Letter IV

To Gaius Therapeutes

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter, with its reference to "theandric energies", has been taken by some readers both in ancient and modern times as evidence that the author was a Monophysite or Monothelite. St. Maximus the Confessor, however, wrote a detailed commentary showing that the text is fully in agreement with the definition of Chalcedon.]

How, you ask, is Jesus, Who is beyond all, ranked essentially with all men? For, not as Author of men is he here called man, but as being in absolute whole essence truly man. But we do not define the Lord Jesus, humanly, for He is not man only, (neither superessential nor man only), but truly man, He Who is pre-eminently a lover of man, the Superessential, taking substance, above men and after men, from the substance of men. And it is nothing less, the ever Superessential, superfull of superessentiality, disregards the excess [ te tautes periousia ] of this, and having come truly into substance, took substance above substance, and above man works things of man. And a virgin supernaturally conceiving, and unstable water, holding up weight of material and earthly feet, and not giving way, but, by a supernatural power standing together so as not to be divided, demonstrate this. Why should anyone go through the rest, which are very many? Through which, he who looks with a divine vision, will know beyond mind, even the things affirmed regarding the love towards man, of (the Lord) Jesus, -- things which possess a force of superlative negation. For, even, to speak summarily, He was not a man, not as "not being man", but as "being from men was beyond men", and was above man, having truly been born man; and for the rest, not having done things Divine as God, nor things human as man, but exercising for us a certain new God-incarnate energy of God having become man.