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| Concerning Christ's two natures, in opposition to those who hold that He has only one.
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Chapter III.—Concerning Christ’s two
natures, in opposition to those who hold that He has only
one1962
| 1962 κατὰ
Μονοφυσιτῶν
: these words are absent in mss. | .
For the two natures were united with each other
without change or alteration, neither the divine nature departing from
its native simplicity, nor yet the human being either changed into the
nature of God or reduced to non-existence, nor one compound nature
being produced out of the two. For the compound nature1963
| 1963 Cf. Eulogius
and also Polemon in the Collect. Contr. Severianos. | cannot be of the same essence as either
of the natures out of which it is compounded, as made one thing out of
others: for example, the body is composed of the four elements,
but is not of the same essence as fire or air, or water or earth, nor
does it keep these names. If, therefore, after the union,
Christ’s nature was, as the heretics hold, a compound unity, He had changed
from a simple into a compound nature1964
| 1964 Max. Epist. ad
Joan. cubic. p. 279. | , and is not
of the same essence as the Father Whose nature is simple, nor as the
mother, who is not a compound of divinity and humanity. Nor will
He then be in divinity and humanity: nor will He be called either
God or Man, but simply Christ: and the word Christ will be the
name not of the subsistence, but of what in their view is the one
nature.
We, however, do not give it as our view that
Christ’s nature is compound, nor yet that He is one thing made of
other things and differing from them as man is made of soul and body,
or as the body is made of the four elements, but hold1965
that, though He is constituted of these
different parts He is yet the same1966
| 1966 ἐξ
ἑτέρων τὰ
αὐτά. Cod. R. 3
reads ταῦτα. See also
Cyril, Ep. 2 ad Success. | . For
we confess that He alike in His divinity and in His humanity both is
and is said to be perfect God, the same Being, and that He consists of
two natures, and exists in two natures1967
| 1967 Cf.
Niceph. Call., Hist. xviii. 46. | . Further, by the word
“Christ” we understand the name of the subsistence, not in
the sense of one kind, but as signifying the existence of two
natures. For in His own person He anointed Himself; as God
anointing His body with His own divinity, and as Man being
anointed. For He is Himself both God and Man. And the
anointing is the divinity of His humanity. For if Christ, being
of one compound nature, is of like essence to the Father, then the
Father also must be compound and of like essence with the flesh, which
is absurd and extremely blasphemous1968
| 1968 Eulog. apud
Max., t. ii. p. 145. | .
How, indeed, could one and the same nature come to
embrace opposing and essential differences? For how is it
possible that the same nature should be at once created and uncreated,
mortal and immortal, circumscribed and uncircumscribed?
But if those who declare that Christ has only one nature
should say also that that nature is a simple one, they must admit
either that He is God pure and simple, and thus reduce the incarnation
to a mere pretence, or that He is only man, according to
Nestorius. And how then about His being “perfect in
divinity and perfect in humanity”? And when can Christ be
said to be of two natures, if they hold that He is of one composite
nature after the union? For it is surely clear to every one that
before the union Christ’s nature was one.
But this is what leads the heretics1969
| 1969 Cf. Sever.,
Ep. 2 ad Joannem. | astray, viz., that they look upon nature
and subsistence as the same thing1970
| 1970 Anast.
Sinaita, in ῾Οδηγῷ, ch. 9; Leontius,
contr. Nest. et Eutych. | . For
when we speak of the nature of men as one1971
| 1971 Greg. Naz., Ep.
ad Cled., 1. | , observe that in saying this we are not
looking to the question of soul and body. For when we compare
together the soul and the body it cannot be said that they are of one
nature. But since there are very many subsistences of men, and
yet all have the same kind of nature1972
| 1972 τὸν αὐτὸν
ἐπιδέχονται
λόγον τῆς
φύσεως;
perhaps—all admit the same account of the nature,—all
can be dealt with in the same way in respect of nature. | :
for all are composed of soul and body, and all have part in the nature
of the soul, and possess the essence of the body, and the common
form: we speak of the one nature of these very many and different
subsistences; while each subsistence, to wit, has two natures, and
fulfils itself in two natures, namely, soul and body.
