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| To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius.
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To Cledonius the Priest Against
Apollinarius. (Ep. CI.)
To our most reverend and God-beloved brother and
fellow-priest Cledonius, Gregory, greeting in the Lord.
I desire to learn what is this fashion of
innovation in things Concerning the Church, which allows anyone who
likes, or the passerby,4697
as the Bible says,
to tear asunder the flock that has been well led, and to plunder it by
larcenous attacks, or rather by piratical and fallacious
teachings. For if our present assailants had any ground for
condemning us in regard of the faith, it would not have been right for
them, even in that case, to have ventured on such a course without
giving us notice. They ought rather to have first persuaded us,
or to have been willing to be persuaded by us (if at least any account
is to be taken of us as fearing God, labouring for the faith, and
helping the Church), and then, if at all, to innovate; but then perhaps
there would be an excuse for their outrageous conduct. But since
our faith has been proclaimed, both in writing and without writing,
here and in distant parts, in times of danger and of safety, how comes
it that some make such attempts, and that others keep
silence?
The most grievous part of it is not (though this too is
shocking) that the men instil their own heresy into simpler souls by
means of those who are worse; but that they also tell lies about us and
say that we share their opinions and sentiments; thus baiting their
hooks, and by this cloak villainously fulfilling their will, and making
our simplicity, which looked upon them as brothers and not as foes,
into a support of their wickedness. And not only so, but they
also assert, as I am told, that they have been received by the Western
Synod, by which they were formerly condemned, as is well known to
everyone. If, however, those who hold the views of Apollinarius
have either now or formerly been received, let them prove it and we
will be content. For it is evident that they can only have been
so received as assenting to the Orthodox Faith, for this were an
impossibility on any other terms. And they can surely prove it,
either by the minutes of the Synod, or by Letters of Communion, for
this is the regular custom of Synods. But if it is mere words,
and an invention of their own, devised for the sake of appearances and
to give them weight with the multitude through the credit of the
persons, teach them to hold their tongues, and confute them; for we
believe that such a task is well suited to your manner of life and
orthodoxy. Do not let the men deceive themselves and others with
the assertion that the “Man of the Lord,” as they call Him,
Who is rather our Lord and God, is without human mind. For we do
not sever the Man from the Godhead, but we lay down as a dogma the
Unity and Identity of Person, Who of old was not Man but God, and the
Only Son before all ages, unmingled with body or anything corporeal;
but Who in these last days has assumed Manhood also for our salvation;
passible in His Flesh, impassible in His Godhead; circumscript in the
body, uncircumscript in the Spirit; at once earthly and heavenly,
tangible and intangible, comprehensible and incomprehensible; that by
One and the Same Person, Who was perfect Man and also God, the entire
humanity fallen through sin might be created anew.
If anyone does not believe that Holy Mary is the Mother
of God, he is severed from the Godhead. If anyone should assert
that He passed through the Virgin as through a channel, and was not at
once divinely and humanly formed in her (divinely, because without the
intervention of a man; humanly, because in accordance with the laws of
gestation), he is in like manner godless. If any assert that the
Manhood was formed and afterward was clothed with the Godhead, he too
is to be condemned. For this were not a Generation of God, but a
shirking of generation. If any introduce the notion of Two Sons,
one of God the Father, the other of the Mother, and discredits the
Unity and Identity, may he lose his part in the adoption promised to
those who believe aright. For God and Man are two natures, as
also soul and body are; but there are not two Sons or two Gods.
For neither in this life are there two manhoods; though Paul speaks in
some such language of the inner and outer man. And (if I am to
speak concisely) the Saviour is made of elements which are distinct
from one another (for the invisible is not the same with the visible,
nor the timeless with that which is subject to time), yet He is not two
Persons. God forbid! For both natures are one by the
combination, the Deity being made Man, and the Manhood deified or however one should express it.
And I say different Elements, because it is the reverse of what is the
case in the Trinity; for There we acknowledge different Persons so as
not to confound the persons; but not different Elements, for the Three
are One and the same in Godhead.
