Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Since the mystery of the Incarnate Word transcends, among other divine works, human reason above all — for nothing more marvelous can be thought than that which the Church professes in the Symbol of St. Athanasius: Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man: God begotten of the substance of the Father before all ages, and man born of the substance of his Mother in the world: perfect God, perfect man subsisting of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father according to his divinity; less than the Father according to his humanity — therefore it is no wonder if around a mystery so ineffable and so impenetrable to the human mind far more errors have been committed than around any other whatsoever of the Articles of our faith. For, to pass over the Gentiles, who judged it impossible for God to become man, as well as the reprobate Jews, who believed Christ to be mere man; nay even lifted him up by an ignominious death as a man most lowly and worthless — the various impious dogmas of heretics concerning the assertion of the Incarnate Word can scarcely be numbered and enumerated. Nevertheless, that we may reduce those errors to a certain order, we shall distribute them into three classes: of which the First will disclose the principal Heresiarchs who assailed the divinity of Christ the Lord: The Second will recount all those who erred concerning his humanity. The Third finally will recount various and manifold errors of all those who denied the union of both, divinity and humanity, or attempted to adulterate and obscure it. For some, as holy Pope Leo writes in his tenth Sermon On the Nativity, chapter 2, from the documents of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, which showed him to be the true son of man, believed him to be nothing more than the son of man, not thinking that divinity was to be attributed to him whom the condition of the beginnings of infancy, and of bodily growth, and of passions even unto the cross and death, had shown not unlike the rest of mortals.

Moreover, in this series of weaving together the Heresies and Heresiarchs warring against the Incarnation of the divine Word, lest I seem to bring forth anything fabricated from my own brain, I wished the Reader to be admonished that everything I am about to narrate has been drawn from the holy Fathers, the vanquishers of those errors, and from the older Writers of Ecclesiastical History, and confirmed by their testimony: although, that I may render to each his deserved and due thanks and praises, let me not deny that I owe very much to Baronius, Petavius, and other modern Annalists and Professors of Theology, who with their most learned studies and writings came to our aid in this weaving together of an Encyclopedia of Heresies, nay even in elaborating this most difficult Treatise.

FIRST CLASS OF HERETICS — Those who assailed the Divinity of Christ the Lord.

About thirteen Assertors and Artificers of that nefarious error are celebrated among the Ancients: whose impious host was led by Carpocrates, who in the very times of the Apostles, as Irenaeus recounts, book 1. chapter 1, was the chief author of the Gnostics, just like that Simon the Samaritan, magician and fornicator, who affirmed, among other things, that Jesus had been begotten from the marriage of Joseph and Mary like the rest of men, upon whom after his Baptism Christ descended; and he said he had received such a soul whereby he might know the things that are supernal and announce them: as Tertullian teaches, book On the Soul, chapter 25; Epiphanius, book 1. On Heresies chapter 5; and Augustine there, chapter 7.

Cerinthus, disciple of Carpocrates, dissented in nothing from his impious teacher; since with him he affirmed that Christ, that is the Holy Spirit, descended into Jesus at the Jordan in the form of a dove, and after Jesus suffered, Christ flew back on high, while Jesus rose again. So relate Irenaeus, book 2. chapter 3; Epiphanius, haer. 28. But Augustine, book On Heresies, chapter 8, says that Cerinthus asserted that Jesus had not risen, but would rise. Moreover the same authors testify that this same Cerinthus was one of those who stirred up the multitude of believers against Peter, because he had entered unto men having foreskin to baptize Cornelius: and that he moreover was he who under the Apostles raised that question about Circumcision and the other Jewish ceremonies to be observed; for the disputation of which the first Council was held at Jerusalem, as we read Acts 15. Which things if they be true, he must have been older than Carpocrates, whom Theodoret places under Hadrian, who relates that Cerinthus dwelt long in Egypt, and there applied himself to Philosophy, and afterward passed over into Asia; whence Irenaeus narrates that memorable thing, book 3. chapter, that when the holy John the Evangelist had come to the bath, perceiving that Cerinthus had entered there, he immediately went out from there, lest the bath, he says, falling suddenly crush us together with Cerinthus.

