I and my household salute all thy brotherhood in piety in Christ.
[1765] Domnus succeeded his Uncle John at Antioch in 441.
[1766] 2 Cor. xii. 11
[1767] The first formal insertion of the addition filioque is said to be in a Creed put forth at a council of Toledo about a.d. 400. At the third council of Toledo a.d. 589, the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed was promulgated with the addition--"ex Patre et Filio procedentem."
[1768] Heb. i. 3
[1769] Rom. ix. 5
[1770] Rom. i. 3, 4
[1771] cf. note on page 213.
[1772] Eph. iv. 5
[1773] 1 Cor. viii. 6
[1774] Heb. xiii. 8
[1775] Ephes. iv. 10
[1776] John i. 14
[1777] John i. 15
[1778] John xx. 28
LXXXIV. To the Bishops of Cilicia. [1779]
Your piety has heard of the calumnies directed against me. The opponents of the truth allege that I divide our one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, into two sons, and it is said by some that a ground for their calumny is derived from a handful of men among you who hold these opinions, and who divide God the Word made man into two sons. They ought to listen to those words of the Apostle which openly declare "one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things," [1780] and again "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." [1781] They ought to have followed the Master's teaching, for the Lord Himself says "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in Heaven." [1782] And again "If ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before." [1783] And the tradition of holy baptism teaches us that there is one Son, just as there is one Father and one Holy Ghost. I hope then that your piety will deign, if there really are any, though I cannot believe it, who disobey the apostolic doctrines to close their mouths, to rebuke them as the laws of the Church require, and teach them to follow the footsteps of the holy Fathers and preserve undefiled the faith laid down at Nicæa in Bithynia by the holy and blessed Fathers, as summing up the teaching of Evangelists and Apostles. For it becomes you who love God to give heed both to God's glory and our common credit, and not to overlook the attacks which are made upon us all through the ignorance or contentiousness of these few men--if they really are guilty, and if they are not, like ourselves, suffering from the whetted tongues of false accusers.
Deign to remember us in your prayers to God, for so the law of love ordains.
[1779] This encyclical is probably of the same date as the preceding.
[1780] 1 Cor. viii. 6
[1781] Ephes. iv. 5
[1782] John iii. 13
[1783] John vi. 62
LXXXV. To the Bishop Basil. [1784]
The chief good is said by the divine Paul to be love, [1785] and by love he ordered the nurslings of the faith to be fed. Of this love your piety possesses great wealth, and so has told me what was befitting and given me pleasant news. For to them that fear the Lord what can be pleasanter than the health and harmony of the doctrines of the truth? Be well assured, most godly sir, that we were much delighted to hear the intelligence of our common friend; and in proportion to our previous distress at hearing that he described the nature of flesh and of Godhead as one, and openly attributed the passion of salvation to the impassible Godhead, so were all rejoiced to read the letters of your holiness, and to learn that he maintains in their integrity the properties of the natures and denies both the change of God the Word into flesh, and the mutation of the flesh into the nature of Godhead, maintaining on the contrary that in the one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word made man, the properties of either nature abide unconfounded. We praise the God of all for the harmony of divine faith. We have however written to either Cilicia, [1786] although our intelligence is imperfect, as to whether there are really any opponents of the truth, and have charged the godly bishops to search and examine if there are any who divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons, and either to bring them to their senses by admonition, or cut them off from the roll of the brethren. For in fact we equally repudiate both those who dare to assert one nature of flesh and Godhead, and those who divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons and strive to go beyond the definitions of the Apostles.
But let your holiness be well assured that we are disposed to peace. For if the prophet says, "With them that hate peace I was peaceful," [1787] much more readily do we welcome the peace of God.
Some of those men who have been fed on lies have hurried to Alexandria and patched up calumnies against me, with the result that the godly bishop of that city, led away by their statements, although he had been fully informed by my letters, has sent a pious bishop to the imperial city. I beg you therefore to shew your accustomed kindness to him, and to confront falsehood with the truth.
[1784] There appears to be nothing in this letter or in Letter CII. also addressed to bishop Basil to identify the recipient. Basil bishop of Seleucia in Isauria was at the Latrocinium and at Chalcedon. Basil, bishop of Trajanopolis was also present at the same councils. Garnerius is in favour of the former, and notes the date as 448.
[1785] 1 Cor. xiii. 13
[1786] Vide note on p. 44.
[1787] Ps. cxx. 6 and 7. lxx.
LXXXVI. [1788] To Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople.
At the present time, most God-beloved lord, I have received many buffetings of billows, but I called upon the great Pilot, and have been able to stand firm against the storm; the attacks, however, now made upon me transcend every story in tragedy. In relation to the attacks which are being plotted against the apostolic faith, I thought that I should find an ally and fellow-worker in the most godly bishop of Alexandria, the lord Dioscorus, [1789] and so sent him one of our pious presbyters, a man of remarkable prudence, with a synodical letter informing his piety that we abide in the agreement made in the time of Cyril of blessed memory, and accept the letter written by him as well as that written by the very blessed and sainted Athanasius to the blessed Epictetus, and, before these, the exposition of the faith laid down at Nicæa in Bithynia by the holy and blessed Fathers. We exhorted him to induce those who are unwilling to abide by these documents at once to abide by them. But one of the opposite party, who keep up these disturbances, by tricking some of those who are on the spot and contriving countless calumnies against myself has stirred an iniquitous agitation against me.