If any should say that it wrought in Him by grace
as in a Prophet, but was not and is not united with Him in
Essence—let him be empty of the Higher Energy, or rather full of
the opposite. If any worship not the Crucified, let him be
Anathema and be numbered among the Deicides. If any assert that
He was made perfect by works, or that after His Baptism, or after His
Resurrection from the dead, He was counted worthy of an adoptive
Sonship, like those whom the Greeks interpolate as added to the ranks
of the gods, let him be anathema. For that which has a beginning
or a progress or is made perfect, is not God, although the expressions
may be used of His gradual manifestation. If any assert that He
has now put off His holy flesh, and that His Godhead is stripped of the
body, and deny that He is now with His body and will come again with
it, let him not see the glory of His Coming. For where is His
body now, if not with Him Who assumed it? For it is not laid by
in the sun, according to the babble of the Manichæans, that it
should be honoured by a dishonour; nor was it poured forth into the air
and dissolved, as is the nature of a voice or the flow of an odour, or
the course of a lightning flash that never stands. Where in that
case were His being handled after the Resurrection, or His being seen
hereafter by them that pierced Him, for Godhead is in its nature
invisible. Nay; He will come with His body—so I have
learnt—such as He was seen by His Disciples in the Mount, or as
he shewed Himself for a moment, when his Godhead overpowered the
carnality. And as we say this to disarm suspicion, so we write
the other to correct the novel teaching. If anyone assert that
His flesh came down from heaven, and is not from hence, nor of us
though above us, let him be anathema. For the words, The Second
Man is the Lord from Heaven;4698
and, As is the
Heavenly, such are they that are Heavenly; and, No man hath ascended up
into Heaven save He which came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man
which is in Heaven;4699
and the like, are
to be understood as said on account of the Union with the heavenly;
just as that All Things were made by Christ,4700
and that Christ dwelleth in your hearts4701
is
said, not of the visible nature which belongs to God, but of what is
perceived by the mind, the names being mingled like the natures, and
flowing into one another, according to the law of their intimate
union.
If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a
human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of
salvation. For that which He has not assumed He has not healed;
but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only
half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half
also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the
whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a
whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or
clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the portraiture of
humanity. For if His Manhood is without soul, even the Arians
admit this, that they may attribute His Passion to the Godhead, as that
which gives motion to the body is also that which suffers. But if
He has a soul, and yet is without a mind, how is He man, for man is not
a mindless animal? And this would necessarily involve that while
His form and tabernacle was human, His soul should be that of a horse
or an ox, or some other of the brute creation. This, then, would
be what He saves; and I have been deceived by the Truth, and led to
boast of an honour which had been bestowed upon another. But if
His Manhood is intellectual and nor without mind, let them cease to be
thus really mindless. But, says such an one, the Godhead took the
place of the human intellect. How does this touch me? For
Godhead joined to flesh alone is not man, nor to soul alone, nor to
both apart from intellect, which is the most essential part of
man. Keep then the whole man, and mingle Godhead therewith, that
you may benefit me in my completeness. But, he asserts, He could
not contain Two perfect Natures. Not if you only look at Him in a
bodily fashion. For a bushel measure will not hold two bushels,
nor will the space of one body hold two or more bodies. But if
you will look at what is mental and incorporeal, remember that I in my
one personality can contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy
Spirit; and before me this world, by which I mean the system of things
visible and invisible, contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For
such is the nature of intellectual Existences, that they can mingle
with one another and with bodies, incorporeally and invisibly. For many
sounds are comprehended by one ear; and the eyes of many are occupied
by the same visible objects, and the smell by odours; nor are the
senses narrowed by each other, or crowded out, nor the objects of sense
diminished by the multitude of the perceptions. But where is
there mind of man or angel so perfect in comparison of the Godhead that
the presence of the greater must crowd out the other? The light
is nothing compared with the sun, nor a little damp compared with a
river, that we must first do away with the lesser, and take the light
from a house, or the moisture from the earth, to enable it to contain
the greater and more perfect. For how shall one thing contain two
completenesses, either the house, the sunbeam and the sun, or the
earth, the moisture and the river? Here is matter for inquiry;
for indeed the question is worthy of much consideration. Do they
not know, then, that what is perfect by comparison with one thing may
be imperfect by comparison with another, as a hill compared with a
mountain, or a grain of mustard seed with a bean or any other of the
larger seeds, although it may be called larger than any of the same
kind? Or, if you like, an Angel compared with God, or a man with
an Angel. So our mind is perfect and commanding, but only in
respect of soul and body; not absolutely perfect; and a servant and a
subject of God, not a sharer of His Princedom and honour. So
Moses was a God to Pharaoh,4702
but a servant of
God,4703
as it is written; and the stars which
illumine the night are hidden by the Sun, so much that you could not
even know of their existence by daylight; and a little torch brought
near a great blaze is neither destroyed, nor seen, nor extinguished;
but is all one blaze, the bigger one prevailing over the
other.