Ebion, from whom come the Ebionites, disciple of Cerinthus, although his sect was Samaritan, preferred to be held a Jew, and therefore joined the Mosaic Law and the Jewish rites with the Christian profession; and casting aside the other Gospels, the Ebionites receive only that which is according to Matthew: but they reject the Apostle Paul, calling him an apostate from the law, as Irenaeus relates, chapter 26, and Epiphanius, haer. 30, who likewise prove that Ebion thought Christ to have been begotten from the union of Joseph and Mary; although Origen, book 2. Against Celsus, chapter 3, says there are two kinds of Ebionites; of whom some confess Christ to have been born of the Virgin; others however say he was procreated in the common state with the rest. But this most wicked dogma emerged while St. John the Evangelist was still alive, witness St. Jerome, book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 19, where he writes of St. John: Last of all he wrote the Gospel against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially then when the dogma of the Ebionites was rising, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary. Which Tertullian had said before, book On the Flesh of Christ, chapter 14: This opinion, he says, may suit Ebion, who made Jesus a mere man, born only of the seed of David, and not likewise the Son of God. Hence Eusebius notes especially, book 3. of Ecclesiastical History, chapter 21, that his followers were deservedly called Ebionites, that is destitute of mind and understanding; for Ebion in the Hebrew tongue signifies poor and needy; seeing that they determined and opined poorly and abjectly concerning Christ and his doctrine.

Elxai, a certain Jew, impostor and Pseudo-prophet, established a middle sect between Jews and Christians about the year 249. He wrote a book which his followers wonderfully venerated as prophetic; they feigned it had descended from heaven: in which book he preached that Christ was a great king, but nevertheless he said he was a pure creature; created indeed from the beginning, but one which, that it might appear variously at divers times, had put on various forms. For he was a certain celestial power, whose sister is the Holy Spirit, who together with that Christ descended into Jesus begotten of Mary and Joseph. So Epiphanius, haer. 19.

Related to these was the heresy of the Helcesaites: whose parent Theodoret acknowledges, book 2. chapter 4, to be Alcibiades of Apamea. But he relates in chapter 1 that this heresy, repressed and extinguished from its origin, was restored through Artemon, or Artemas, who asserted that Jesus Christ was mere man, procreated of the Virgin, and more excellent than the Prophets; and that the Apostles indeed taught this, but their successors venerated him as God.

About the end of the second century burst forth the impious dogma of the Theodotians, its author being Theodotus, a Byzantine by country, a leather-worker by trade, exceedingly learned in letters, who when apprehended in the persecution had renounced the faith, and moved by shame betook himself to Rome, where since he could neither lie hidden nor bear the ignominy and reproach of his perfidy, that he might raise himself up from it, he began to preach that Christ is not God, but a mere man, and begotten like the rest of men. So Tertullian, book On Prescription; and Augustine, haer. 33, where he calls him Theodotion, perhaps to distinguish him more perfectly from Theodotus the money-changer, or banker, who also himself, says Tertullian in heresy 8, introduced another Sect, and says Christ himself is only man, conceived alike and born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary; but that this one is inferior to Melchisedech.

Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, about the year 265, renewed the heresy of the Jews and Ebionites; since he said that in God there is one person only, and distinguished a twofold Word: one eternal, which would be the same person as the Father; and another prolated, which he asserted was like a certain air; hence he taught that Christ was a just man, not true God, whom nevertheless he called God. For so St. Athanasius writes of him in the book On the Saving Advent: Paul, he says, confesses God born of the Virgin, God brought forth into light at Nazareth, and thence having received the beginning of existing, and having attained the Kingdom. Yet he acknowledges the efficacious Word from heaven, and wisdom in him, and thinks that by predestination he was before the ages, but that he first began to exist at Nazareth, that there may be one God, the Father. Yet he did not think Christ was God as soon as he was brought forth, but that he was made God by progress of virtue, as the same Athanasius relates, in his fourth Oration against the Arians. Against his impious dogma two Synods were convened at Antioch. The first indeed about the year 265, at which Firmilian Bishop of Caesarea attended, Gregory of Neocaesarea, and many other most holy Fathers: but Dionysius of Alexandria could not be present, excusing his age and health, yet sent in his place an Epistle in which he expounded his faith concerning the divinity of Christ. The same had previously rebuked Paul himself in another epistle; to which in turn that heretic replied, and proposed ten chapters against the divinity of Christ for his nefarious opinion; to which Dionysius responded in a small book, which exists in Volume two of the Library of the Fathers. Meanwhile Paul, compelled to appear before the Bishops assembled at Antioch, frustrated their diligence, promising that he would recall his former opinion, and craftily bearing forth the Catholic dogma, he mocked the judgment of the Fathers, who departed from Antioch thinking him truly converted. But when afterward the heresy resumed its advocacy with greater confidence, the Bishops again convene at Antioch, seventy in number, as St. Athanasius affirms in the book On Synods; or one hundred eighty, as is related in the supplicatory little book which Basil the Deacon offered in the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius: before whom Paul himself, cited and convicted of heresy by the industry of Malchion the Presbyter, a learned man and most keen disputant, was cast down from his see. But since he was unwilling to yield, Emperor Aurelian, appealed to by the Christian Prelates, commanded him to be expelled by force.

