He, too, who now rules great Rome and diffuses in all directions from the West the rays of right teaching, the most holy Leo, has expressed to me this distinctive mark of the faith in his own letters. All these have clearly taught that the only begotten Son of God and everlasting God, ineffably begotten of the Father, is one Son; and that after the incarnation He was called both Son of man and man, not because He was changed into manhood, for His nature is immutable, but because He took what was ours. They teach too that He was both impassible and immortal as God, and mortal and passible as man; but after the resurrection even in relation to His humanity He received impassibility and immortality, for, though the body remained a body, still it is impassible and immortal, verily a divine body and glorified with divine glory. This is distinctly told us by the blessed Paul in the words "For our conversation is in heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory." [2036] He does not say to "His glory" but to "the body of His glory," and the Lord Himself, when He had said to His apostles "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in His Father's glory," [2037] took them after six days into an exceeding high mountain, and was transfigured before them, and His face became as the sun, and His raiment was bright like the light. [2038] By these means He shewed the manner of the second advent. He taught that the assumed nature is not uncircumscribed (for this is characteristic of the Godhead alone) but that it shall send forth flashes of the divine glory, and emit rays of light transcending the powers of the sense of sight. With this glory He was taken up; with this the angels said that He should come; for their words were "He who was taken from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." [2039] When moreover He was seen by the divine apostles after the resurrection, He shewed them both hands and feet; and to Thomas He shewed also His side and the wounds of the nails and of the spear. For on account of those men who positively deny the assumption of the flesh, and further of those others who assert that after the resurrection the nature of the body was changed into the nature of Godhead, He preserved unaltered the prints of the nails and of the spear. And while raising all other bodies free from every disfigurement, [2040] in His own body He left the marks of His sufferings, to the end that deniers of the assumption of the body may be convicted of their error by means of His sufferings; and holders of the notion that His body was changed into another nature may be taught by the print of the nails that it abides in its own proper qualities. Suppose any one to imagine that he has a proof that the body of the Lord did not remain a body after the resurrection in the fact that He came in to the disciples when the doors were shut, let such an one remember how He walked upon the sea while His body was still mortal, how He was born after keeping the seals of virginity intact, and how again when encircled by them that were plotting against Him He frequently escaped from their hands. But why need I mention the Lord, who was not only man, but God before the ages, and to whom it was easy to do whatsoever He would? Let them tell how Habakkuk was translated from Judæa into Babylon in a moment of time and passed through the covering of the den, and brought the food to Daniel, and returned again. without destroying the seals of the den. [2041] It is sheer foolishness to enquire into the manner of the miracles of the Lord, but in addition to what has been said it ought also to be known that after the resurrection our bodies also will be incorruptible and immortal, and being released from what is earthly will become light and æthereal. This moreover is distinctly taught us by the divine Paul in the words "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" [2042] and in another place "We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." [2043] If then the bodies of the saints become light and æthereal and easily travel through the air, we cannot wonder that the Lord's body united to the Godhead of the only begotten, when, after the resurrection, it had become immortal, entered in when the doors were shut.
Countless other proofs might be quoted without difficulty from apostles and prophets. But what has been already said is enough to show the drift of my teaching. I believe in one Father, one Son and one Holy Ghost; and I confess one Godhead, one Lordship, one substance and three hypostases. For the incarnation of the only begotten did not add to the number of the Trinity, and make the Trinity a quaternity, but, even after the incarnation the Trinity was still a Trinity. And while confessing that the only begotten Son of God was made man I do not deny the nature which He took, but confess, as I have said, both the nature which took and the nature which was taken. The union did not confound the properties of the natures. For if the air by receiving the light through all its parts does not cease to be air, nor yet at the same time destroy the nature of the light, for with our eyes we behold the light and by our feeling we recognise the air, as it meets us cold or hot, or moist or dry, so it were sheer folly to call the union of the Godhead and the manhood confusion. If created natures which share at once subordinate and temporal existence, when united and in some sense mingled, yet remain unimpaired, and, when the light withdraws, the nature of the air is left alone, much more proper is it, I apprehend, for the nature which fashioned all things, when conjoined with and united to the nature which it assumed from us, to be acknowledged to continue itself in its purity, and in like manner to preserve unimpaired that which it had assumed. Gold, too, when brought in contact with the fire, participates both in the colour and power of fire, but it does not lose its own nature, but at the same time remains gold and has the active qualities of fire. In this manner also the Lord's body is a body, but impassible, incorruptible, immortal, of the Lord, divine and glorified with the divine glory. It is not separated from the Godhead, nor yet is of any one else, save of the only begotten Son of God Himself. For it does not show to us another person, but the only-begotten Himself clad in our nature.
This is the doctrine which I am continually preaching. They on the other hand who deny the incarnation wrought on our behalf have called me a heretic, adopting a course something like that of unchaste females, who, while they sell their own charms, assail honest women with the insults of their profession, and apply language proper to their own wantonness to women who hold such wantonness in abhorrence. This is how Egypt has acted. She has herself fallen willingly into the thraldom of base desire. She has lavished her servile adulation on a man of chaste character. Then, failing to entice him by her wiles, or to trap him in the snares of her voluptuous passion, she describes one who is faithful to purity as an adulterer.
But these men will be called to account by God, as well for their devices against the faith as for the snares they have laid against me. I only charge those who have been influenced by the false accusations uttered against me to keep one ear for the accused, and not to give both to the accusers. In this manner they will fulfil the divine law which lays down "Thou shalt not raise a false report," [2044] and "Judge righteously between every man and his brother." [2045] In these words the divine law charges us not to believe the calumnies uttered against the absent but to judge the accused face to face.