But, it may be said, our mind is subject to
condemnation. What then of our flesh? Is that not subject
to condemnation? You must therefore either set aside the latter
on account of sin, or admit the former on account of salvation.
If He assumed the worse that He might sanctify it by His incarnation,
may He not assume the better that it may be sanctified by His becoming
Man? If the clay was leavened and has become a new lump, O ye
wise men, shall not the Image be leavened and mingled with God, being
deified by His Godhead? And I will add this also: If the
mind was utterly rejected, as prone to sin and subject to damnation,
and for this reason He assumed a body but left out the mind, then there
is an excuse for them who sin with the mind; for the witness of
God—according to you—has shewn the impossibility of healing
it. Let me state the greater results. You, my good sir,
dishonour my mind (you a Sarcolater, if I am an Anthropolater4704
| 4704 The Apollinarians seem
to have charged the Orthodox with being Anthropolaters, or worshippers
of a mere Man. S. Gregory retorts upon them that if so, they are
worse themselves, being actually Sarcolaters, or worshippers of mere
flesh, denying Mind to Him whom they adore as Lord and Saviour. | ) that you may tie God down to the
Flesh, since He cannot be otherwise tied; and therefore you take away
the wall of partition. But what is my theory, who am but an
ignorant man, and no Philosopher. Mind is mingled with mind, as
nearer and more closely related, and through it with flesh, being a
Mediator between God and carnality.
Further let us see what is their account of the
assumption of Manhood, or the assumption of Flesh, as they call
it. If it was in order that God, otherwise incomprehensible,
might be comprehended, and might converse with men through His Flesh as
through a veil, their mask and the drama which they represent is a
pretty one, not to say that it was open to Him to converse with us in
other ways, as of old, in the burning bush4705
and in the appearance of a man.4706
But if
it was that He might destroy the condemnation by sanctifying like by
like, then as He needed flesh for the sake of the flesh which had
incurred condemnation, and soul for the sake of our soul, so, too, He
needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam, but was
the first to be affected, as the doctors say of illnesses. For
that which received the command was that which failed to keep the
command, and that which failed to keep it was that also which dared to
transgress; and that which transgressed was that which stood most in
need of salvation; and that which needed salvation was that which also
He took upon Him. Therefore, Mind was taken upon Him. This
has now been demonstrated, whether they like it or no, by, to use their
own expression, geometrical and necessary proofs. But you are
acting as if, when a man’s eye had been injured and his foot had
been injured in consequence, you were to attend to the foot and leave
the eye uncared for; or as if, when a painter had drawn something
badly, you were to alter the picture, but to pass over the artist as if
he had succeeded. But if they, overwhelmed by these arguments,
take refuge in the proposition that it is possible for God to save man
even apart from mind, why, I
suppose that it would be possible for Him to do so also apart from
flesh by a mere act of will, just as He works all other things, and has
wrought them without body. Take away, then, the flesh as well as
the mind, that your monstrous folly may be complete. But they are
deceived by the latter, and, therefore, they run to the flesh, because
they do not know the custom of Scripture. We will teach them this
also. For what need is there even to mention to those who know
it, the fact that everywhere in Scripture he is called Man, and the Son
of Man?
