there is a diverse substance. Far be it from us to believe otherwise, far be it from us to think otherwise concerning the Almighty. He did not fear to be born, though eternal; to grow, though perfect; to suffer, though impassible; to die, though immortal, without any change or corruption in Himself, as has already been said. But because the Divinity alone could not undergo these things, He took on a man through whom He would carry out the mystery of so great a gift.

For even when received into heaven, He raised Him there, whence He Himself never departed. Let us hear the Apostle proclaiming Christ crucified—a scandal to the Jews, indeed, and folly to the Gentiles, but to those same called Jews and Greeks, that same Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23, 24). Pay attention, most beloved children, and recognize what you already know: that same Christ, who on account of the humility of the man He assumed is said to have been a scandal to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, is Himself the power of God and the wisdom of God. Was the person of the divinity and the humanity here separated or distinguished by the Apostle? Or did He shrink from calling the same being the wisdom of God, whom He had called the folly of the Gentiles? Or from asserting the same being the power of God, whom He had called the scandal of the Jews? Why, then, do we blush to confess God born and suffered on account of man and in man, when we do not deny that, by the gift of God, that same man became God? Which, of course, He is known to have received through divine grace, not through human substance.

VIII. A little further on he continues: "But you are in Christ Jesus, who has been made for us by God wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption: so that, as it is written: 'He who glories, let him glory in the Lord' (Ibid., 50, 31)." Certainly, the heretic says, Christ Jesus is the name of a man only. But Paul, who knew and had said that one must not glory in a man, had recognized Christ Jesus not only as man, but also as God; he believed that He had been made wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption for us by God; and he taught that believers should glory in Him: because Christ Jesus is both man and God. And to these things, consequently, not out of pride of word or wisdom, announcing the mystery of God, he adds and says: "I judged that I knew nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). And lest the wicked people of the Jews claim that they have committed only a small sin if they understand that they persecuted merely a man, he says that the mystery is hidden in the wisdom of God, testifying that it was revealed to none of the princes of this world (Ibid. 7). For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (Ibid. 8). Behold, here too, he who confesses Christ Jesus as the Lord of glory does not fear to proclaim Him crucified to the princes of the world.

I urge you to consider the entire content of this reading; and you will see with how great an effort and striving the holy Apostle raises the minds of men from the baseness of merely earthly understanding to the contemplation of divine and heavenly things in this mystery. For I pass over briefly all that you yourselves will be able to notice more fully and at greater length. For also in the second letter to the Corinthians (5:13, 14) he speaks in a certain place thus: "Whether," he says, "we were out of our mind for God, or whether we are temperate for you: for love compels us: judging this, that one died for all." And a little later: "All things," he says, "are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ: and gave us the mystery of reconciliation, because God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (ibid., 18, 19). IX. I ask in what manner: not otherwise than by being born, suffering, dying, rising again, and ascending into heaven? I also ask what is the mystery of our reconciliation? Is it anything other than the sacrifice which the high priest Christ offered through his own blood? Let us see, therefore, whether a mere man accomplished this: since, as they think, God departed from him in the passion. But the apostle Paul most clearly contradicts this opinion: "God," he says, "was in Christ." He was in Christ, he had not departed from Christ. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. In what manner reconciling? not holding their sins against them.

Or does this please fools, that remission of sins is made only through a man? Since even the Jews rejected this, saying: "He blasphemes: because who can forgive sins except God alone?" (Mark 2:7) The Lord Himself, Son of God and of man, wishing to reveal to unbelievers that He was not only the man whom they saw, but also God, in whom they scorned to believe, and to show clearly that divine power was also contributed to the man on account of the unity of His person and presence, said: "That you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins," then He said to the paralytic: "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your home" (Matthew 9:6). Thus God and man, one and true savior of souls and bodies, lifted both the outer man from carnal disease and the inner man from the burden of sin. Therefore God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself: never and nowhere abandoning the man, whom He assumed by His own condescension, with no necessity whatsoever.

X. Moreover, the same Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews testifies at the very beginning: Finally, he says, in these days He has spoken to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the ages. Who, being the splendor of glory and the figure of His substance, also bearing all things by the word of His power, having accomplished the purification of sins from Himself, sat on the right of majesty in the highest (Heb. 1:2, 3). Therefore the Son of God and the son of man is one and the same, who by reason of eternity made the ages with the Father, by reason of immutable light is the splendor of glory, by reason of equality is the figure of substance, by reason of majesty bears all things by the word of power. He also, by reason of the passion of the man He assumed, accomplished the purification of our sins; and by reason of recompense, has His session on the right of the Father. But how did He accomplish the purification of sins, except by destroying the bond that was drawn up against us (Col. 2:14), written with the accuser devil indicting? How did He destroy it, except by affixing to the cross and washing away with innocent blood? Therefore what God once spoke to the fathers through the prophets, and finally testified in the Son (Heb. 1:1, 2), let us believe this, let us hold this, let us defend this with all our strength. It comes to the case that then He despoiled the principalities and powers confidently, triumphing over them in Himself (Col. 2:15). Which work is not at all that of man alone, but of divine majesty in man.

