![[St. Pachomius Library]](title.gif)
To the Most Pious and Devout fellow minister NESTORIUS, Cyril greeting in the Lord.
Certain, as I learn, are babbling to your Piety against my reputation
and this incessantly,
watching above all the time of the gathering of those in authority, and
thinking (I suppose) to please
thine hearing they put forth unadvised words, in no wise wronged but
convicted and that aright, the
one as a wronger of the blind and poor, another as having drawn his sword
upon his mother,
another as having stolen money in complicity with a maidservant and having
always that kind of
reputation which one might pray should not befall even one's chiefest
foes.
But the speech of such is
of no great weight with me, that I stretch not out the measure of my
littleness above my Lord and
Master nor yet above the Fathers. For it is not possible however one may
choose to live, to escape
the crookedness of the bad.
But those men having their mouth full of cursing and bitterness shall
give account to the
Judge of all: I will turn to what belongs more specially to myself, and
will
put thee in mind now too,
as a Brother in Christ, to make the word of teaching and the conception of
the Faith with all
guardedness to the people, and to consider that the offending even one
alone
of the little ones
which believe in Christ, is the cause of indignation not to be endured.
But
if the multitude of those
grieved be so great, how stand we not in need of all skill, with all
solicitude to cut away offences
and to extend the sound word of the Faith unto those that seek the Truth?
And this will be rightly
achieved if reading the words of the holy Fathers, we be zealous to hold
them dear, and proving
ourselves whether we be in the Faith, as it is written, conform with our
conceptions to their right
and blameless opinions.
The holy and mighty Synod therefore said that the Only-begotten Son
Himself, Begotten by
Nature of God the Father, Very God of Very God, Light of Light, Him
through
Whom the Father
hath made all things, came down and was made Flesh and made Man, suffered,
rose the third day,
and ascended into the Heavens. And these both words and doctrines we too
must follow,
considering what the Word of God made Flesh and Man means: (For we do not
say that the Nature
of the Word was changed and made flesh, nor yet that it was changed into
whole man, of soul and
body: but this rather, that the Word having Personally united to Himself
flesh ensouled with
reasonable soul unspeakably and incomprehensibly was made Man and was
called
son of man not
in respect of favour only or good pleasure [kata thelesin monen e
eudokian], nor yet by
appendage of person only:) and that the natures which are gathered
together
unto Very Union are
diverse, yet One Christ and Son of Both, not as though the diversity of
natures were taken away
because of the Union, but rather that the Godhead and Manhood make up One
Lord and Son
through their unspeakable and ineffable coming together into Unity.
And thus is He said, albeit He have His being before the ages and be
begotten of the Father,
to be born after the flesh too, of a woman; not as though His Divine
Nature
received the beginning
of Being in the holy Virgin, nor yet as though a second birth were needed
on
Its own account, along
with that of the Father. For it were alike idle and foolish to say that He
Who is before every age and
Co-eternal with the Father, needs a second beginning of Being. But since
for
us and for our
salvation, the Word having united the Human Nature to Himself Personally,
proceeded forth of a
woman, He is therefore said to have been born in the flesh. For not mere
man
was first born of the
holy Virgin, and then the Word of God came down upon Him, but united from
the very womb, He
is said to have undergone birth in the Flesh, as making His own the birth
of
His own Flesh. For thus
we say that He both suffered and rose again, not as though God the Word
suffered in His own
Nature either stripes or piercings of nails or the other wounds (for the
Godhead is Impassible
because It is also Incorporeal), but since that which had been made His
own
body suffered these
things, He again is said to suffer for us, for the Impassible was in the
suffering Body. In like manner
do we conceive of His Death too. For the Word of God is by Nature Immortal
and Incorruptible
and Life and Life-giving: but since again His own Body by the grace of God
(as Paul saith) tasted
death for every man, Himself is said to have suffered death for us, not as
though He had
experienced death as far as pertains unto His own Nature (for it were
distraction to say or think
this) but because (as I said just now) His flesh tasted death. Thus too
when
His Flesh was raised,
the Resurrection again is said to be His, not as though He fell into decay
(not so!) but because His
Body again was raised. Thus shall we confess One Christ and Lord; not as
if
co-worshipping a man
with the Word, that a fantasy of severance be not privily brought in, by
saying with [syn] but as
worshipping One and the Same, because not alien to the Word is His Body
with
which He sits with
the Father, not as though two sons sit with the Father but One in union
with
His own Flesh. But if
we reject the Personal Union as either impossible or as uncomely, we fall
into saying, Two sons; for
we must needs sever and say that the one is man by himself, honoured with
the title of son; by
Himself again, the Word of God, having of Nature both the Name and Fact of
Sonship.
We must not therefore sever into two sons, the One Lord Jesus Christ,
for it will nothing aid
the right utterance of the Faith so to do, even though one should allege
unity of persons, for the
Scripture hath not said that the Word united to Himself the Person of a
man,
but that He hath been
made Flesh. And the Word's being made Flesh is nought else than that He
partook of flesh and
blood in like way with ourselves and made our body His own and proceeded
Man
of a woman,
not casting away the being God and His Generation of God the Father, but
even while in assumption
of flesh remaining what He was.
Thus does the declaration of the exact Faith everywhere set forth to
us, thus shall we find that
the holy Fathers thought, thus were they bold to call the holy Virgin
Mother
of God: not as though
the Nature of the Word or His Godhead took a beginning of Being from the
holy Virgin, but in that
the holy Body souled with a reasonable soul was born of here, whereunto
the
Word united
Personally is said to have been born after the Flesh.
These things now too I writing as out of Love in Christ, exhort thee
as
a brother and conjure
thee before Christ and the elect Angels, with us both to think and teach
these things; that the peace
of the Churches may be preserved and the bond of harmony and of love abide
indissoluble with the
Priests of God.
Donated to the St. Pachomius Library by Rev. T. Mayes.
Have mercy, O Lord, upon Thy servants the translator Philip and the
scribes Ted and Richard!