Letters · Part 15

And in our anguish and alarm lest the plague creeping on by little and little should attack more, and the evil become general, we thus instruct your serenity, and continue to give you exhortation; we implore your majesty to yield to our prayers and to prohibit any addition to be made to the Faith of the holy Fathers assembled in council at Nicæa.

And if after this our entreaty your piety reject this doctrine, which was given in the presence of God, we will shake off the dust of our feet against you, and cry with the blessed Paul, "We are pure from your blood." For we cease not night and day from the moment of our arrival at this distinguished council to bear witness to prince, nobles, soldiers, priests and people, that we hold fast the Faith delivered to us by the Fathers.

CLXIX. Letter written by Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus, from Chalcedon to Alexander of Hierapolis.

We have left no means untried, of courtesy, of sternness, of entreaty, of eloquence before the most pious emperor, and the illustrious assembly, testifying before God who sees all things and our Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the world in justice, and the Holy Spirit and his elect angels, lest the Faith be despised which is now being corrupted by the maintainers and bold subscribers of heretical doctrines: and that charge be given for it to be laid down in the same terms as at Nicæa and for the rejection of the heresy introduced to the loss and ruin of true religion. Up to this time however we have produced not the slightest effect, our hearers being carried now in one direction and now in another.

Nevertheless all these difficulties have not been able to deter me from urging my point, but by God's grace I have pressed on. I have even stated to our pious emperor with an oath that it is perfectly impossible for Cyril and Memnon to be reconciled with me, and that we can never communicate with any one who has not previously repudiated the heretical Chapters. This then is our mind. The object of men who "seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christ's" is to be reconciled with them against our will. But this is no business of mine, for God weighs our motives and tries our character, nor does He inflict chastisement for what is done against our will. Be it known to your holiness that if ever I said a word about our friend either before the very pious emperor or the illustrious assembly, I was at once branded as a rebel. So intensely is he hated by the court party. This is most annoying. The most pious emperor, especially, cannot bear to hear his name mentioned and says publicly "Let no one speak to me of this man." On one occasion he gave an instance of this to me. Nevertheless as long as I am here I shall not cease to serve the interests of this our father, knowing that the impious have done him wrong.

My desire is that both your piety and I myself get quit of this. No good is to be hoped from it, in as much as all the judges trust in gold, and contend that the nature of the Godhead and manhood is one.

All the people however by God's grace are in good case, and constantly come out to us. I have begun to discourse to them and have celebrated very large communions.

On the fourth occasion I spoke at length about the faith and they listened with such delight that they did not go away till the seventh hour but held out even till the midday heat. An enormous crowd was gathered in a great court, with four verandahs, and I preached from above from a platform near the roof.

All the clergy with the excellent monks are on the contrary utterly opposed to me, so that when we came back from the Rufinianum, after the visit of the very pious emperor, stone throwing began and many of my companions were wounded, by the people and false monks.

The very pious emperor knew that the mob was gathered against me and coming up to me alone he said, "I know that you are assembling improperly." Then, said I, "As you have allowed me to speak hear me with favour. Is it fair for excommunicated heretics to be doing duty in churches, while I, who am fighting for the Faith and am therefore excluded by others from communion, am not allowed to enter a church?" He replied "What am I to do?" I said, "What your comes largitionum did at Ephesus. When he found that some were assembling, but that we were not assembling, he stopped them saying, If you are not peaceful I will allow neither party to assemble.' It would have become your piety also to have given directions to the bishop here to forbid both the opposite party and ourselves to assemble before our meeting together to make known your righteous sentence to all." To this he replied "It is not for me to order the bishop;" and I answered "Neither shall you command us, and we will take a church, and assemble. Your piety will find that there are many more on our side than on theirs." In addition to this I pointed out that we had neither reading of the holy Scripture, nor oblation; but only "prayer for the Faith and for your majesty, and pious conversation." So he approved, and made no further prohibition. The result is that increased crowds flock to us, and gladly listen to our teaching. I therefore beg your piety to pray that our case may have an issue pleasing to God. I am in daily danger, suspecting the wiles of both monks and clergy, as I witness alike their influence and their negligence.

CLXX. Letter of certain Easterns, who had been sent to Constantinople, to Bishop Rufus.

To our most godly and holy fellow-minister Rufus, Joannes, Himerius, Theodoretus, and the rest, send greeting in the Lord.