For neither is it a strong and powerful man, but the Lord is powerful in war (Ps. 23:8). XI. Likewise, after many things there by which the Apostle distinguished the mystery of the New Testament from the figure of the Old, he speaks thus: "He who opposes the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses: how much more does he seem worthy of a worse punishment who has trampled upon the Son of God, and who has considered the blood of the New Testament, by which he is sanctified, as unclean, and has done insult to the spirit of the grace of God? For we know him who said: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord" (Heb. 10:28-30). I ask how the Son of God can be trampled upon. You see here also how he neither doubts, nor fears, nor blushes to assert that the Son of God has been trampled upon. But since if anyone considers the blood by which he is sanctified as unclean, he certainly tramples upon the Son of God: therefore he did not distinguish the passion of man from the majesty of God, whose guilty party he wishes to be the one who has held as nothing the blood shed for him. For the Son of God is not trampled upon except in that the benefit of the death which he endured in man is spurned. The Savior and Lord himself, about to reward faith, asks. See what he said: "Whom," he says, "do they say that I, the son of man, am" (Matt. 16:13)? And when they suggested to him the various opinions of others: "But you," he says, "whom do you say that I am" (Ibid., 15)? me, indeed, the son of man.

To this, Peter, inspired by the same Spirit, and in this confession destined to be of benefit to all nations for right faith, observe with what great and full integrity he replied: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). "You, you," O that one, "who call yourself the son of man, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Is it not also here, whether in the Lord's question or in the apostle's response, that one person of both natures is shown and demonstrated? While he declares himself the son of man, which was seen openly, and Peter shows him to be the Christ, the Son of God, which was hidden, by the confession granted to him? Hence he was praised by the Lord and called blessed (ibid., 17); because it was not flesh and blood that revealed it to him, but the Father who is in heaven. Therefore, what we ought to believe, God the Father reveals through God the Son, not what flesh and blood insinuates. XII. Also after the resurrection, when Mary had not recognized the Lord at all, and he, calling her by her own name, opened the way of recognition for her, and prevented her from touching him when she wished to do so; let us hear what he deigned to entrust to her to announce to the disciples. "Go," he says, "to my brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father; to my God and to your God" (John 20:17). Come now, let the heretic choose whichever he thinks, and let him discern by whose voice this is spoken; on either side he will be struck by the sharp spiritual sword.

I ascend," he says, "to my Father and to your Father; to my God and to your God." If this is the voice of a man, then that man is the Son of God: he said, "I ascend to my Father." If it is the voice of God, then that God is a man: for he said, "I ascend to my God." For he did not say, "I ascend to my Father and to the God of my man," or, "I ascend to my God and to the Father of the place of God." Therefore, whoever distinguishes the person of divinity and humanity is refuted by both understandings. Either a man spoke, and that same man is the Son of God; or God spoke, and that same God is also the man who was assumed. For he who says, "I ascend to my Father and to my God," by repeating "my" and "my," proves and promises one person, although he distinguishes each substance. For what he says, "I ascend to my Father," indeed seems to pertain to the only-begotten Son; but what he says, "to my God," seems to pertain to the man who was made. But in Christ Jesus, neither can the created man be said, nor can the only-begotten God be denied to have been born a man. And therefore this voice is proven to be neither of God alone nor of man alone: which voice God and man, one and the only Son himself, entrusted to his disciples to be conveyed with altogether inseparable and indivisible affection.

Finally, so that you may know and more fully understand that what is said is so, to dismantle all the machinations of heretics and refute every calumny, see how divine piety watched over us where it was necessary to distinguish the nature of the creator from that of the creature. "Go," he says, "to my brothers, and tell them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father; to my God and to your God." Behold, here the person of the Lord himself, that is, of God and man, is clearly distinguished from the person of his servants, and the calling is separated from nature. For although what is commanded is already commanded to friends and brothers, it is nevertheless shown what is owed to the Lord, what is granted to the rest of the servants. For he could have said, "I ascend to our Father and to our God," because there is a great distance between dominion and condition, between generation and adoption, between substance and grace. And therefore here it is not said indiscriminately or casually, "I ascend to our Father and to our God," but "to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." For God is father to him in one way, to us in another. For nature equalizes him, mercy humbles him; but nature prostrates us, mercy raises us up. For this divine humanity and human divinity accomplished such and so great a miracle that the unworthy weakness of mortals merited this kind of grace.

XIII. And who could, or to whom would it suffice, to gather together all the proofs of the sacred pages at one time, by which this pure and unadulterated truth is fully taught? But the manner of speaking, which has already long exceeded its bounds, must at some point be restrained, and I must labor no longer with those whom, with the Lord instructing, I have recognized as learned. Therefore, press on, as the Apostle (2 Tim. 4:2) commanded, opportunely and inopportunely; and with sound doctrine, refute, recall, instruct, and strengthen all who are in error: not relying on my own proofs, which are none or slight, in this rule of faith; but on those of the divine Scriptures, and of the great and most learned men, who before us held these things most firmly and taught them most eloquently in manifold books.