[2012] This, remarks Garnerius, is less a letter than a prolix exposition of Theodoret's view of the Incarnation. Theodoret mentions his condemnation at the Latrocinium and the exile of Eutyches, but says nothing of the favourable action towards himself of Marcianus. Theodosius died on the 29th of July, and Marcian began his reign on the 25th of August, 450. Theodoret could not possibly hear of the exile of Eutyches before the end of September. The document may therefore be dated in the late autumn of 450 before Theodoret had received the imperial permission to return to Cyrus.
[2013] John xv. 20
[2014] Matt. x. 25
[2015] Matt. x. 26
[2016] Ps. xcvi. 13
[2017] mustagogountes mustagogeo came ultimately to equal "baptize." The word and its correlatives had long passed out of special mystic use. In Cicero a mustagogos is a "Cicerone" (Verr. iv. 59) and Strabo uses mustagogein for to be a guide. (812.)
[2018] Reference appears to be made here to offices at the 3d, 6th, and 9th hours, and to morning and evening services, without specification of their number.
[2019] Ephes. iv. 5
[2020] 1 Cor. viii. 6
[2021] i.e. the life common to man with animals and plants. cf. p. 194 n.
[2022] Gen. ii. 7
[2023] Matt. x. 28
[2024] Acts ii. 30 and 31. Ps. xvi. 10
[2025] John ii. 19
[2026] John x. 18, 17. Observe the inversion and inexactitude.
[2027] John x. 17 and 15
[2028] John xii. 27
[2029] Matt. xxvi. 38
[2030] John vi. 51
[2031] 1 Cor. xi. 24. Matt. xxvi. 28. But it is to be noticed that for St. Paul's word klomenon, i.e. "being broken," Theodoret substitutes thruptomenon, i.e. "being crushed," or "broken small," a verb not used by the evangelists. And the clause "for the remission of sins" is misplaced.
[2032] Matt. xxvi. 28
[2033] John vi. 53
[2034] John vi. 54
[2035] Cf. note on page 302.
[2036] Phil. iii. 20 and 21
[2037] Matt. xvi. 28. Observe variation. The mss. agree.
[2038] Cf. Matt. xxxvii. 1, 2
[2039] Acts i. 11
[2040] Cf. p. 199. n.
[2041] Bel 36
[2042] 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43
[2043] 1 Thess. iv. 17.
[2044] Ex. xxiii. 1
[2045] Deut. i. 16
CXLVI. To John the OEconomus. [2046]
Rest and a life free from care are very grateful to me. I have therefore blocked the door of the monastery, and decline intercourse with my friends.
But I have received information that fresh attacks are being made against the Faith of the Gospels, and therefore conclude that there may be danger in my silence. When wrong has been done some mortal prince, not only the guilty authors of the outrage but they also who have been standing by and made no effort to drive off the assailants, are in peril of punishment: What penalty then ought not to be undergone by men who can venture to look lightly on the utterance of blasphemy against our God and Saviour? This is the fear which has impelled me now to write and expose the innovations of which I have been informed.
It is said that a common report in the city represents that after certain presbyters had offered prayer, and concluded it in the wonted manner, while some said "For to Thee belongs glory and to thy Christ and to the Holy Ghost;" and others "Through grace and loving kindness of thy Christ, with whom belongs glory to Thee with thy holy Spirit," the very wise archdeacon prohibited the use of the expression, "the Christ" and said that the "only begotten" ought to be glorified. If this is true it were impossible to exceed the impiety. For he either divides the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons and regards the only begotten Son as lawful and natural, but the Christ as adopted and spurious, and consequently unmeet for being honoured in doxology; or else he is endeavouring to support the heresy which has now burst in on us with the riot of wild revelry. Had a grievous tempest been now oppressing us, any one might have supposed that the blasphemer suited his blasphemy to the necessity of the moment, through fear of the power of the originators of the heresy. But now that He who is blasphemed has rebuked the winds and the sea, and blessed the storm-tossed churches with a calm, while everywhere by land and sea the proclamation of the apostles is preached, what room is there for the blasphemy? While not even they who have lately basely inserted among the doctrines of the Church that flesh and godhead are of one and the same nature have ever forbidden the offering of praise to the Lord Christ. This fact may be easily ascertained from those who have returned thence. A man holding the foremost place in the ecclesiastical rank ought to have known the divine Scripture, and to have learnt from it that just as the heralds of the truth rank the only begotten Son with the Father, so accordingly using the title of "the Christ" instead of that of "Son" they number Him sometimes with the Father and sometimes with the Holy Ghost; for the Christ is none other than the only begotten Son of God. So we may quote the divine Paul writing to the Corinthians, but teaching the world, that "There is one God the Father of whom are all things...and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things." [2047] Thus he calls the same person, Christ, Jesus, Lord, and Creator of all things. And writing to the Thessalonians he says "Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you." [2048] And in his second epistle to the same he puts the Christ before the Father, not to invert the order, but to teach that the order of the names does not indicate a distinction of dignity and nature. His words are "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." [2049] And at the end of his Epistle to the Romans after certain exhortations he adds "I beseech you brethren for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the spirit." [2050] Now if he had known the Christ as being any other than the Son he would not have put Him before the Holy Ghost. Writing to the Corinthians, at the very beginning of his letter, he mentions the name of Christ as alone sufficient to influence the faithful. "Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing" [2051] and when writing to them a second time he thus concludes "The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all." [2052] Here he puts the name of Christ not only before the Spirit, but also before the Father and this in all the churches is the beginning of the Liturgy of the Mystery.