At nearly the same time burst forth the impious dogma of the Sabellians, its author being Sabellius: who since he acknowledged one person only in the Deity, also denied that the divine Word had been incarnate, but wished that the one person in God had been intimately joined to man; or, as Ferrandus the Deacon relates in the Epistle to Severus, which exists in Volume 3 of the Library of the Fathers, saying: Truth refuted those heretics who wished so to speak of the one God Trinity, that Him whom they confessed as Father, they feigned the same to be to themselves Son, the same Holy Spirit, namely God, who remaining in the heavens, was Father of the whole creation, so that extended into the Virgin he became even by birth Son among men; and again, the mystery of the human dispensation having been consummated, coming upon the Apostles in tongues of fire he was called Holy Spirit. Compelled by this error they believed not only the Son of God the Father, but the Father Crucified. Whence antiquity shows they were also called Patripassians. Hence Epiphanius, heresy 62, relates that those heretics declared their impious dogma by this similitude, saying that God is like the sun, whose one hypostasis it is, in which three things are discerned: the power of illuminating, as well as of warming, and the orb, or globe: thus in the one and singular person of God they said the Father was called the form of the whole hypostasis: but the Son was a certain power of illuminating, and the Holy Spirit as it were the ardor, and the implanted faculty of cherishing and warming: whence concerning Christ they pronounced that he was the Son sent forth; that is, a ray of divinity, which accomplished all those things that pertained to illustrating the minds of men with light, and with evangelical truth.

A favorer and imitator of Sabellius was Marcellus of Ancyra: who while he inveighs rather vehemently against the Arians, and defends most keenly against them the unity of the divine substance, lapsed into an error in the contrary direction, and transferred that same unity even to the hypostases themselves and persons. Hence, as Eusebius of Caesarea relates, who assailed him in five books, he said the Word was devoid of proper subsistence, and entered into the flesh merely as an indwelling utterance, and operated in it: and that then Christ existed, and Jesus, and King, and Image of God. Which Theodoret confirms, book 2. chapter 10, saying, there was devised by him a certain extension from the paternal Deity, and such an Utterance was it which descended into Christ: and which, all function completed, was reduced and contracted to God, from whom it had been extended. And he added that after the end of the world and the Judgment, the Utterance would depart from the flesh and return to the Father; so that the flesh alone, bereft of the Word, would remain.

Disciple of Marcellus was Photinus, Bishop of Sirmium, who, eloquent and skilled in the faculty of disputing, about the year 337 renewed the dogma of Paul of Samosata, as had Marcellus; so that those finally called Photinians had been named Paulianists. He was condemned in the Council of Sardica, but not acquiescing in the sentence passed, he went to Emperor Constantius, and asked for Judges before whom he might be heard anew: which when the Emperor had granted him, he delegated to him Semiarian Bishops, who convening at Sirmium condemned him again and cast him down from his see; that by that means those Judges might appear Catholic, insofar as they would condemn a man who denied the Son of God to have existed before Mary. But their guile Lucifer of Cagliari soon exposed, book On Not Sparing Those Who Sin Against God, where he thus addresses Constantius the Semiarian as Judge and condemner of Photinus: Behold Photinus professes only a man to be the Son of God: he says he was not before most blessed Mary: this profession is also yours, since assuredly you say that before all things, that is, before heaven, earth, sea, and all things that are in them, is the Son of God; but that he existed from nothing, that he is a creature — what difference do you judge there is between you and Paul of Samosata your rector, your disciple Photinus, except that you say he is before all things, while he after all things? Otherwise one and the same mind of belief and unbelief is yours, in that you say God has not a true Son.

