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LETTERS OF
THE BLESSED THEODORET
BISHOP OF CYRUS
LETTERS CXXI TO CL

CXXI. To Anatolius the patrician.(2)

The Lord who overlooks and governs all things has shewn both the apostolic truth of my doctrines, and the falsehood of the slander laid at my door. For the writings sent from the right godly and holy lord Leo, archbishop of Great Rome, to Flavianus of holy memory and to the rest assembled at Ephesus, are entirely in harmony with what I myself have written and have always preached in church. So soon therefore as I had read them, I praised the loving-kindness of the Lord, in that He had not wholly forsaken the churches, but had protected the spark of orthodoxy; or--shall I not rather say?--not a spark, but a very great torch, such as might enkindle and enlighten the world; for he has truly, in his writings, observed the apostolic stamp, and in them we have found at once what has been delivered by the holy and blessed prophets and apostles, and their successors in the preaching of the Gospel, and moreover the holy Fathers assembled at Nicaea. By these I confess that I abide, and indict all who hold other doctrines as guilty of impiety. Side by side with these writings of mine I have set one of the letters sent by him to Ephesus, to the end that when your excellency reads them you may remember the words which I have often spoken in church, may recognise the harmony of the doctrines, and may bate the utterers of the lie as well as those who have set up their new heresy in opposition to the doctrines of the Apostle.

CXXII.(1) To Uranius(2) bishop of Emesa.

I have been greatly delighted that we who correspond in character should have corresponded by letter. But I do not quite see what you mean by saying "Are not these my words?" If it were said only for the sake of salutation, I am not annoyed at it; but if it is intended to remind me of the advice which recommended silence, and of the so-called oeconomy,(3) I am very much obliged, but I do not accept the suggestion. For the divine Apostle charges us to take quite the opposite course. "Be instant in season and out of season."(4) And the Lord says to this very spokesman, "Be not afraid, but speak"(5) and to Isaiah, "Cry aloud, spare not"(8) and to Moses "Go down, charge the people"(7) and to Ezekiel "I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel," and it shall be "if thou warn not the wicked,"(8) and the like: for I think it needless to write at length to one who knows. Not only therefore are we not distressed at having spoken freely, but we even rejoice and are glad, and laud Him who has thought us worthy of these sufferings; aye and call on my friends to encounter the same perils.

If they know that we do not keep the apostolic rule of the faith, but swerve to the right hand or the left, let them hate us; let them join the opposite side; let them be ranked with them that are at war with us. But if they bear witness to our holding the right teaching of the gospel message, we hail them with the cry, "Do you too 'stand having your loins girt about with truth, ... and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,'"(1) and so on, for it is said that virtue comprises not only temperance, righteousness, and prudence, but also courage, and that by means of courage the rest of its component parts are preserved. For righteousness needs the alliance of courage in its war against wrong; temperance vanquishes intemperance by the aid of courage. And for this reason the God of all said to the prophet "The just shall live by his faith, and if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."(2) Shrinking he calls cowardice. Hold fast then, my dear friend, to the apostolic doctrines, for "He that shall come will come, and will not tarry,"(3) and "He shall render to every man according to his deeds,"(4) for "the fashion of this world passeth away,"(5) and the truth shall be made manifest.

CXXIII. To the same.

Your letter was a long one, and a pleasant one, and it shews how warm and genuine is your affection. So delighted am I with it that I am not at all sorry for having erroneously conjectured the meaning of the beginning of your former one. For my misapprehension of the intention of your letter has disclosed your brotherly love, made plain the sincerity of your faith, and shewn your zeal for the true religion. We have indeed shared between us the words and the trials of the prophet; your holiness has used the words; I am buffeted by the hurricane and billows, and against the towers of the ship I exclaim in his words "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."(6) Perhaps He who is Jonah's Lord and mine will grant that I too may rise and be released from the monster. But if the surge continue to boil I trust that even thus I shall enjoy the divine protection, and learn by my own experience how His strength is "made perfect in weakness,"(7) for He has measured the peril by my infirmity. The divine prophet whom I have mentioned was flung into the sea by his shipmates one and all, but I am granted the consolation of your holiness, and of other godly men. For them and for your godliness I pray that the blessing bestowed upon the excellent Onesiphorus may be yours, for you have not blushed at my gibes; nay rather you have shared in my afflictions for the faith's sake.

And one thing which I wish you to know is that, though other godly bishops have sent me their bounty, I have declined to receive it;--not from any want of respect to the senders, God forbid;--but because hitherto food convenient for me has been provided by Him Who gives it even to the ravens without stint. In the case of your reverence I have acted differently, for really the warmth of your affection has overcome what has hitherto been my fixed principle. For be well assured, thy godly friend, that ever since friendship grew up between us the fire of our love has been kindled to greater heat.

CXXIV. To the learned Maranas.(1)

I too am distressed at the calamities of the Church, and wail over the storm that is raging; for myself I am glad to be quit of agitation, and to be enjoying a calm which is delightful to me. As to the men whom your learning states to be still carrying on their iniquities, the day is not far distant when they will pay the penalty of their present rash lawlessness. All things are governed by the Lord of all with weight and rule, and whenever any fall away into unbounded iniquity His long suffering comes to an end, and He then acts as Judge and appoints punishment. Foreseeing this I pray that they may cease from their license that I may not be compelled to weep once more for them as I behold them undergoing chastisement.

Your excellency I can never forget, and I beg our common Master to fill your house with blessing.

CXXV. To Aphthonius, Theodoritus, Nonnus, Scylacius, Apthonius, Joannes, Magistrates of the Zeugmatensis.

I know the strength and stability of your faith, and have been filled with the greatest possible delight, for, since we worshippers of the eternal Trinity constitute one body, it is only natural that together with the members that are sound the rest of the members should rejoice. So says the divine Apostle; "Whether one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it."(2) I therefore rejoice with you in your struggles on behalf of the apostolic doctrines and your following of the famous Naboth in more excellent things. Naboth for his vineyard's sake suffered most unrighteous slaughter, because he would not give up the heritage of his fathers. You are fighting not for vineyards, but for divine doctrines, and reject this new-fangled and spurious heresy as blackening the brightness of the teaching of the gospel; you do not suffer the number of the blessed Trinity to be diminished or increased. For it is diminished by those who ascribe the passion of the only begotten to the Godhead; it is increased by those who have the audacity to introduce a second son. You believe in one only begotten, as you do in one Father and in one Holy Ghost. In the only begotten made flesh you behold the assumed nature which He took from us and offered on our behalf. The denial of this nature puts our salvation far from us; for if the Godhead of the only begotten is impassible, as the nature of the Trinity is impassible, and we refuse to acknowledge that which is by nature adapted to suffer, then the preaching of a passion which never happened is idle and vain. For if that which suffers has no existence how could there be a passion? We declare that the divine nature is impassible;--a doctrine confessed by our opponents as well as by ourselves. How then could there be a passion when there is no subject capable of suffering? The great mystery of the oeconomy will appear an appearance, a mere seeming instead of the reality. This is the fable started by Valentinus, Bardesanes, Marcion and Manes. But the teaching handed down to the churches from the beginning recognises, even after the incarnation, one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and confesses the same to be everlasting God, and man made at the end of days; made man not by the mutation of the Godhead but by the assumption of the manhood. For suppose the divine nature to have undergone mutation into the human nature, then it did not remain what it was; and if it is not what it was, they who have these objects of worship are false in calling Him God. We, on the contrary, recognise the only begotten Son of God to be immutable as God, and Son of the very God. For we have learnt from the divine Scripture that being in the form of God He took the form of the servant;(1) and took on Him the seed of Abraham, not was changed into Abraham's seed; and shared just as we do both in flesh and blood and in a soul immortal and immaculate. Preserving these for our sinful bodies He offered His sinless body and for our souls His soul free from all stain. It is for this reason that we have the hope of the common resurrection for the race will assuredly share with its first fruits, and as we have shared with Adam in his death, so too with Christ our Saviour shall we be sharers in His life. This the divine Apostle has plainly taught us, for "now" he says "is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."(1)