True religion and the peace of the Church suffer, we think, in no small degree, from the absence of your holiness. Had you been on the spot you might have put a stop to the disturbances which have arisen, and the violence that has been ventured on, and might have fought on our side for the subjection of the heresies introduced into the orthodox Faith, and that doctrine of apostles and evangelists which, handed down from time to time from father to son, has at length been transmitted to ourselves.

And we do not assert this without ground, for we have learnt the mind of your holiness from the letter written to the very godly and holy Julianus, bishop of Sardica, for that letter as is right charged the above named very godly bishop to fight for the Faith laid down by the blessed fathers assembled in council at Nicæa, and not to allow any corruption to be introduced into those invincible definitions which are sufficient at once to exhibit the truth and to refute falsehood. So your holiness rightly, justly, and piously advised, and the recipient of the letter followed your counsel. But many of the members of the council, to use the word of the prophet, "have gone aside," and have "altogether become filthy," for they have abandoned the Faith which they received from the holy Fathers, and have subscribed the twelve Chapters of Cyril of Alexandria, which teem with Apollinarian error, are in agreement with the impiety of Arius and Eunomius, and anathematize all who do not accept their unconcealed unorthodoxy. To this plague smiting the Church vigorous resistance has been offered by us who have assembled from the East, and others from different dioceses, with the object of securing the ratification of the Faith delivered by the blessed Fathers at Nicæa. For in it, as your holiness knows, there is nothing lacking whether for the teaching of evangelic doctrines, or for the refutation of every heresy.

For the sake of this Faith we continue to struggle, despising alike all the joys and sorrows of mortal life, if only we may preserve untouched this heritage of our fathers. For this reason we have deposed Cyril and Memnon; the former as prime mover in the heresy, and the latter as his aider and abettor in all that has been done to ratify and uphold the Chapters published to the destruction of the Church. We have also excommunicated all that have dared to subscribe and support these impious doctrines till they shall have anathematized them, and returned to the Faith of the Fathers at Nicæa.

But our long-suffering has done them no good. To this day they continue to do battle for those pernicious doctrines and have impaled themselves on the law of the canon which distinctly enacts "If any bishop deposed by a synod, or presbyter or deacon deposed by his own bishop, shall perform his sacred office, without waiting for the judgment of a synod, he is to have no opportunity for defending himself, not even in another synod: but also all who communicate with him are to be expelled from the church." Now this law has been broken both by the deposed and the excommunicate. For immediately after the deposition and the excommunication becoming known to them, they performed sacred functions, and they continue to do so, in plain disbelief of Him who said "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven."

With this we have thought well to acquaint your holiness at once, but in expectation of some favourable change, we have waited up to the present time. But we have been disappointed. They have continued to fight for this impious heresy, and pay no attention to the counsels of the very pious emperor. On five separate occasions he has met us, and ordered them either to reject the Chapters of Cyril as contrary to the Faith, or to be willing to do battle in their behalf, and to shew in what way they are in agreement with the confession of the Fathers. We have our proofs at hand, whereby we should have shewn that they are totally opposed to the teaching of orthodoxy, and for the most part in agreement with heresy.

For in these very Chapters the author of the noxious productions teaches that the Godhead of the only begotten Son suffered, instead of the manhood which He assumed for the sake of our salvation, the indwelling Godhead manifestly appropriating the sufferings as of Its own body, though suffering nothing in Its own nature; and further that there is made one nature of both Godhead and manhood,--for so he explains "The Word was made flesh," as though the Godhead had undergone some change, and been turned into flesh.

And, further, he anathematizes those who make a distinction between the terms used by apostles and evangelists about the Lord Christ, referring those of humiliation to the manhood, and those of divine glory to the Godhead, of the Lord Christ. It is with these views that Arians and Eunomians, attributing the terms of humiliation to the Godhead, have not shrunk from declaring God the Word to be made and created, of another substance, and unlike the Father.

What blasphemy follows on these statements it is not difficult to perceive. There is introduced a confusion of the natures, and to God the Word are applied the words "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me;" and "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me," the hunger, the thirst, and the strengthening by an angel; His saying "Now is my soul troubled," and "my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," and all similar passages belonging to the manhood of the Christ. Any one may perceive how these statements correspond with the impiety of Arius and Eunomius; for they, finding themselves unable to establish the difference of substance, connect, as has been said, the sufferings, and the terms of humiliation, with the Godhead of the Christ.

