Severus - Letter I

OF THE SAME A LETTER TO OECUMENIUS THE COUNT, ABOUT PROPERTIES AND OPERATIONS, WHICH IS OF THOSE WRITTEN BEFORE EPISCOPACY.  [508-12 AD]

We also have in the God-inspired Scripture supplies of humility, and no lack of arguments to bring us down and help us to keep silence. If you, as if you were about to go up to Mt. Sinai, shrink from writing 'to such a man' (referring to me), and think fit to use David's words which he says to those who were urging him to take Saul's daughter in marriage, «Is it a small thing in your eyes that I should be son-in-law to the king?», while I am a poor man and inglorious, I also, when required to make answer to your question, make use of these words: «I am not a prophet, nor the son of prophets, but I am a shepherd, and a scraper of sycamore fruit», if it is not too much for me to say even this: for I am not worthy to tell the righteousnesses of God, and to take his covenant in my mouth. However, since the time of the present struggles does not allow silence, I accept an honourable defeat from you, and turn to the question. And in this I defeat you, since I show that you do not practise humility in a philosophic spirit. As to your statement that the holy old men called bold speech fire or warmth, I say this, that we must not use this method of speaking without discrimination, but there are occasions for using it and circumstances to which to apply it. Our Lord in the Gospels in many parables teaches us in the case of spiritual petitions to knock without ceasing and display a praiseworthy audacity. And the saying of the Proverbs also instructs us that 'there is shame which brings sin, and there is shame which brings glory and grace'.

Know then, mighty man, (for I now return to make answer) that for us to anathematize those who speak of properties of natures (I mean the Godhead and the manhood of which the one Christ consists) is not permissible. Flesh does not renounce its existence as flesh, even if it has become God's flesh, nor has the Word departed from his nature, even if he has been hypostatically united to flesh which possesses a rational and intelligent soul: but the difference also is preserved, and the propriety in the form of natural characteristics of the natures of which Emmanuel consists, since the flesh was not converted into the nature of the Word, nor was the Word changed into flesh. We mean in the matter of natural characteristics, and not that those which were naturally united are singly and individually separated and divided from one another: this is the assertion of those who cleave our one Lord Jesus Christ into two natures.

For, since the union in hypostasis is acknowledged, it follows that those which were united are not separated from one another; but there is one Son, and one nature of God the Word incarnate himself, as the holy Cyril also says in the work against Diodorus: «Let him know therefore that the body which was born at Bethlehem, even if it is not the same as the Word from God and the Father (I mean in natural characteristics), yet nevertheless became his, not anyone else's separate from the Son: and there is recognised to be one Son and Christ and Lord and Word who took flesh» . Those therefore who confess one incarnate nature of God the Word, and do not confuse the elements of which he consists, recognise also the propriety of those that were joined in union (and a property is that which exists in the form of a manifestation of natural differences), and not that we should ascribe the acts of the manhood only to the human nature, and impute again those of the Godhead separately to God the Word, but they recognise the difference only, not admitting a division: for the principle of union does not admit of division.

Hear what the holy and wise doctor Cyril says in the second volume of the work against the blasphemies of Nestorius: «For between Godhead and manhood I also allow that there is great distinction and distance. For the things which have been named on the principle of manner of existence are clearly different, and in no point like one another. But, when the mystery in Christ is introduced among us, the principle of union is not oblivious of difference", but rejects division, not by mixing or commingling the natures with one another, but that, after the Word of God has partaken of flesh and blood, he is even so understood and named as one Son». But, if Emmanuel is one, consisting of Godhead and manhood which have a perfect existence according to their own principle, and the hypostatic union without confusion shows the difference of those which have been joined in one in dispensatory union, but rejects division, both the elements which naturally belong to the manhood have come to belong to the very Godhead of the Word, and those which belong to the Word himself have come to belong to the very manhood which he hypostatically united to him.

On this subject we will again adduce the sacred words of Cyril. In the prosphonetikon to the religious king Theodosius he spoke as follows: «As therefore it came to belong to the humanity to be the Only one, because it had been united to the Word in a dispensatory union, so it came to belong to the Word to be 'the first-born among many brethren', because of the union with flesh». Gregory the Theologian also in the letter to Gledonius wrote words which agree with him as follows: «As the natures are mingled, so also are the appellations; and they run into one another on the principle of coalescence». Do not let the term 'mingle' disturb you: for he used it very clearly and without danger with the intention of denoting the primary union: for, where there is a union of something incorporeal with a body, no danger anywhere arises from mingling. For this is manifestly a quality of fluid bodies, to be confounded together by intertwining, and, so to speak, come out of their nature.

We therefore anathematize not those who confess the properties of the natures of which the one Christ consists, but those who separate the properties, and apportion them to each nature apart. When the one Christ has once been divided (and he is divided by the fact that they speak of two natures after the union), with the natures which have been cut asunder into a duality and separated into a distinct diversity go the operations and properties which are the offspring of this division, as the words of Leo's impious letter state in what he said: «For each of the forms effects in partnership with the other that which belongs to itself, the Word doing that which belongs to the Word, and the body performing the things which belong to the body».

Against these things it is well to set the much-honoured words of the holy Cyril which refute impiety. In the Scholion about the coal he speaks as follows: «Nevertheless we may see in the coal as in a figure that God the Word was united to the manhood, but has not cast off being that which he is, but rather changed what had been assumed or united into his glory and operation.