If, however, they rely on the passage, The Word
was made Flesh and dwelt among us,4707
and because of
this erase the noblest part of Man (as cobblers do the thicker part of
skins) that they may join together God and Flesh, it is time for them
to say that God is God only of flesh, and not of souls, because it is
written, “As Thou hast given Him power over all
Flesh,”4708
and “Unto
Thee shall all Flesh come;”4709
and “Let
all Flesh bless His holy Name,”4710
meaning every Man. Or, again, they must suppose that our fathers
went down into Egypt without bodies and invisible, and that only the
Soul of Joseph was imprisoned by Pharaoh, because it is written,
“They went down into Egypt with threescore and fifteen
Souls,”4711
and “The iron
entered into his Soul,”4712
a thing which could
not be bound. They who argue thus do not know that such
expressions are used by Synecdoche, declaring the whole by the part, as
when Scripture says that the young ravens call upon God,4713
to indicate the whole feathered race; or
Pleiades, Hesperus, and Arcturus4714
are mentioned,
instead of all the Stars and His Providence over them.
Moreover, in no other way was it possible for the
Love of God toward us to be manifested than by making mention of our
flesh, and that for our sake He descended even to our lower part.
For that flesh is less precious than soul, everyone who has a spark of
sense will acknowledge. And so the passage, The Word was made
Flesh, seems to me to be equivalent to that in which it is said that He
was made sin,4715
or a curse4716
for us; not that the Lord was transformed
into either of these, how could He be? But because by taking them
upon Him He took away our sins and bore our iniquities.4717
This, then, is sufficient to say at
the present time for the sake of clearness and of being understood by
the many. And I write it, not with any desire to compose a
treatise, but only to check the progress of deceit; and if it is
thought well, I will give a fuller account of these matters at greater
length.
But there is a matter which is graver than these,
a special point which it is necessary that I should not pass
over. I would they were even cut off that trouble you,4718
and would reintroduce a second Judaism, and
a second circumcision, and a second system of sacrifices. For if
this be done, what hinders Christ also being born again to set them
aside, and again being betrayed by Judas, and crucified and buried, and
rising again, that all may be fulfilled in the same order, like the
Greek system of cycles, in which the same revolutions of the stars
bring round the same events? For what the method of selection is,
in accordance with which some of the events are to occur and others to
be omitted, let these wise men who glory in the multitude of their
books shew us.
But since, puffed up by their theory of the Trinity,
they falsely accuse us of being unsound in the Faith and entice the
multitude, it is necessary that people should know that Apollinarius,
while granting the Name of Godhead to the Holy Ghost, did not preserve
the Power of the Godhead. For to make the Trinity consist of
Great, Greater, and Greatest, as of Light, Ray, and Sun, the Spirit and
the Son and the Father (as is clearly stated in his writings), is a
ladder of Godhead not leading to Heaven, but down from Heaven.
But we recognize God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and
these not as bare titles, dividing inequalities of ranks or of power,
but as there is one and the same title, so there is one nature and one
substance in the Godhead.
But if anyone who thinks we have spoken rightly on
this subject reproaches us with holding communion with heretics, let
him prove that we are open to this charge, and we will either convince
him or retire. But it is not safe to make any innovation before
judgment is given, especially in a matter of such importance, and
connected with so great issues. We have protested and continue to
protest this before God and men. And not even now, be well
assured, should we have written this, if we had not seen that the
Church was being torn asunder and divided, among their other tricks, by
their present synagogue of vanity.4719
But if
anyone when we say and protest this, either from some advantage they
will thus gain, or through fear of men, or monstrous littleness
of mind, or through
some neglect of pastors and governors, or through love of novelty and
proneness to innovations, rejects us as unworthy of credit, and
attaches himself to such men, and divides the noble body of the Church,
he shall bear his judgment, whoever he may be,4720
and shall give account to God in the day of judgment.4721
But if their long books, and their new
Psalters, contrary to that of David, and the grace of their metres, are
taken for a third Testament, we too will compose Psalms, and will write
much in metre. For we also think we have the spirit of
God,4722
if indeed this is a gift of the Spirit, and
not a human novelty. This I will that thou declare publicly, that
we may not be held responsible, as overlooking such an evil, and as
though this wicked doctrine received food and strength from our
indifference.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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