And be your reverence well assured that now in their churches the Arian teachers preach no other doctrine than that the supporters of the "homousion" at present hold the same views as Arius, and that, after long time, the truth has now at last been brought to light.

We on the contrary abide in the teaching, and follow in the pious footprints, of the blessed Fathers assembled at Nicæa, and of their illustrious successors, Eustathius of Antioch, Basil of Cæsarea, Gregory, John, Athanasius, Theophilus, Damasus of Rome, and Ambrose of Milan. For all these, following the words of the apostles, have left us an exact rule of orthodoxy, which all we of the East earnestly desire to preserve unmoved. The same is the wish of the Bithynians, the Paphlagonians, of Cappadocia Secunda, Pisidia, Mysia, Thessaly, and Rhodope, and very many more of the different provinces. The Italians too, it is evident, will not endure this new-fangled doctrine; for the very godly and holy Martinus, bishop of Milan, has written a letter to us, and has sent to the very pious emperor a work by the blessed Ambrose on the incarnation of the Lord, of which the teaching is opposed to these heretical Chapters.

And be it known to your holiness that Cyril and Memnon have not been satisfied with corrupting the orthodox Faith, but have trampled all the canons underfoot. For they have received into communion men excommunicated in various provinces and dioceses. Others lying under charges of heresy, and of the same mind as Celestius and Pelagius, (for they are Euchitæ, or Enthusiasts ) and therefore excommunicated by their diocesans and metropolitans, they have, in defiance of all ecclesiastical discipline received into communion, so swelling their following from all possible quarters, and shewing their eagerness to enforce their teaching less by piety than by violence. For when they had been stripped bare of piety they devised, in their extremity, another sort of force,--walls of flesh, with the idea that by their showers of bribery they might vanquish the faith of the Fathers. But so long as your holiness puts forth your strength, and you continue to fight, as you are wont, in defence of true religion, none of these devices will be of the least avail. We exhort you therefore, most holy sir, to beware of the communion of the unscrupulous introducers of this heresy; and to make known to all, both far and near, that these are the points for which the thrice blessed Damasus deposed the heretics Apollinarius, Vitalius, and Timotheus; and that the Epistle in which the writer has concealed his heresy and coloured it with a coating of truth, must not in simplicity be received. For in the Chapters he has boldly laid bare his impiety, and dared to anathematize all who disagree with him, while in the letter he has vilely endeavoured to harm the simpler readers.

Your holiness must therefore beware of neglecting this matter, lest when, too late, you see this heresy confirmed, you grieve in vain, and suffer affliction at being no longer able to defend the cause of truth.

We have also sent you a copy of the memorial which we have given to the most pious and Christ-loving emperor, containing the faith of the holy Fathers at Nicæa. wherein we have rejected the newly-invented heresies of Cyril, and adjudged them to be opposed to the orthodox faith.

Since in accordance with the orders of the very pious emperor only eight of us travelled to Constantinople, we have subjoined the copy of the order given us by the holy synod, that you may be acquainted with the provinces contained in it. Your holiness will learn them from the signatures of the metropolitans. We salute the brotherhood which is with you.

CLXXI. Letter of Theodoret to John, Bishop of Antioch, after the Reconciliation.

God, who governs all things in wisdom, who provides for our unanimity, and cares for the salvation of His people, has caused us to be assembled together, and has shewn us that the views of all of us are in agreement with one another. We have assembled together, and read the Egyptian Letter; we have carefully examined its purport, and we have discovered that its contents are quite in accordance with our own statements, and entirely opposed to the Twelve Chapters, against which up to the present time we have continued to wage war, as being contrary to true religion. Their teaching was that God the Word was carnally made flesh; that there was an union of hypostasis, and that the combination in union was of nature, and that God the Word was the first-born from the dead. They forbade all distinction in the terms used of our Lord, and further contained other doctrines at variance with the seeds sown by the apostles, and outcome of heretical tares. The present script, however, is beautified by apostolic nobility of origin. For in it our Lord Jesus Christ is exhibited as perfect God and perfect man; it shews two natures, and the distinction between them; an unconfounded union, made not by mixture and compounding, but in a manner ineffable and divine, and distinctly preserving the properties of the natures; the impassibility and immortality of God the Word; the passibility and temporary surrender to death of the temple, and its resurrection by the power of the united God; that the holy Spirit is not of the Son, nor derives existence from the Son, but proceeds from the Father, and is properly stated to be of the Son, as being of one substance. Beholding this orthodoxy in the letter, we have hymned Him who heals our stammering tongues, and changes our discordant noises into the harmony of sweet music.