I write thus not to inform you but to remind you. I have tried to be brief, but I fear I have transgressed the limits of a letter. I was however urged to write by the very reverend and godly presbyter and archimandrite Mecimas, who, in obedience to the law of love, has undertaken so long a journey, told us of your excellency's zeal, and begged us to inflame it by a letter. I have therefore granted his supplication, and written my letter, and I implore the Lord of all to keep you safe in the faith and make stronger than him who sifts us.(2)

CXXVI. To the Bishop Sabinianus.(3)

I praised your holiness on your quitting the envied see. Once it was venerable; now it is ridiculous, for we have made it a thing to be bought and sold. I was astounded to hear of your having appealed to the men who ejected you. You ought to have done just the contrary, and, on being invited to grasp the tiller, to have declined to do so, on the ground that your shipmates had become your foes. Are you not aware, most godly sir, what our Saviour, through His sacred apostles, taught us to preach? Do you not know what the heirs of the apostolic doctrines have just now laid down as objects of worship? For who of the old teachers from the time when the message was first preached down to the period of the darkness that now obtains, ever listened to any one preaching one nature of flesh and Godhead or dared at any time to call the nature of the only begotten passible? These doctrines in our day are by some men openly and boldly uttered, while among others their utterance is overlooked, and by silence men become participators in the blasphemy. What then, may well be asked, is the proper course to be taken by, those who abominate such doctrines? They have, I should reply, two alternatives before them; they may either come to close quarters, and prove the spuriousness of the doctrines, or they may decline communion with their opponents as openly impious.

I, indeed, have received the wrong done me as a divine blessing. I do not mean that I have thanked them that have wronged me; how could I thank fratricides, and men who have become followers of Cain?

But I praise my Master for thinking me worthy of the lot of them that suffer wrong, for separating me from wrong-doers and blasphemers, and for giving me my most delightful rest.

CXXVII. To Jobius, presbyter and archimandrite.(1)

The patriarch Abraham won a victory in his old age.(2) The great Moses was now an old man when, so long as he stretched out his hands in prayer, he vanquished Amalek.(3) The divine Samuel(4) was an old man when he put the aliens to flight. These are emulated by your venerable old age. In our wars for true religion's sake you are playing the man, and championing the cause of the gospel doctrines, and putting young men in the shade by the vigour of your spirit.

I rejoice to hear it, and am glad, and long to embrace your right venerable gray hairs. This I cannot do, for your reverence is kept at home by your years, and I am kept in durance here by the imperial decree. But I cheat my love by this letter, and give your piety this most loving embrace. I call upon you in your prayers to help the churches now whelmed in the storm, and to win for me the divine support, assailed as I am for the sake of the doctrines of the gospel, and standing sorely in need of help from above.

CXXVIII. To Candidus, presbyter and archimandrite.(5)

I am afraid that the vigour of your godly soul has been overcome by old age, and that you do not keep your hands stretched out as usual. So Amalek is trying to win. May there be some to succour your weakness, as once of old Ur and Aaron supported the hands of the law-giver, that you may overthrow Amalek and save Israel. These are days when we specially need more earnest prayers, when Gentiles and Jews and every heresy are at peace, and the Church alone is beaten by the storm and surrounded by the boisterous billows.

We indeed specially need the aid of your prayers, for those whom we reckoned to be fighting on our side are fighting on that of our foes.

CXXIX. To Magnus Antoninus the presbyter.(1)

Sailors at night are cheered by the sight of the harbour lights, and so are they who are in peril for the sake of the apostolic faith by the zeal of them that share the faith. We have great comfort in what we hear of your godliness's efforts on behalf of the divine doctrines, for this mind has been given you by the Giver of all good gifts and for the safe keeping of these doctrines you undergo every toil. Now I, comforted by your zeal, make an insignificant return, calling on you to persevere in your divine labours, to despise your adversaries as an easy prey, (for what is weaker than they who are destitute of the truth?) and to trust in Him who said "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee,"(2) and "Lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Help me too with your prayers that I may confidently say "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?"(4)

CXXX. To Bishop Timotheus.(5)

Not without purpose does the supreme Ruler allow the spirits that are against us to agitate the waves of impiety. He does so that He may try the courage of the sailors, and, while He exhibits some men's manliness, convicts others of cowardice, stripping the mask from the faces of some who put on an appearance of piety, and proclaiming others as foremost fighters in the ranks of the truth. We have seen an instance of this in the present time. The storm rose high; some shewed their secret impiety; some abandoned the truth which they were holding, went over to the phalanx of our foes, and now, with them, are smiting the very men whom they used to call their chiefs. The witnesses of these things detest the enemy and pity the deserters, but are afraid to give aid to the victims of the attack upon the apostolic doctrines. Nay, suppose the traitors to urge them with greater insistency, they will perhaps themselves pass over to the side of the assailants, will give no quarter to their fellow-believers, but will drive against them their barbs side by side with the very men whom they accuse. They will act thus though they have been taught by the divine Scripture that a wrong done to one's neighbour incurs punishment, while the suffering of injustice entails great and lasting rewards.

Your own piety, your zeal for the faith, and your good will to myself, have been proved by this agitation. Twice you have written me a letter in contempt of all that might deter you, and have thus shewn your brotherly affection. You have also indicated the conflict you are sustaining on behalf of the apostolic doctrines. You ask me to tell you by letter what we ought to think and preach concerning the passion of salvation. I have received your request with delight, and, not indeed to give you information but only to remind one who is beloved of God, will proceed to tell you what I have learnt from the divine Scripture and from the Fathers who have interpreted it.

Know then, most godly sir, that before all things it is necessary to observe the distinction of terms, and, in addition to this, the cause of the divine incarnation. Once let these be made clear, and there will be no ambiguity left about the passion. We will therefore first, to those who endeavour to contradict us, put this enquiry. Which of the names given to the only begotten Son of God are anterior to the incarnation, and which posterior, or rather, connected with the operation of the economy? They will reply that the terms anterior are, "God the Word," "only begotten Son," "Almighty," and "Lord of all creation"; and that the names "Jesus Christ" belong to the incarnation. For, after the incarnation, God the Word, the only begotten Son of God is called Jesus Christ; for "Behold" He says "unto you is born this day Christ the Lord"(1) and because others had been called christs, priests, kings, and prophets, lest any one should suppose Him to be like unto them, the angels conjoined the title Lord with that of Christ, in order to prove the supreme dignity of Him that was born. And, again, Gabriel says to the blessed Virgin, "Behold thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son and shalt call His name Jesus"(1) "for He shall save His people from their sins."(2) Before the incarnation, however, He was never called either Christ or Jesus. For truly the divine Prophets, in their predictions of things to come, used the words, just as they prophesied about the birth, the cross, and the passion, when the events had not yet come to pass. Nevertheless, even after the incarnation He is called God the Word, Lord, Almighty, only begotten Son, Maker, and Creator. For He was not made man by mutation, but, remaining just what He was, assumed what we are, for "Being in the form of God," to use the words of the divine Apostle "He took the form of a servant."(3) On this account, therefore, even after the incarnation, He is called also by the titles which are anterior to the incarnation, since His nature is invariable and immutable. But when relating the passion the divine Scripture nowhere uses the term God, since that is the name of the absolute nature. No one on bearing the words "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"(4) and similar expressions, would suppose that the flesh existed before the ages, or is of one substance with the God of the universe, or was Creator of the world. Every one knows that these terms are proper to the Godhead. Nor would any one on reading the genealogy of St. Matthew suppose that David and Abraham according to nature were forefathers of God, for it is the assumed nature which is derived from them.

