Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Bishop Irenæus.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
XVI. To Bishop
Irenæus.1640
| 1640 cf.
Epp. iii, xii, and xxxv. |
There is nothing good, it seems,
in prospect for us, so, far from calming down, the tempest troubling
the Church seems to rise higher every day. The conveners of the Council
have arrived and delivered the letters of summons to several of the
Metropolitans including our own, and I have sent a copy of the letter
to your Holiness to acquaint you how, as the poet has it, “Woe
has been welded by woe.”1641
| 1641 Homer II. xvi. iii. κακὸν κακῷ
ἐστήρικτο. For Theodoret’s knowledge of Homer cf. pp. 104 and
258. | And we need only
the Lord’s goodness to stay the storm. Easy it is for Him to stay
it, but we are unworthy of the calm, yet the grace of His patience is
enough for us, so that haply by it we may get the better of our foes.
So the divine apostle has taught us to pray “for He will with the
temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear
it.”1642
But I beseech your godliness to
stop the mouths of the objectors and make them understand that it is
not for them who stand, as the phrase goes, out of range, to scoff at
men fighting in the ranks and giving and receiving blows; for what
matters it what weapon the soldier uses to strike down his antagonists?
Even the great David did not use a panoply when he slew the
aliens’ champion,1643
and Samson slew
thousands on one day with the jawbone of an ass.1644
Nobody grumbles at the victory, nor
accuses the conqueror of cowardice, because he wins it without
brandishing a spear or covering himself with his shield or throwing
darts or shooting arrows. The defenders of true religion must be
criticized in the same way, nor must we try to find language which will
stir strife, but rather arguments which plainly proclaim the truth and
make those who venture to oppose it ashamed of themselves.
What does it matter whether we
style the holy Virgin at the same time mother of Man and mother of God,
or call her mother and servant of her offspring, with the addition that
she is mother of our Lord Jesus Christ as man, but His servant as God,
and so at once avoid the term which is the pretext of calumny, and express the
same opinion by another phrase? And besides this it must also be borne
in mind that the former of these titles is of general use, and the
latter peculiar to the Virgin; and that it is about this that all the
controversy has arisen, which would God had never been. The majority of
the old Fathers have applied the more honourable title to the Virgin,
as your Holiness yourself has done in two or three discourses; several
of these, which your godliness sent to me, I have in my own possession,
and in these you have not coupled the title mother of Man with mother
of God, but have explained its meaning by the use of other words. But
since you find fault with me for having left out the holy and blessed
Fathers Diodorus and Theodorus in my list of authorities, I have
thought it necessary to add a few words on this point.
In the first place, my dear
friend, I have omitted many others both famous and illustrious.
Secondly this fact must be borne in mind, that the accused party is
bound to produce unimpeachable witnesses, whose testimony even his
accusers cannot impugn. But if the defendant were to call into court
authorities accused by the prosecutors, even the judge himself would
not consent to receive them. If I had omitted these holy men in
compiling an eulogy of the Fathers, I should, I own, have been wrong,
and should have proved myself ungrateful to my teachers. But if when
under accusation I have brought forward a defence, and have produced
unimpeachable witnesses, why do men who are unwilling to see any of
these testimonies lay me under unreasonable blame? How I reverence
these writers is sufficiently shewn by my own book in their behalf, in
which I have refuted the indictment laid against them, without fear of
the influence of their accusers or even of the secret attack made upon
myself. These people who are so fond of foolish talk had better get
some other excuse for their sleight of words. My object is not to make
my words and deeds fit the pleasure of this man or that man, but to
edify the church of God, and please her bridegroom and Lord. I call my
conscience to witness that I am not acting as I do through care of
material things, nor because I cling to the honour with all its cares,
which I shrink from calling an unhappy one. I would long ago have
withdrawn of my own accord, did I not fear the judgment of God. And now
know well that I await my fate. And I think that it is drawing near,
for so the plots against me indicate.1645
| 1645 This letter appears to be written shortly before the meeting of
the Robber Synod in 449. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