But1973
| 1973 Leontius,
Contr. Sev. et Eutych. Max. loc. cit., p. 277. | a common form
cannot be admitted in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. For
neither was there ever, nor is there, nor will there ever be another
Christ constituted of deity and humanity, and existing in deity and
humanity at once perfect God and perfect man. And thus in the
case of our Lord Jesus Christ we cannot speak of one nature made up of
divinity and humanity, as we do in the case of the individual made up
of soul and body1974
| 1974 Reading ὥσπερ ἐπὶ
ἀτόμου, &c.
These words are omitted in Cod. S. Hil. Reg. 10, Colb. 3, and
N. | . For in
the latter case we have to do with an individual, but Christ is not an
individual. For there is no predicable form of Christlihood, so
to speak, that He possesses. And therefore we hold that there has
been a union of two perfect natures, one divine and one human; not with
disorder or confusion, or intermixture1975
| 1975 ἤ σύγκρασιν, ἢ
ἀνάκρασιν.
The mss. omit the latter. | , or commingling, as is said by the
God-accursed Dioscorus and by Eutyches1976
| 1976 The word
Εὐτυχής, however, is
omitted by the best copies. | and Severus, and all that impious
company: and not in a personal or relative manner, or as a matter
of dignity or agreement in will, or equality in honour, or identity in
name, or good pleasure, as Nestorius, hated of God, said, and Diodorus
and Theodorus of Mopsuestia, and their diabolical tribe: but by
synthesis; that is, in subsistence, without change or confusion or
alteration or difference or separation, and we confess that in two
perfect natures there is but one subsistence of the Son of God
incarnate1977
| 1977 Procl.,
Epist. 2 ad Arm. | ; holding that
there is one and the same subsistence belonging to His divinity and His humanity, and
granting that the two natures are preserved in Him after the union, but
we do not hold that each is separate and by itself, but that they are
united to each other in one compound subsistence. For we look
upon the union as essential, that is, as true and not imaginary.
We say that it is essential1978
| 1978 Greg. Naz.,
Hom. 5. See also John’s Dialect.,
65. | , moreover, not
in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound nature, but in
the sense of a true union of them in one compound subsistence of the
Son of God, and we hold that their essential difference is
preserved. For the created remaineth created, and the uncreated,
uncreated: the mortal remaineth mortal; the immortal,
immortal: the circumscribed, circumscribed: the
uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed: the visible, visible: the
invisible, invisible. “The one part is all glorious with
wonders: while the other is the victim of insults1979
| 1979 Leo papa,
Epist. 10, ch. 4. | .”
Moreover, the Word appropriates to Himself the
attributes of humanity: for all that pertains to His holy flesh
is His: and He imparts to the flesh His own attributes by way of
communication1980
| 1980 κατὰ τὸν
ἀντιδόσεως
τρόπον, in the way of a
communication of properties. | in virtue of
the interpenetration of the parts1981
| 1981 διὰ τὴν εἰς
ἄλληλα τῶν
μερῶν
περιχώρησιν. See Leont., De Sect., 7, Contr. Nest. et Eutych.,
I. | one with
another, and the oneness according to subsistence, and inasmuch as He
Who lived and acted both as God and as man, taking to Himself either
form and holding intercourse with the other form, was one and the
same1982
| 1982 Leo papa,
epist. 10, ch. 4. | . Hence it is that the Lord of
Glory is said to have been crucified1983
, although
His divine nature never endured the Cross, and that the Son of Man is
allowed to have been in heaven before the Passion, as the Lord Himself
said1984
. For the Lord of Glory is one and
the same with Him Who is in nature and in truth the Son of Man, that
is, Who became man, and both His wonders and His sufferings are known
to us, although His wonders were worked in His divine capacity, and His
sufferings endured as man. For we know that, just as is His one
subsistence, so is the essential difference of the nature
preserved. For how could difference be preserved if the very
things that differ from one another are not preserved? For
difference is the difference between things that differ. In so
far as Christ’s natures differ from one another, that is, in the
matter of essence, we hold that Christ unites in Himself two
extremes: in respect of His divinity He is connected with the
Father and the Spirit, while in respect of His humanity He is connected
with His mother and all mankind. And in so far as His natures are
united, we hold that He differs from the Father and the Spirit on the
one hand, and from the mother and the rest of mankind on the
other. For the natures are united in His subsistence, having one
compound subsistence, in which He differs from the Father and the
Spirit, and also from the mother and us.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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