Since then these points are plain and indubitable even among extreme heretics, and we acknowledge both the nature which is before the ages, and that which is of recent time, so are we bound to recognise at once the passibility of the flesh, and the impassibility of the Godhead, not dividing the union nor separating the only begotten into two persons, but contemplating the properties of the natures in the one Son. In the case of soul and body, which are of natures contemporary and naturally united, we are accustomed to make this distinction, describing the soul as simple, reasonable, and immortal, but the body as complex, passible, and mortal. We do not divide the union, nor cut one man in two. Far rather, then, in the case of the Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, and of the manhood assumed of David's seed, is it becoming to adopt a similar course, and distinctly to recognise the everlasting, eternal, simple, uncircumscribed, immortal, and invariable character of the one nature, and the recent, complex, circumscribed, and fluctuating nature of the other. We acknowledge the flesh to be now immortal and incorruptible, although before the resurrection it was susceptible of death and of passion; for how otherwise was it nailed to the tree, and committed to the tomb? And though we recognise the distinction of the natures, we are bound to worship one Son, and to acknowledge the same as Son of God and Son of man, form of God, and form of a servant, Son of David, and Lord of David, seed of Abraham, and creator of Abraham. The union causes the names to be common, but the community of names does not confound the natures. With them that are right-minded some names are plainly appropriate as to God, and others as to man; and in this way both the passible and the impassible are properly used of the Lord Christ, for in His humanity He suffered, while as God He remained impassible. If, according to the argument of the impious, it was in the Godhead that He suffered, then, I apprehend, the assumption of the flesh, was supererogatory; for suppose the divine nature to have been capable of undergoing passion, then He did not need the passible manhood. But grant that, as even their own argument contends, the Godhead was impassible, and the passion was real, let them beware of denying that which suffered, lest they deny with it the reality of the passion; for if that which suffers does not exist, then the passion is unreal. Now for any one who likes to open the quaternion(1) of the sacred evangelists, it is easy to perceive that the divine Scripture distinctly proclaims the passion of the body, and to learn from them how Joseph of Arimathaea came to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus; how Pilate ordered the body of Jesus to be delivered, how Joseph took down the body of Jesus from the tree and wrapped the body of Jesus in the linen cloth, and laid it in the new tomb. All this is described by the four evangelists with frequent mention of the body. But if our opponents adduce the words of the angel to Mary and her companions, "Come where the Lord lay,"(1) let them be referred to the passage in the Acts which states that devout men "carried Stephen to his burial"(2) and observe that it was not the soul, but the body, of the victorious Stephen, to which the customary rites were paid. And to this very day, when we approach the shrines of the victorious martyrs, we commonly enquire what is the name of him who is buried in the grave, and those who are acquainted with the facts reply peradventure "Julian the martyr," or "Romanus," or, "Timotheus."(3)

Very often it is not entire bodies that are buried, but only very small remains, yet nevertheless we speak of the body by the name that belongs to the whole man. It was in this sense that the angel called the body of the Lord, "Lord," because it was the body of the Lord of the universe. Moreover the Lord Himself promised to give on behalf of the life of the world, not His invisible nature, but His body. "For," He says, "the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world,"(4) and when He took the symbol of divine mysteries, He said, "This is my body which is given for you."(5) Or according to the version of the Apostle, "broken."(6) In no place where He spoke of the passion did He mention the impossible Godhead.

It is therefore before all things necessary that the question should be put to those who are endeavouring to contradict us whether they confess that the perfect manhood was assumed by God the Word, and assert the union to have been made without confusion. Once let these points be admitted, and the rest will follow in due course, and the passion will be attributed to the passible nature. I have now summed up these heads and have exceeded the limits of my letter. I have sent also what I lately wrote at the suggestion of a very godly and holy man of God, the lord(7) in the form of a concise instruction designed to teach the truth of the apostolic doctrines. Should I find a good copyist, I will also send your holiness what I have written in the form of a dialogue,(8) extending the argument, and strengthening my positions, by the teaching of the Fathers. I have moreover now sent a few statements of the ancient teachers, sufficient to shew the drift of their instruction. Give me in return, most godly sir, the succour of your prayers, that I may pass through the terrible tempest and reach the quiet haven of the Saviour.

CXXXI. To Longinus, Archimandrite of Doliche.(1)

You have shewn alike your zeal for the true religion, and your love for your neighbour, both of which are at the present time clearly connected, for it is for the sake of the apostolic decrees that I am being attacked, because I refuse to give up the heritage of my fathers, and prefer to undergo any suffering to looking lightly on the robbery of one tittle from the faith of the Gospel. You have accepted fellowship in my sufferings, not only by comforting me by means of your letter, but further by sending to me the very honourable and pious Matthew and Isaac. You shall hear, I am well assured. from the lips of the righteous Lord, "I was in prison, and ye visited me."(2) We are small and of no account, and burdened by a great load of sins, but the Lord is bountiful and generous. He remembers the small rather than the great, and says, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these"(3) "which believe in me"(4) "ye have done it unto me."(5) I pray you in that yon are conspicuous for right doctrine, and shine by worthiness of life, and therefore have great boldness before God, help me in your prayers, that I may be able "to stand," to use the words of the Apostle,(6) "against the wiles of error," escape the sins of the destroyer, and stand, though with little boldness, in the day of the appearing before the righteous Judge.

CXXXII. To Ibas, bishop of Edessa.(7)

The Lord has taught them that suffer wrong not to be east down, but to rejoice, and to derive consolation from the examples of old. For from the period of the first men down to our own days we find instances of men who have been zealous in the worship of the God of all, and vet have been wronged by those with whom their lot was cast, and have fallen into many and grievous troubles. Of these I would have gone through the entire list, had I not been writing to one of accurate knowledge of the divine Scriptures. But since you, O beloved of God, have been nurtured from your boyhood in tim divine oracles, I have thought it needless so to do. I only ask you to cast your eyes on them, and to look on all the kind-hearted clergy that have done wrong, with sorrow; on all that look lightly on wrong doing, with pity; and to be sorrowful for the disquiet of the Church. I ask you to rejoice and be glad that I am a sharer in suffering for the sake of true religion, and to praise without ceasing Him who has imposed this lot on me. As for honour and comfort and the dignity of sees and wretched reputation, let us yield them to the murderers.(1)

Let us cleave only to the doctrines of the gospel, and with them, if need be, endure any extremity of pain, and choose honourable penury rather than wealth with its many cares.

I am not writing ill these terms in order to give you exhortation, for I know the courage of your holiness in trouble. My object is to make my own mind known to your piety, and to inform you that you have on your side comrades who are gladly incurring peril for the truth's sake. I have been anxious for some time to write thus to you, but I have been unable to find anyone to convey my letter. Now I have met with the very honourable and pious presbyter Ozeas, a man who is at once engaged in the battle for truth and attached to your piety. So I write and salute your holiness, and beg you to give me both the prop of your prayers and the comfort of a letter from you.

CXXXIII. To John, bishop of Germanicia.(2)

I have always known, sir, that you are not unmindful of our friendship. And it has ever been my wish and prayer that your piety should give heed to exact truth, and shun the communion of traitors to true religion, ascribing to the Supreme Ruler His care on our behalf. For indeed, while I have been silent and inactive, He has put an end to our very keen and terrible sufferings, and has replaced the dire tempest by this bright calm. And now that the loving-kindness of the Lord has granted us this blessing, I find the quiet of my retreat indeed delightful, for I feel the necessity of persuading those who have been led away by the slanders launched against me, and of both convincing them of the truth of the teaching of the gospels, and refuting the attack of falsehood. When once this refutation is finished, and the victory of the truth is secured, it is my purpose to quit public life, and withdraw to the rest that I so greatly long for. As to the foes of the truth I cry with the prophet, "Their memorial is perished with a noise, but the Lord shall endure for ever."(1) As to ourselves, I sing with the Psalmist, "He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters, He delivered me from my strong enemy."(2)

This letter is in reply to two received from your holiness, one conveyed by Anastasius, the presbyter of Beroea, and one by the standard-bearer Theodotus. In your last letter you mention another, but this has not been delivered. As to my journey thither I can say nothing till I know what orders are given concerning me by the most pious emperor. His letter has not yet arrived.