CLXXII. Letter of Theodoretus to Nestorius.

To the very reverend and religious lord and very holy Father, Nestorius, the bishop Theodoretus sends greeting in the Lord. Your holiness is, I think, well aware that I take no pleasure in cultivated society, nor in the interests of this life, nor in reputation, nor am I attracted by other sees. Had I learnt this lesson from no other source, the very solitude of the city over which I am called to preside would suffice to teach me this philosophy. It is not indeed distinguished only for solitude, but also by very many disturbances which may check the activity even of those who most delight in them.

Let no one therefore persuade your holiness that I have accepted the Egyptian writings as orthodox, with my eyes shut, because I covet any see. For really, to speak the truth, after frequently reading and carefully examining them, I have discovered that they are free from all heretical taint, and I have hesitated to put any stress upon them, though I certainly have no love for their author, who was the originator of the disturbances which have agitated the world. For this I hope to escape punishment in the day of Judgment, since the just Judge examines motives. But to what has been done unjustly and illegally against your holiness, not even if one were to cut off both my hands would I ever assent, God's grace helping me and supporting my infirmity. This I have stated in writing to those who require it. I have sent to your holiness my reply to what you wrote to me, that you may know that, by God's grace, no time has changed me like the centipedes and chameleons who imitate by their colour the stones and leaves among which they live. I and all with me salute all the Brotherhood who are with you in the Lord.

CLXXIII. Letter to Andreas, Monk of Constantinople.

"God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it," and convicts falsehood,--although now refuted assertion of the falsehood is approved,--and the power of truth has been shewn. For, lo, they, who by their impious reasoning had confused the natures of our Saviour Christ, and dared to preach one nature, and therefore insulted the most holy and venerable Nestorius, high priest of God, their mouths held, as the prophet says, with bit and bridle and turned from wrong to right, have once again learnt the truth, adopting the statement of him who in the cause of truth has borne the brunt of the battle. For instead of one nature they now confess two, anathematizing all who preach mixture and confusion. They adore the impassible Godhead of Christ; they attribute passion to the flesh; they distinguish between the terms of the Gospels, ascribing the lofty and divine to the Godhead, and the lowly to the manhood. Such are the writings now brought from Egypt.

CLXXIV. To Himerius, Bishop of Nicomedia.

We wish to acquaint your holiness that on reading and frequently discussing the letter brought from Egypt we find it in harmony with the doctrine of the Church. Of the twelve Chapters we have proved the contrary, and up to the present time we continue to oppose them. We have therefore determined, if your holiness has recovered the churches divinely entrusted to you, that you ought to communicate with the Egyptians and Constantinopolitans and others who have fought with them against us, because they have professed to hold our faith, or I should rather say the faith of the apostles; but not to give your consent to the alleged condemnation of the very holy and venerable Nestorius. For we hold it impious and unjust in the case of charges in which both appeared as defendants to lavish favour on the one and shut the door of repentance on the other. Far more unjust and impious is it to condemn an innocent man to death. Your holiness should be assured that you ought not to communicate with them before you have recovered your churches. For this not only I but all the holy bishops of our district decreed in the recent Council.

CLXXV. To Alexander of Hierapolis.

I have already informed your holiness that if the doctrine of the very holy and venerable bishop, my lord Nestorius, is condemned, I will not communicate with those who do so. If it shall please your holiness to insert this in the letter which is being sent to Antioch so be it. Let there then, I beseech you, be no delay!

CLXXVI. Letter to the same Alexander after he had learnt that John, Bishop of Antioch, had Anathematized the Doctrine of Nestorius.

Be it known to your holiness that when I read the letter addressed to the emperor I was much distressed, because I know perfectly well that the writer of the letter, being of the same opinions, has unwisely and impiously condemned one who has never held or taught anything contrary to sound doctrine. But the form of anathema, though it be more likely than his assent to the condemnation, to grieve a reader, nevertheless has given me some ground of comfort, in that it is laid down not in wide general terms, but with some qualification. For he has not said "We anathematize his doctrine" but "whatever he has either said or held other than is warranted by the doctrine of the apostles."

CLXXVII. Letter to Andreas, Bishop of Samosata.