But the very godly bishop Dioscorus has written us a letter such as never ought to have been written by one who has learnt from the God of all not to listen to vain words. He has believed the charges brought against me as though he had made personal enquiry into every one of them, and had arrived at the truth after questioning, and has thus condemned me. I however have bravely borne the calumnious charge, and have written him back a courteous letter, representing to his piety that the whole charge is false, and that not one of the godly bishops of the East holds opinions contrary to the apostolic decrees. Moreover the pious clergy whom he sent as messengers have been convinced by the actual evidence of the facts. These however he has dismissed unheeded, and, lending his ears to my calumniators, has acted in a manner quite incredible, were it not that the whole church bears witness to it. He put up with them that were crying Anathema against me; nay he stood up in his place and confirmed their words by adding his voice to theirs. Besides all this he sent certain godly bishops to the imperial city, as we learnt, in the hope of increasing the agitation against me. I in the first place have for champion Him who seeth all things, for it is on behalf of the divine decrees that I am wrestling--next after Him I invoke your holiness to fight in defence of the faith that is attacked, and do battle on behalf of the canons that are being trodden under foot. When the blessed Fathers were assembled in that imperial city [1790] in harmony with them that had sat in council at Nicæa, they distinguished the dioceses, and assigned to each diocese the management of its own affairs, expressly enjoining that none should intrude from one diocese into another. They ordered that the bishop of Alexandria should administer the government of Egypt alone, and every diocese its own affairs. [1791]
Dioscorus, however, refuses to abide by these decisions; he is turning the see of the blessed Mark upside down; and these things he does though he perfectly well knows that the Antiochene metropolis possesses the throne of the great Peter, who was teacher of the blessed Mark, and first and coryphæus of the chorus of the apostles. [1792]
But I know the majesty of the see, and I know and take measure of myself. I have learnt from the first the humility of the Apostles. I beseech your holiness not to overlook the trampling underfoot of the holy canons, and to stand forward zealously as champion of the divine faith, for in that faith we have hope of our salvation and on its account are confident that we shall meet with mercy.
But that your holiness may not be ignorant of this, know, my lord, that he shewed his ill-will towards me from the time of my assenting, in obedience to the canons of the holy Fathers, to the synodical letters issued in your see in the time of Proclus of blessed memory; on this point he has chidden me once and again on the ground of my violating the rights of the church of Antioch and, as he says, of that of Alexandria. Remembering this, and finding, as he thinks, an opportunity, he has exhibited his hostility. But nothing is stronger than the truth. Truth is wont to conquer even with few words. I beseech your holiness to remember me in your prayers to the Lord that I may have power to prevail against the waves that are beating me hither and thither.
[1788] This important letter may be placed between the sentence of deposition issued by Dioscorus in Feb. 448 and the imperial edict of March 449; probably before November 448, when Eutyches was arraigned before the Synod of Constantinople presided over by Flavian.
[1789] cf. Letter LX, written probably not long after the consecration of Dioscorus in 444.
[1790] i.e. in Constantinople in 381. The second Canon of the Council is referred to,--confining each bishop to his own "diocese," i.e. a tract comprising more than one province. So the bishop of Alexandria was restricted to Egypt.
[1791] The immediate cause of this enactment by the Constantinopolitan Fathers was the interference of Peter of Alexandria in the appointment to the see of Constantinople, when the orthodox party nominated Gregory of Nazianzus. cf. p. 136.
[1792] The third Canon of Constantinople had enacted that henceforth the see of the new capital should rank next after Rome. In the text the precedence of Antioch before Alexandria is based on association with St. Peter. "The so-called Cathedra Petri, which is kept in a repository of the wall of the apse of the Vatican Basilica," and was "exhibited in 1866" "is probably a throne made for or presented to Charles the Bold in 875." Dict. Christ. Ant. ii. 1960. For the connexion of St. Peter with Antioch see Routh Rell. Sac. i. 179.
LXXXVII. To Domnus, Bishop of Apamea. [1793]
The law of brotherly love demanded that I should receive many letters from your godliness at this time. For the divine Apostle charges us to weep with them that weep and rejoice with them that do rejoice. [1794] I have not received a single one, although just lately I was visited by some of the pious monks of your monastery with the pious presbyter Elias. Nevertheless I have written, and I salute your holiness; and I make you acquainted with the fact that the consolation of the Master has stood me in stead of all other, for in truth not even had I as many mouths as I have hairs on my head, could I worthily praise Him for my being deemed worthy of suffering on account of my confession of Him, and for the apparent disgrace which I hold more august than any honour. And if I be banished to the uttermost parts of the earth all the more will I praise Him as being counted worthy of greater blessings. Nevertheless I hope your holiness will put up prayers for the quiet of the holy churches. It is because of the storm that is assailing them that I wail and groan and lament. That quiet, as I know, was driven away by the Osrhoene clergy, [1795] who poured out countless words against me, although I had no share in their condemnation, nor in the sentence passed upon them; on the contrary, as your holiness knows, I besought that the communion might be given to them at Easter. But slanderers find no difficulty in saying what they like. My consolation lies in the blessing of the Master who said, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." [1796]