CXXXIV. To Theoctistus, Bishop of Beroea.(3)

Our Saviour, Lawgiver, and Lord, was once asked, "What is the first commandment?" His reply was "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." And He added "This is the first commandment: and the second is like unto it, Thou shall love the neighbour as thyself." Then He said further "On these two commandments bang all the law and tim prophets."(4)

He then who keeps these, according to the definition of the Lord, plainly fulfils the Law; and he who transgresses them is guilty of transgressing the whole Law. Let us then examine, before the exact and righteous tribunal of our conscience, whether we have fulfilled the divine commandments. Now the first is kept by him who guards the faith given by God in its integrity, who abominates its assailants as enemies of the truth and hates heartily all those who hate the beloved; and the second by him who most highly esteems the care of his neighbour and who, not only in prosperity but also in apparent misfortunes, observes the laws of friendship. They, on the other hand, who look after their own safety, as they suppose, who on its account make little of the laws of friendship and take no heed of their friends when assaulted and attacked, are reckoned to belong to the number of the wicked and of them that are without. The Lord of all requires better things at the hands of His disciples. "Love" He says "your enemies, for if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? for the sinners and the publicans do this."(1) I, however, have not received even such kindness as publicans receive. Publicans, do I say? I have not even received the consolation given to murderers and wizards in their dungeons. If every one had imitated this cruelty, nothing else would have been left then for me in my life time but to be wasted by want, and, at my death, instead of being committed to a tomb, to be made meat(2) for dogs and wild beasts. But I have found support in those who care nought for this present life, but await the enjoyment of everlasting blessings, and these furnish me with manifold consolation. But the loving Lord "caused judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared and was still, when God arose to judgment."(3) But the wicked shall perish.(4) The falsehood of the new heresy has been proscribed, and the truth of the divine Gospels is publicly proclaimed. I for my part exclaim with the blessed David, "Blessed be the Lord God whet only doeth wondrous things, and blessed be His glorious name: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory; amen and amen."(5)

CXXXV. To Bishop Romulus.(6)

You have reminded me of the ancient story, and remarked how the King of the Syrians, bethinking him of the loving kindness of the kings of lsrael, assumed the form of a suppliant and failed not to obtain his petition. Remember therefore, sir, the divine wrath. God delivered Ahab to utter destruction for using mercy, and delivered his sentence through the mouth of the prophet, saying "Thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people."(1) We are thus commanded to temper mercy with justice, since not every kind of mercy is pleasing to the God of all. The present state of affairs specially requires prudent council; for we are contending on behalf of the divine doctrines, wherein we have the hope of our salvation. But herein, too, may be seen the great difference between man and man. Some men are verily infected with the common impiety; while others, without distinction, advance at one time one doctrine, and at another its opposite. Some who know the truth conceal it in the secret chambers of their soul, while they preach impiety with the rest; others again who are filled with envy have made their private ill-will an occasion of waging war against the truth, and wreak all kinds of mischief against the prophets of the truth. Again, there are who embrace the truth of the apostolic doctrines, and yet because they are afraid of the power of the dominant party are too cowed to proclaim it, and though they lament at the abundance of our misfortunes, nevertheless side with them that set the mighty surge a-rolling. It is in this last category that we place your reverence. We have believed you to be sound in the divine doctrines, and think that you keep your affection for me, and are borne along with the time for no other reason than your cowardice. Under these circumstances though I am not writing to any of the rest, I write to year holiness, and receive your reply. I see your drift and to some extent I pardon your pusillanimity. But the loving Lord has now removed all occasions of cowardice, by exhibiting the new-fangled impiety, and shewing the plain truth of the gospels. I, even though my mouths were as many as my hairs, cannot praise as I ought the loving-kindness of the Lord for compelling my strongest opponents openly to preach what has been preached by me. For I have heard that he who shares your holiness's roof, when he heard that anathemas had been published in the great cities, ceased to imitate the crooked gait of crabs, and, after disputing in a certain assembly about doctrines, walked in the straight road. Never must we suit our words to the season, but ever preserve the unbending rule of truth.

CXXXVI. To Cyrus Magistrianus.(1)

I was very much distressed to hear of the trouble which had befallen you. How indeed could I fail to suffer, making as I do your interest mine, and remembering the apostolic law which bids us not only "rejoice with them that do rejoice, but also weep with them that weep"?(2) Suffering itself is able to draw even those that are at enmity with one another into sympathy.

What is so grievous as to lose a wife; one who bore blamelessly the yoke of wedlock. one who made her husband's life pleasant, one who shared the care of the family; one who managed the household and shared in the direction of everything; one who was ready to suggest whatever might be likely to be of service, and to comply with the wishes of her husband? But what sorrow could surpass the committal to the tomb of the mother at the same moment as the son whom she bore; a son who had been carefully trained and had received a learned education; one who, you hoped, would be the stay of your old age; buried in the very spring of his manhood, when the down was just beginning to grow upon his cheeks? Did we only look at the character of the calamity, it admits of no consolation. But when we bethink us how our race is doomed to die; that against that race the divine fiat has gone forth; that suffering is common, for life is full of such woes; we shall bravely bear what has happened, shall repel the assaults of despair, and shall raise that wonderful song of praise "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; the Lord hath done what seemed to him good; blessed be the name of the Lord."(3) But we have many more reasons for consolation. We have been distinctly taught the hopes of the resurrection, and we look for the time when the dead shall live again. We know how the Lord many times called death sleep. If we trust, as in truth we do, the Saviour's words we are bound not to mourn those that have fallen asleep, even though their sleep lasts somewhat longer than it is wont. We must await the resurrection. We must remember that the Ruler of the world in His wisdom, and clearly knowing as He does not the present only but the future also, guides events for our good. A wise man who knew all this full well reasons about deaths of this kind and says, "Yea; speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding."(1)

Let us submit I beg you to the wise Ruler of all; let us submit to His decrees. Whether they be pleasant or whether they be grievous, they are good and profitable, they make men wise; for them that endure they ordain crowns.

CXXXVII. To the Archimandrite John.(2)

The blessed David fell into several errors, which God, who wisely orders all things, has caused to be recorded for the good of them that were to come after. But it was not on their account that Absalom, parricide, murderer, impious, and altogether vile, started his wild war against his father. The reason of his beginning that most unrighteous struggle was because he coveted the sovereignty. The divine David, however, when these events were coming to pass, began to remember the wrong that he had done. I too am conscious within myself of the guilt of many errors, but I have kept undefiled the dogmatic teaching of the Apostles. And they who have trampled upon all laws human and divine, and condemned me in my absence, have not sentenced me for what I have done wrong, for my secret deeds are not made manifest to them; but they have contrived false witness and calumny against me, or rather in their open attack upon the doctrines of the Apostles have proscribed me for my obedience to them. "So the Lord awaked as one out of sleep; He smote His enemies in the hinderparts and put them to a perpetual shame."(3) Counterfeit and spurious doctrines tie has scattered to the winds, and has provided for the free preaching of those which He has handed down to us in the holy Gospels. To me this suffices for complete delight. I do not even long for a city in which I have passed all my time in hard work; all I long for is to see the establishment of the truth of the Gospels. And now the Lord has satisfied this longing. I am therefore very glad and happy, and I sing praises to our generous Lord, and I invite your reverence to rejoice with the, and, with our praises, to put up the earnest prayer that the men who say now one thing and now another and change about to suit the hour, like the chameleons who assume the colour of the leaves, may be strengthened by the loving-kindness of the Lord, established upon the rocks and, of His mercy, made to pay the highest honour to the truth.