SECOND CLASS OF HERETICS — Namely, of those who erred concerning the humanity of Christ the Lord. —

Since in man there are two things of which he consists and is constituted integrally; namely, the human body and the rational soul, which are joined together by a certain common bond, from whose union it follows for man to have various faculties, flowing forth now from the soul, now from the body; hence concerning the humanity of Christ the Lord heretics erred variously; whose errors, that they may appear more clearly and distinctly, we shall set forth first those who hawked certain nefarious dogmas concerning the body of Christ the Lord.

Errors concerning the Body of Christ the Lord.

Here I do not recount all those errors which maintained that the Incarnation was Judaic, fictitious, and merely outwardly shadowed forth. Among whom the principal and standard-bearer of them all seems Simon Magus; who, as St. Irenaeus relates, book 7. chapter 20, glorified by many as if God, taught himself to be he who among the Jews indeed appeared as Son; but in Samaria descended as Father; and among the remaining Gentiles arrived as Holy Spirit. Whence it followed that he should deny the Incarnation, and assert that flesh was received from God not truly, but in mere appearance. But passing over these, I make mention only of those who denied the true flesh of Christ; whose first comes forth

Saturnilus, or as some will have it, Saturninus, disciple of the same Simon, who propagated the heresy of Simon, and among other things taught that Christ was not truly born, but was only putatively a man, as Irenaeus says, book 1. chapter 22; or came only in a phantasm, as Tertullian teaches in On Prescriptions, chapter 46. His fellow-disciple Basilides adhered to him in all things, teaching Christ to have been a phantasm, and in no wise truly to have suffered; but in his place that Simon of Cyrene, upon whom when the Jews had laid the cross of Christ, Jesus changed this man into his own figure, and conversely assumed his proper one, and thus mocked the Jews and derided their endeavor. Hence he denied that martyrdom was to be undergone for Christ, because he had not undergone death himself, as they relate, besides Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, book 4. Stromata, and very many others.

At nearly the same time Valentinus taught the same nefarious dogma: who, as Eusebius observes, book 4. of History, chapter 10, flourished under Pius, that is, in the year of Christ 158, and remained until Anicetus, namely until the year 167; who among other deliria taught that Christ, sent down by the Father for the salvation of the whole world, had a body not earthly but celestial, and passed through the Virgin Mary like water through a channel, taking nothing from her womb, as Epiphanius writes, heresy 31. Tertullian also adds against the Valentinians c. 15 that he gave Christ a spiritual body, and that just as water passes through a pipe, so it made its way through the Virgin Mary, receiving or borrowing nothing from thence.

To Valentinus are to be reckoned several others who thought no less insanely than ineptly concerning the true body of Christ the Lord. Before all others however stand out the Cerdonians, from Cerdo, who is said first to have spoken of two Gods; one good, the other evil. This man, says Tertullian, book On Prescriptions, chapter 51, introduces two beginnings, that is, two Gods; one good, the other cruel: the good superior, the cruel Creator of this world. He repudiates the Prophecies and the Law, renounces God the Creator, treats of the Son of the superior One having come: he denies him in the substance of flesh, pronounces him to have been in mere phantasm, neither having suffered at all, but as it were suffering; nor born of a Virgin, but altogether not even born.

Disciple of Cerdo, and imitator and disseminator of the most wicked dogma, was Marcion, who, says Tertullian, book On the Flesh of Christ, denied the nativity of Christ, and that he might deny the nativity, he denied also the flesh. And as he adds in the book against Marcion, chapter 5, he established two Christs: one who in the times of Tiberius was revealed by a certain unknown God unto the salvation of all the Gentiles: another who was destined by God the Creator (that is, the evil one) for the restoration of the Judaic state, to come sometime. Between these he cuts a diversity and great difference, as much as between the just and the good; as much as between law and Gospel, as much as between Judaism and Christianity.