For, as fire when it takes hold of wood and is introduced into it, prevails over it, and does not make it cease being wood, but rather changes it into the appearance and force of fire, and performs all its own acts in it, and is already reckoned as one with it, so understand in the case of Christ also. For, since God was ineffably united with manhood, he has preserved it as what we say it is, and he himself also has remained what he was. But, after he has once been united, he is reckoned as one with it, appropriating its qualities to himself, but he himself also carried on the operation of his nature in it».

If then the Word changed the manhood which he had hypostatically united to him, not into his nature, for he remained that which he was, but into his glory and operation, and things which manifestly belong to the flesh have come to belong to the Word himself, how shall we allow that each of the forms performs its own acts? But we must anathematize those who confine the one Christ in two natures and say that each of the natures performs its own acts. Between the things performed and done by the one Christ the difference is great. Some of them are acts befitting the divinity, while others are human. For example, to walk and travel in bodily form upon the earth is without contention human; but to bestow on those who are maimed in the feet and cannot walk upon the ground at all the power of walking like sound persons is God-befitting. Yet the one Word incarnate performed the latter and the former, and the one nature did not perform the one, and the other the other; nor, because the things performed are different, shall we on this account rightly define two natures or forms as operating.

Again the Tome of Leo says: «For each of the natures preserves its own property without diminution», distributing the properties to the two natures severally, as one who divides the one and only Christ into two natures. For the property of the natures of which Emmanuel consists, which is shown in the natural characteristics, continues constant and fixed, as the holy Cyril also says in the second letter to Succensus: «But, while each of them both remains and is perceived in the property which is. by nature, according to the principle which has just been enunciated by us, the ineffable and incomprehensible union has shown us one nature of the Son, yet, as I have said, an incarnate nature». But God the Word did not permit his flesh in all things to undergo the passions proper to it, in order that its property might be preserved undiminished, as the impious disputer said.

For observe what the wise doctor Cyril says, in answer to the objections made by Theodoret, in the defence of the tenth anathema: «When the lowness arising from the exinanition seems hard to you, wonder greatly at the love of the Son toward us. For, what you say is a mean thing, this he did voluntarily for your sake. He wept in human fashion, that he might take away your weeping. He feared by dispensation, inasmuch as he sometimes permitted his flesh to undergo the passions proper to it, that he might make us valiant». If he sometimes permitted his flesh by dispensation to undergo the passions proper to it, he did not preserve its property undiminished: for in many instances it is seen not to have undergone the things which manifestly belong to its nature; for it was united to the Word, the Maker of nature.

The Word therefore who had become incarnate walked upon the sea, and after his death under the wound of the lance caused a stream of salvation to well forth from his side: again, after the Resurrection, he came in while the doors were shut, and appeared to the disciples in the house; whom he also allowed to touch him, showing that his flesh was tangible and solid, and of one essence with us, and was also superior to corruption; and thereby he subverted the theory of phantasy. It belongs therefore to those who part the one Christ into two natures and dissolve the unity to say, «For each of the natures preserves its property unimpaired». But those who believe that, after God the Word had been hypostatically united to flesh that possessed an intelligent soul, he performed all his own acts in it, and changed it not into his nature (far be it!), but into his glory and operation, no longer seek the things that manifestly belong to the flesh without diminution, to which flesh the things that manifestly belong by nature to the Godhead have come to belong by reason of the union.

But, if they senselessly divide it from God the Word by speaking of two natures after the union, it then walks in its own ways following its nature, and preserves its properties undiminished on the principle of the impious men. But these things are not so (how could they be?), but indeed very different: for union rejects division, as the holy Cyril said: «For, though it is said that he hungered and thirsted, and slept and grew weary after a journey, and wept and feared, these things did not happen to him just as they do to us in accordance with compulsory ordinances of nature; but he himself voluntarily permitted his flesh to walk according to the laws of nature, for he sometimes allowed it even to undergo its own passions». For from Cyril's words, as from a sacred anchor, I do not depart.

And the same statement is made by Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus also in the sermon on baptism: «For he is purity itself, and did not need purification; but he is purified for you; just as for you he put on a garb of flesh, while he is fleshless: and he would have run no danger at all from putting off baptism; for he himself was a warden of passion to himself». Accordingly then he was a warden to himself of hungering as well as of being tired after a journey, and of accepting the other human passions, such as do not fall under sin, in order to display the Humanization truly and without phantasy.

Of what we have said this is the sum; that we must anathematize those who divide the one Christ: and they divide him by speaking of two natures after the union, and consequently apportioning the operations and properties between the natures. Accordingly good doctrine is contained in the ---- of the serene king: for it anathematizes those who divide the one Son who was hypostatically united to flesh into two natures, and the operations and properties of the same two natures: for thus also says the impious Theodoret: «How does he range under impiety those who divide the properties of the natures of God who is before the ages and of the man who was assumed in the last days?»

I have written these things though I am poor in intellect and praise the greatness of your God-loving understanding; and because, as you are wise, I give you an opportunity to attain wiser results. Forgive me that on account of the lack of leisure caused by the present struggles I have been late in writing. Greet your honoured consort, who is a partner and a helper in the affairs of God.