CXXXVIIl. To Anatolius the patrician.(1)

I have cordially welcomed the rest which has fallen to my lot, and am harvesting its beneficial and pleasant results. Our Christ-loving Emperor,"(2) after reaping the empire as fruit of his true piety, has offered as first-fruits of his sovereignty to Him that bestowed it, the calm of the storm-tossed churches, the triumph of the invaded faith, the victory of the doctrines of the Gospel. To these he has added the righting of the wrong done to me. Of a wrong so great and of such a kind who ever heard? What murderer was ever doomed in his absence? What violator of wedlock was ever condemned without a hearing? What burglar, grave-breaker. wizard, church-robber, or doer of any other unlawful deed, was ever prevented, when eager to appeal to the law, and slain when far away by the sentence of his judge? In their cases nothing of the kind was ever known. For, by our law, plaintiff and defendant are bidden to stand face to face before the judge, while the judge has to wait for the production of plain truth, and then and not till then, either dismiss the accused as innocent, or punish him as being reached by the indictment. In my case the course pursued has been just the opposite. The emperor's letter forbade me to approach the far-famed synod, and the most righteous judges condemned me in my absence, not after fair trial. but after extravagant laudation of the documents which were produced to incriminate me. Neither the law of God nor shame of man staved the deed of blood. Orders were given by the president,(3) flinging the truth to the winds, and courting the power of the hour. He was obeyed by men who think as I do, whose doctrines are my doctrines, and who had expressed admiration of me and mine. None the less did that day convict some men of treachery; some of cowardice; while to me a ground of confidence was given by my sufferings for the truth's sake. And to me our master Christ hath granted the boon "not only of believing on Him but also of suffering for His sake."(1) For the greatest of all gifts of grace are sufferings for the Master's sake, and the divine Apostle puts them even before great marvels.

In these boons I too glory, humble and insignificant as I am, and having no other ground of boasting. And I beseech your excellency to offer on behalf of my poor self expressions of thanksgiving to the emperor, lover of Christ, and to the most pious Augusta,(2) clear to God, instructress of the good, for that she has requited our generous Lord with such gifts, and has made her zeal for true religion the Connotation and groundwork of bet sway. Besides this, beg their godly majesties to complete the work that has been so well marked out, and to summon a council, not, like the last, composed of a turbulent rabble, but--kept quite clear of all of these--of men who decide on and highly value divine things, and esteem all human affairs as of less account than the truth. If their majesties wish to bring about the ancient peace for the churches, and I am sure that they do, beg their pious graces to take part in the proceedings, that their presence may overawe those of a contrary mind and the truth may have none to gainsay her, but may herself by her own unaided powers examine into the position of affairs, and the character of the apostolic doctrines.

I make this request to your excellency, not because I long to see Cyrus again, for your lordship knows what a solitary town it is, and how I have somehow or other managed to conceal its ugliness by my great expenditure on all kinds of buildings, but to the end that what I preach may be shewn to be in agreement with apostolic doctrines while the inventions of my opponents are counterfeit and base. Once let this come to pass, by God's help be it spoken, and I shall pass the remainder of my days in cheerful contentment, wherever the Master may bid me dwell. To you who have been brought up in the true religion, and are dowered with the wealth of goodness it is becoming to make this effort, and by your urgent counsel to render yet more zealous our most pious emperor and the Christ-loving Augusta, zealous already as they are to strengthen their glorious empire by laudable and rightful energy.

CXXXIX. To Aspar, Consular and Patrician. (1)

To the other good deeds of your excellency must be added your having acquainted our pious and most christian emperor, whom God's grace has appointed for the blessing of his subjects, of the enormous wrong done against me, and your having by a righteous edict annulled an edict which was nothing of the kind. Supported by divine Providence I have made what they reckoned a punishment a means of good, and I have welcomed my rest with delight; but none the less I have been wrongly and illegally treated, though in no single point guilty of the errors which the enemies of the truth slanderously laid at my door, but yet made to suffer the penalty of the greatest criminals. Nay, my fate has been yet harder than theirs. I was judged without a trial; I was doomed in my absence; when forbidden by the emperor's orders to go to Ephesus I received the most righteous sentence of my holy judges. All this has now been undone by his most serene majesty, through the active interposition of your excellency. I, for my part, feeling that I should be wrong to keep silent and not offer yon my thanks, have availed myself of this letter, whereby I beseech your excellency to speak in warm terms in my behalf both to the victorious and Christian emperor and to the very godly and pious Augusta. On their behalf I implore our good Lord as earnestly as lies in my power to guard their empire in security, and to grant that it may be at once a source of loving protection for their subjects, and of terror to their foes, and establish honourable peace for all. May your excellency be induced to petition them completely to put an end to the agitation of the Church, and order the assembling of the council; not, like the last, of men who from their habits of unruliness throw the synod into confusion, but, in peace and quiet, of members instructed in divine things, and in the habit of confirming the apostolic decrees and rejecting what is spurious and at variance with the truth. And I express this hope to the end that your excellency may reap the good which such a course of conduct is likely to produce.

CXL. To the Master Vincomalus.(1)

I have been much astonished to learn that your magnificence, though quite unacquainted with me and mine, and knowing only the wrong that had been done me, stood up as my advocate, and left no means untried to undo the results of the conspiracy against me. But your excellency will assuredly receive recompense from our bountiful Lord, for He who promised to give a reward for a little water will doubtless give greater recompense to the givers of greater gifts.

I have indeed endured such sufferings as none, or at least very few, of the ancients have undergone, and this not only from my open foes, but, as I apprehend, from my real friends. The former attacked me, the latter betrayed me.

Who in the world ever heard of such a trial? Who ever commanded a criminal to be tried in his absence after chaining him up at a distance of more than five and thirty stages? What judge has ever been so savage and inhuman as not only to try men, aye but to condemn men the sound of whose voice he has never heard, and this in most savage and inhuman fashion? The Lord has ordered the erring brother, who spurns advice, after a first, second and third admonition, to be treated as "an heathen man and a publican"(2) Now these most equitable and righteous judges have not even given to them of the same faith with themselves the treatment which they give to heathen men and publicans. These indeed they do see and occasionally converse with, and that with all honour and deference where they appear to be of rank and dignity. But they have ordered me to be cut off from home, from water, from everything. This is the way in which they have wished to become imitators of our Father in heaven "Who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."(1) But of these men I will say no more. The tribunal of the Lord is at hand where is required not stage pretence but the reality of life. Now I beseech your excellency to express my thanks to the emperor, the lover of Christ and victorious, and to the very pious and godly Augusta, for having made true religion the firm root of their pious empire, and to implore their majesties to make the peace of the churches firm by commanding the assembling of a council, not • of men of violence who throw the discussion into confusion, but of the lovers of the truth who confirm the apostolic teaching, and repudiate this new fangled and spurious heresy. And I pray that of these honourable endeavours you may reap the fruit at the hands of our loving Lord.

CXLI. To Marcellus, Archimandrite of the Acoemetae.(2)

Bright is made your holiness by your goodly life, exhibiting on earth the image of the conversation of the angels, but it is made still brighter by your zeal for the apostolic faith. As keel to boat, as corner-stone to house, so to them that choose to live in piety is the truth of the doctrines of the Gospel. For this truth when assailed you have bravely fought, not striving to protect it as though it were weak, but shewing your godly disposition; for the teaching of our Master Christ is gifted with stability and strength, in accordance with the promise of the same Saviour, "that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."(3) It is the loving and bountiful Lord who has thought right that I too should be dishonoured and slain on behalf of this doctrine. For truly we have reckoned dishonour honour, and death life. We have heard the words of the apostle "For unto us it is given by God not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake."(4) But the Lord arose like the sleeper, and stopped the mouths of them that uttered blasphemy against God and injustice against me. But He has made the tongues of the pious pour forth their fountains in their wonted message. I, however, am gathering the delightful fruits of rest; as I look at the agitation of the churches I am grieved, but I rejoice and am glad at being freed from cares. I have ever been gratified at your admirable piety, but heretofore I have not written, not from any lack of regard for the dictates of charity, but because I have waited for some suitable occasion. Just now, having fallen in with the most pious and prudent monks who have been sent by your holiness on other business, I have lost no time in carrying out my wish. I salute your godliness. I beg you in the first place to support me with your prayers, and further to cheer me by a letter, for by God's grace I have been attacked for the Gospel's sake.

CXLII. To the same.

I have already addressed your reverence in another letter, and have delivered it to your much respected brethren. Now again I address your holiness. I am induced to do so both by your admirable life, and by the praiseworthy zeal which you have shewn on behalf of the apostolic faith, fearless alike of imperial power and of episcopal combination. For granted that the majority of the council consented under coercion, still they did confirm the new fangled heresy by their signatures. Your holiness, however, was shaken by none of these things, but abided by the ancient doctrines which the Lord, by means of both the prophets and the apostles, has taught the churches to hold. These decrees I pray that I may preserve, and keep to the end my faith and confession in one Father, one Son and one Holy Ghost. For the incarnation of the only begotten made no addition to the number of the Trinity. Even after the incarnation the Trinity is still a Trinity. This is the teaching I have received from the beginning; this has been my faith; in this was I baptized; this have I preached; in this have I baptized, this I continue to hold. Of them that utter a lie about the Father the Lord has said "When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own,"(1) for what is said of the teacher is appropriate to the disciples. So these men who employ lies against me speak of their own, and do not describe what is mine. I am comforted by my Master's words "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."(1)

I entreat your piety to pray that I may not have my part among the wrong doers, but among them that suffer wrong on account of the truth of the Gospels.

CXLIII. To Andrew, Monk of Constantinople.(2)

I have never seen your piety nor have we ever communicated by letter, but I have become warmly attached to you. What has wrought the charm and continues to inflame it is the report unanimously brought by the tasters of your honey. All express admiration of the orthodoxy of your faith, the brightness of your life, the constancy of your soul, the harmoniousness of your character, the attractiveness and sweetness of your society and all the other characteristics of the true foster child of philosophy. For all these reasons I am attached to your godliness, and my longing has made me even begin a correspondence; but, my dear sir, grant me as soon as possible what I desire and let me have written communication from you. For when friends are at a distance considerable comfort is given them by epistolary communication. You will write to no man of heterodox opinions, but to one nurtured in the teaching of the apostles and preacher not of a quaternity but of a Trinity, for in reality I see little difference in the impiety of those who have the hardihood to endeavour to contract into one the two natures of the Only-begotten and those who endeavour to divide our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, God the Word made man, into two sons; if such indeed there be; I cannot think so; but Arians, Eunomians, and Apollinarians too have ever shamelessly fabricated this slander against the Church, and indeed laborious students may easily perceive that our far famed Fathers,(3) lights of the churches, laboured at the hands of the foes of the truth under this accusation which is now levelled against me by the most excellent champions of the new fangled heresy. Our wise Lord has laid bare their impiety, for He could not endure to confirm the unholy heresy by His long suffering.

Be sure then, sir, that you will be writing to one of like sentiments with your own; and of this you can easily assure yourself from my copious writings.

Write then to me in return, and again your letter, by God's leave, shall serve to kindle affection. And before you write, give me the help of your prayers, and beseech our good Lord to guide my feet into the right road, that I may travel the rest of my journey in accordance with His laws. You who have won right of access from your unstained life will easily persuade Him Who is eager to give us His good gifts.

CXLIV. To the soldiers.(1)

Human nature is everywhere the same, but pursuits in life are many and various. Some men prefer a sailor's career, some a soldier's; some men become athletes, some husbandmen; some ply one craft trod some another. To pass by all other differences, some men are zealous and diligent about divine things, and get themselves instructed in the exact teaching of the apostolic doctrines; while others, on the contrary, become slaves of the belly, and suppose that the enjoyment of base pleasures is happiness. Others again are there, lying in a mean between these two extremes, who do not exhibit this praiseworthy enthusiasm, nor embrace a life of incontinence, but still honour the simplicity of the faith. Men who attack the statement that some things are altogether impossible with God must not, I apprehend, be classed with the zealous and the well instructed in divine things, but rather either with those who have no exact knowledge of the apostolic doctrines, or those who have been enslaved by pleasures and shift hither and thither at the caprice of a moment, setting forth now one thing and now another.

You have asked me to write on these points. I should prefer at the present time to keep silence. But in obedience to the commandment of the Lord, "Give to every man that asketh of time,"(2) I am constrained briefly to reply.

I say then that the God of the universe can do all things, but that in the word "all" is comprehended only what is right and good, for He who is naturally both wise and good admits of nothing that is of a contrary nature, but only what becomes his nature. If any objectors gainsay this statement, ask them if the God of the universe, the lawgiver of truth, can lie. If they say that lying is possible to God, expel them from your company as impious and blasphemous. Should they agree that lying is not possible to the God of the universe, ask them in the second place, if He who is the fount of justice can become unjust. Should they allow that this too is impossible to the God of all, you must yet again enquire if the unfathomable depth of wisdom can become unwise, God cease to be God, the Lord cease to be the Lord, the Creator be no Creator, the Good not good but evil and the true Light not light but its opposite. If they admit that all these things and the like are impossible to God, you must say to them therefore many things are impossible with God; and that their being impossible so far from being a proof of want of power, indicates on the contrary the greatest power.

Even in the case of our own soul, when we say that it cannot die, we do not predicate weakness of it, but we proclaim its capacity of immortality. And similarly when we confess the immutability, impassibility, and immortality of God, we cannot attribute to the divine nature change, passion, or death. Suppose them to urge that God can do whatever He will, you must reply to them that He wishes to do nothing which it is not His nature to do; He is by nature good, therefore He does not wish anything evil; He is by nature just, therefore He does not wish anything unjust He is by nature true, therefore He abominates falsehood; He is by nature immutable, therefore He does not admit of change; and if He does not admit of change He is always in the same state and condition. This He Himself asserts through the prophet. "I am the Lord I change not."(1) And the blessed David says "Thou art the same and Thy years shall have no end."(2) If He is the same He undergoes no change. If He is naturally superior to change and mutation He has not become from immortal, mortal nor from impassible, passible, for had this been possible He would not have taken on Him our nature. But since He has an immortal nature, He took a body capable of suffering, and with the body a human soul. Both of these He kept unstained from the defilements of sin, and gave His soul for the sake of the souls that had sinned, and His body for the sake of the bodies that had died. And since the body that was assumed is described as body of the very only begotten Son of God, He refers the passion of the body to Himself. But the four evangelists testify that it was not the divine nature but the body which was nailed to the cross, all teaching with one voice that Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus; that he took down the body of Jesus from the tree and wrapped in fine linen, and laid in his own new tomb the body of Jesus; that Mary the Magdalene came to the tomb seeking the body of Jesus and ran to His disciples, and reported these things when she could not find the body of Jesus.

This is the unanimous teaching of the evangelists. But if your opponents urge that the angels said "Come see the place where the Lord lay"(1) let the foolish folk learn that the divine Scripture says also about the victorious Stephen "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial."(2) And yet it was the body only which was deemed proper for burial, while the soul was not buried together with the body; nevertheless the body alone was spoken of by the common name. Similarly the blessed Jacob said to his sons "Bury me with my fathers."(3) He did not say "Bury my body." Then he went on "There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah."(4) He did not say "their bodies." The names are common to bodies or souls, but nevertheless it is only the bodies which he called by the common names. In this manner too we constantly describe the shrines of the holy apostles, prophets and martyrs, one it may be of Dionysius, another of Julianus another of Cosmas.(5) And yet we know that only fragmentary remains of bodies lie there, while the souls in diviner regions are at rest. Precisely the same custom is to be found in common use, for such an one, We say, died; and such all one lies in this place; although we know that the soul is immortal and does not share the tomb with the body. In this sense the angel said "Come see the place where the Lord lay"(6) not because he shut the Godhead in the tomb, but because he spoke of the Lord's body by the Lord's name.

In proof of this being the view of the holy Fathers let them mark the words of Athanasius, illustrious archbishop of Alexandria, who adorned his episcopate with confession. He exclaims "Life cannot die, but rather quickens the dead."

Let them hear too the words of the farfamed Damasus bishop of Rome, "If anyone allege that on the cross pain was undergone by the Godhead and not by the body with the soul, the form of the servant which He had taken in its completeness, let him be anathema."(1)

Let them hear too the very sacred and holy bishop of the Church of the Romans, the lord Leo, who has now written "The Son of God suffered as He was capable of suffering, not according to the nature which assumed but that which was assumed. For the impassible nature assumed the passible body, and gave it for us, to the end that He might work out our salvation and at the same time preserve His own nature impassible."

And again "For He did not come to destroy His own nature but to save ours."(2)

If therefore they accuse us for saying that God can do what He wishes, but that He wishes what is becoming to His own nature, and what is unbecoming He neither wishes nor is capable of; let them accuse too these saints and all the rest who maintain this position. Let them accuse even the Apostle who say's 'That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie."(3) And again "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself."(4)

Repeat these passages to your opponents, and if they are convinced, praise the good Lord for that, by means of your zeal, He has benefited them. If they remain unconvinced, enter into no discussion with them about doctrines, for it is forbidden by the divine apostle to "strive about words to no profit but to the subverting of the hearers."(5) But do you keep inviolate the teaching of the Gospels, that in the day of His appearing you may bring to the righteous Judge what has been entrusted to you with its due interest, and may hear the longed for words "Well done good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."(6)

CXLV. To the Monks of Constantinople.(7)

There is nothing new or surprising in the fact that the men who have made their tongues weapons against our God and Saviour should also aim their shahs of falsehood against His right minded servants. It must needs be that the servants who grieve sorely at the outrage inflicted on their Master should share it. That so it should be they have been forwarned by their Lord Himself, Who consoles His holy disciples with the words "If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you."(1) "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household."(2) Then He cheered them by pointing out that calumny is easily detected, for He went on "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known."(3) I have often seen the truth of the divine prediction, but I see it with special clearness now. The authors of the calumny against me, who have bought my destruction for large sums of money, have been distinctly seen to be involved in the unsoundness of Valentinus and Bardesanes. They had hoped to cloke their own iniquity if only they could whet their tongues on the hone of falsehood in order to wound me. For ever since I saw that the heresy long ago extinguished had been renewed by these men I never ceased to cry aloud, hearing my testimony in private and in public, as well in social gatherings as in the temples of God, and strive to confute their conspiracy against the faith. They have consequently poured out their insults on my head, and allege that I preach two sons. But they ought to have convicted me to my face, not slandered me behind my back. They have done just the contrary. They tied me band and foot at Cyrus by the imperial decree; they compelled the very righteous judges to condemn me without a trial, and delivered their most equitable sentence against a man who was five and thirty stages away. Such treatment was never suffered by any criminal charged with witchcraft or robbery of the dead, by murderer or by adulterer. But for the present I will leave the judges alone, for the Lord is at hand "Who judges the world with righteousness and the people with his truth;"(4) Who exacts an account not only of words and deeds, but even of evil thoughts. But think it right to refute the false charge which has been made. What proof have they of my asserting two sons? Had I been one of the silent kind there might have been some ground for the suspicion, but my task has been to contend on behalf of the apostolic decrees, to bring the pasture of instruction to the Lord's flocks, and to this end I have written five and thirty books interpreting the divine Scripture, and proving the falsehood of the heresies. The falsehoods these men have concocted are therefore easy of refutation. Tens on tens of thousands of hearers testify that I have taught the truth of the doctrines of the Gospel, and for any one who likes to bring them to the test my writings lie before the world. Not on behalf of a duality of sons, but of the only begotten Son of God, against the heathen, against Jews, against the recipients of the plague of Arius and Eunomius, against the supporters of the madness of Apollinarius, against the victims of the corruption of Marcion, I have never ceased to struggle; trying to convince the heathen that the Eternal Son of the ever living God is Himself Creator of the Universe; the Jews that about Him the prophets: uttered their predictions, the Arians and Eunomians that He is of one substance, of one dignity and of equal power with the Father; Marcion's mad adherents that He is not only good but just; and Saviour not, as they fable, of another's works, but of His own. Once for all, fighting against each heresy, I charge men to fall clown and worship the one Son.

And what need is there of many words, when it is possible to refute falsehood in few? We provide that those who year by year come up for holy baptism should carefully learn the faith set forth at Nicaea by the holy and blessed Fathers; and initiating them as we have been bidden,(1) we baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, pronouncing each name singly. Furthermore when performing divine service in the churches, both at the beginning and the decline of day and when dividing the day itself into three parts, we glorify the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost.(2) If, as our slanderers allege, we preach two sons, which do we glorify and which do we leave unworshipped? It were the wildest folly to believe that there are two sons, and to give the doxology to one alone. And who is so distraught as, while hearing the words of the divine Paul "one Lord, one faith, one baptism,"(2) and again "there is one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things,"(4) to lay down the law at variance with the teaching of the Spirit, and cut the one in two. But I am prating unnecessarily, for these men, nurtured in falsehood as they are, do not even dare to assert that they have ever heard me say anything of the kind; but they affirm that I preach two sons because I confess the two natures of our Master Christ. And they refuse to perceive that every human being has both an immortal soul and a mortal body; yet no one has hitherto been found to call Paul two Pauls because he has both soul and body, any more than Peter two Peters or Abraham or Adam. Everyone recognises the distinction of the natures, and does not call one man two Pauls. Precisely in the same way, when styling our Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, God the Word incarnate, both Son of God and Son of Man, as we have been taught by the divine Scripture, we do not assert two sons, but we do confess the peculiar properties of the Godhead and of the manhood. The party however who deny the nature assumed of us men cannot hear these arguments without irritation.

It is only right that I should point out from what sources they have derived this impiety. Simon, Menander, Cerdo, and Marcion absolutely deny the incarnation, and call the birth from a Virgin fable. Valentinus, however, Basilides, Bardesanes, and Harmonius and their following, accept the conception of the Virgin and the birth; but they deny that God the Word took anything from the Virgin, but made as it were a transit through her as through a conduit, and appeared to mankind in semblance only, and seeming to be a man, in like manner as He was seen by Abraham and certain others of the ancients: Arius and Eunomius on the contrary held that He assumed a body, but that the Godhead played the part of the soul, in order that they may attribute to it what was lowly in His words and deeds. Apollinarius did indeed assert that He assumed a soul with the body, not the reasonable soul, but the soul which is called animal or phytic.(1) Their contention is that the Godhead took the part of the mind. He had learnt the distinction of soul and of mind from the philosophers that are without while divine Scripture says that man consists of soul and body. For we read "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul."(2) And the Lord in the sacred Gospels said to His apostles "Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul."(3)

So great is the divergence between the doctrines. These men have now done their best to outdo Apollinarius, Arius and Eunomius, in their impiety and have now endeavoured to plant anew the heresy sown of old by Valentinus and Bardesanes, and afterwards uprooted by most excellent husbandmen. Like Valentinus and Bardesanes they have denied that the body of our Lord was assumed of our nature. But the Church, following the footprints of the Apostles, contemplates in the Lord Christ both perfect Godhead and perfect manhood. For just as He took a body, not that He needed a body, but by its means to give immortality to all bodies; so too He took a soul, the guide of the body, that every soul by its means might share His immutability. For even if souls are immortal, they are not however immutable; for they undergo many and frequent changes, as they experience pleasure, now from one object, and now from another. Whence it cometh about that we err when we are changed and are inclined to what is worse. But after the resurrection our bodies enjoy immortality and incorruptibility, and our souls impassibility and immutability. For this reason the only begotten Son of God took both a body and a soul, preserved them free from all blame, and offered the sacrifice for the race. And this is why He is called our high priest; and He is named high priest not as God but as man. He makes the offering as man, and accepts the sacrifice with the Father and the Holy Spirit as God. If only Adam's body had sinned, it alone should have benefited by the cure. But since the soul not only shared in the sin but was first in the sin, for first the thought forms an image of the sin and then carries it out by means of the body, it was just, I ween, that the soul too should be healed. But it is perhaps superfluous to demonstrate these points by reasoning, when the divine Scripture clearly proclaims them. This doctrine is distinctly taught by the holy David and the very divine Peter, the one foretelling from distant ages, and the other interpreting his prediction. The words of the first of the apostles are "David therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ that His soul was not left in hell neither His flesh did see corruption."(1) Now he has given us much instruction on the same point in these few words. First he states that the assumed nature derives its descent from the loins of David; secondly that He took not a body only, but also an immortal soul, and thirdly that He delivered body and soul to death, and, after taking them again, raised them as He would. His own words are "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."(1) But we have learnt that the divine nature is immortal. What suffered was the passible, and the impassible remained impassible. For God the Word was made math not to render the impassible nature passible, but on the passible nature, by means of the Passion, to bestow the boon of impassibility. And the Lord Himself in the holy Gospels at one time says "I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again, no man taketh it from me but I lay it down of myself;" "That I may take it again."(2) Anti again "Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life for the sheep,"(3) and again "Now is my soul troubled"(4) "my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death."(5) and of His body He says "The bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world,"(6) and when He delivered the divine mysteries and broke the symbol and distributed it, He added "This is my body which is being broken for you for the remission of sins,"(7) and again "This is my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins,"(8) and again "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life in you"(9) and "Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life" "in himself" he adds.(10) Innumerable passages of the same character may be quoted, both in the old Testament find the new, pointing out the assumption both of the body and of the soul, and that they are descended from Abraham and David. Joseph of Arimathea when he came to Pilate begged the body of Jesus, and the fourfold authority(11) of the holy Gospels tells us how he received the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and committed it to the tomb. I do, indeed, sorrow and lament that I am compelled by the attacks of error to adduce against men supposed to be of one and the same faith with myself the arguments which I have already urged against the victims of the plague of Marcion,--of whom, by God's grace, I have converted more than ten thousand, and brought them to Holy Baptism. What child of the church ever had any doubts on these points? Who has not cited this teaching of the holy Fathers? The works of the great Basil are full of it; as well, as those of his fellow soldiers Gregory and Amphilochius, and of those who in the West have been illustrious teachers of grace, Damasus, bishop of great Rome, and Ambrose of Milan; and Cyprian of Carthage who for the sake of these doctrines won the martyr's crown. Five times was the famous Athanasius driven from his flock and compelled to dwell in exile; and in the cause of these doctrines strove too his master Alexander. Eustathius, Meletius, and Flavianus, luminaries of the East, and Ephraim, harp of the Spirit, who daily waters the people of Syria with the streams of grace; John and Atticus, lend heralds of the truth; and men of an earlier age than they, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin, and Hippolytus, of whom the more part not only shine at the head of the company of bishops, but also adorn the martyr's band.

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."(2) 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,"(1) 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.(2) 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."(2) 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,(4) 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 Judaea 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.(5) 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 aethereal. 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"' and in another place "We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."(2) If then the bodies of the saints become light and aethereal 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 eves 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 anti 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 shall not raise a false report,"(3) and "Judge righteously between every man and his brother."(2) 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.

CXLVI. To John the OEconomus.(3)

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."(1) 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."(2) 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 haines 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."(3) 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."(4) 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"(5) 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."(6) 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.

According, then, to this extraordinary regulation the august name of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, ought to be omitted from the mystic writings. But it is unnecessary to say more on this point. The opening of every one of his letters is distinguished by the divine Apostle with this address. At one time it is "Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle."' At another "Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ."(8) At another "Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ."(9) And suiting his benediction to his exordium he deduces it from the same source and links the title of the Son with God the Father, saying "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."(10) And he graces the conclusion of his letters with the blessing "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen."(1)

Copious additional evidence may be found whereby it may be learnt without difficulty that our Lord Jesus Christ is no other person than the Son which completes the Trinity. For the same before the ages was only begotten Son and God the Word, and after the resurrection He was called Jesus and Christ. receiving the names from the facts. Jesus means Saviour; "Thou shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins."(2)

He is named Christ from being as man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and called our High Priest, Apostle, Prophet and King. Long ago the divine Moses exclaimed "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me."(3) And the divine David cries "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek."(4) This prophecy is confirmed by the divine Apostle.(5) And again "seeing then that we have a great High Priest that has passed into the heavens. Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession."(6)

That as God, He is king before the ages that prophetic minstrelsy teaches us in the words "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre."(7)

His majesty as man is also shown us. For having the sovereignty of all things as God and Creator, He assumes this majesty as man, wherefore it is added "Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, therefore God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."(8) And in the second psalm the anointed one himself says "Yet was I set as king by Him upon the holy hill of Sion, I will declare the decree of the Lord. The Lord hath said unto me 'Thou art my Son this day have I begotten Thee; ask of me and I shall give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.'"(9) This He said as man, for as man He receives what as God He possesses. And at the very beginning of the psalm the gift of prophecy ranks Him with God the Father in the words "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed."(10)

Let no one then foolishly suppose that the Christ is any other than the only begotten Son. Let us not imagine ourselves wiser than the gift of the Spirit. Let us hear the words of the great Peter, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."(1) Let us hear the Lord Christ confirming this confession, for "On this rock," He says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."(2) Wherefore too the wise Paul, most excellent master builder of the churches, fixed no other foundation than this. "I," he says, "as a wise master builder have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."(3) How then can they think of any other foundation, when they are bidden not to fix a foundation, but to build on that which is laid? The divine writer recognises Christ as the foundation, and glories in this title, as when he says, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me."(4) And again "To me to live is Christ and to die is gain,"(5) and again "For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."(6) And a little before he says, "But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."(7) And in his Epistle to the Galatians be writes, "But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the heathen."(8) But when writing to the Corinthians he does not say we preach "the Son" but "Christ crucified," herein doing no violence to his commission, but recognising the same to be Jesus, Christ, Lord, only begotten, and God the Word. For the same reason too at the beginning of his letter to the Romans he calls himself "servant of Jesus Christ" and describes himself as "separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with powers"(1) and so on. He calls the same both Jesus Christ, and Son of David, and Son of God, as God and Lord of all, and yet in the middle of his epistle, after making mention of the Jews, he adds, "whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever, amen."(2) Here he says that He who according to the flesh derived His descent froth the Jews is eternal God and is praised by the right minded as Lord of all created things. The same teaching is given us in the Apostle's words to the excellent Titus "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."(3) Here he calls the same both Saviour, and great God, and Jesus Christ. And in another place he writes, "In the kingdom of Christ and of God."(4) Moreover the chorus of the angels announced to the shepherds " Unto you is born this day in the city of David ... Christ the Lord."(5)

But to men who meditate on God's law day and night, it is indeed needless to write all the proofs of this kind; the above are sufficient to persuade even the most obstinate opponents not to divide the divine titles. One point, however, I cannot endure to omit. He is alleged to have said that there are many Christs but one Son. Into this error I suppose he fell through ignorance. For if he had read the divine Scripture, he would have known that the title of the Son has also been bestowed by our bountiful Lord on many. The lawgiver Moses, the writer of the ancient history, says "And the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of them,"(6) and the God of all Himself said to this Prophet "Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son even my first-born."(7) In the great song he says "Rejoice O ye nations with His people and let all the sons of God be strong in Him;"(8) and by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah He says "I have nourished and brought up sons (children) and they have rebelled against me;"(9) and through the thrice blessed David "I have said ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most High,"(10) and to the Romans the wise Paul wrote in this manner, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the I spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. For the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together;"(1) and to the Galatians he writes "And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son then an heir of God through Jesus Christ."(2) The lesson he gives to the Ephesians is "in love having predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself."(3)

If then, because the name of the Christ is common, we ought not to glorify the Christ as God, we shall equally shrink from worshipping Him as Son, since this also is a name which has been bestowed upon many. And why do I say the Son? The very name of God itself has been given by God to many. "The Lord the God of gods hath spoken and called the earth."(4) And "I have said Ye are gods,"(5) and "Thou shalt not revile the gods."(6) Many too have appropriated tiffs name to themselves. The daemons who have deceived mankind have given this title to idols; whence Jeremiah exclaims, "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens;"(7) and again "They made