There follows the worst and most pestilential of all, Manes or Manichaeus; Master of diabolical falsehood, and founder of an obscure superstition, says holy Leo, sermon 2. On Pentecost: whose disciples, says St. Aug. On Heresies, c. 46, affirmed Christ to have been he whom our Scripture calls the serpent, by whom they assert the first parents were illuminated, that they might open the eyes of knowledge and discern good and evil; and withal said Christ came in the last times to liberate souls, not bodies; and was not in true flesh, but offered a simulated species of flesh for beguiling human senses: wherein he lied likewise not only concerning death but even concerning resurrection. To him, as Tertullian says, On Prescriptions, chapter 51, must be ascribed Appelles his disciple, who says Christ was neither in a phantasm as Marcion, nor in the substance of a true body, as the Gospel teaches: but that as he descended from the higher parts, in the very descent he wove for himself a sidereal and aerial flesh: that in the resurrection he rendered back to each single element what in his descent he had borrowed; and thus, the parts of his body dispersed each into heaven, established only spirit. I do not recount all the other heretics; such as the Priscillianists, and others like them, who, says St. Leo, epist. 93, do not believe Christ the Lord to have been born in the true nature of man, but wish him to have seemed shown forth by a certain illusion which were not true; following the dogma of Cerdo and Marcion, and according with their kinsmen the Manichaeans in all things. Nor those Fanatic Arians, who renewing the dogma of the Patripassians, says holy Fulgentius, book against the Sermon of Fastidiosus, chapter 11 — Their perversity, pursuing its course, precipitates them into this absurdity, that they believe in no way the divine nativity; but nevertheless assign to the Father consequently the nature according to the flesh, the passion and death likewise, resurrection also from hell, and Ascension into heaven, and all those things which in the Sacrament of the Incarnation pertain to the person of the one Son. Nor finally the Gaianites, who, as Leontius Scholasticus writes, act 10. book On Sects, confess that God the Word took human nature from the Virgin perfectly and truly, but say that after the union the body was incorruptible.

Errors concerning the Soul of Christ.

There come forth above all the Arians: for Arius, as Manuel Caleca observes, believed that the soul assumed together with the flesh existed before the Incarnation, and came from heaven: since he placed a prior existence of souls to bodies themselves; or as St. August. observes concerning certain Arians, they think Christ received mere flesh without a soul. That this was true Epiphanius did not keep silent. And I myself, he says, learned most certainly from certain of their writings and colloquies.

To these in error succeeded the Apollinarists, affirming that Christ God received flesh without a soul; their teacher and spokesman being the heresiarch Apollinaris, who was a man of remarkable learning, and before he lapsed into heresy illustrious for piety and virtue, and far most dear to Epiphanius himself and Athanasius and all Catholics: For, says Epiphanius of him, heresy 77, that man had attained no mediocre knowledge of letters: since he was cultivated in the humane and Greek disciplines, and excelled above all in Dialectic and all sophistic art: he was likewise endowed with exceptional gravity: and joined in the highest charity with the defenders of the Catholic faith, before he lapsed into that dogma: nay he even endured exile for refusing to agree with the Arians. So great was his erudition that St. Hier. writes of him, book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 14: He wrote innumerable volumes, and his thirty Books against Porphyry are among his other Works especially approved.

Of that error and heresy various and manifold heads are adduced; but as regards the mystery of the Incarnation he erred in a threefold manner. First indeed he judged the nature of man in Christ to be semi-complete, that is, lacking a soul, whose place the Word itself made flesh supplied to the body. For, says Socrates, book 2. last chapter, Apollinaris held that altogether the soul was not assumed by God the Word in the dispensation of the Incarnation: then as if led by penitence, correcting themselves they added that indeed a soul was assumed, which however would not have a mind, but that God the Word was assumed unto man in place of mind. Which opinion was his second error; so that he thought indeed that the soul was assumed by the Word in that part whereby we are quickened and sense and perform the common offices with the other animals; but not in that part whereby it is rational. Whence Augustine in Tractate 47 on John declaims thus against them: Behold the absurdity and an insanity not to be endured. They wished him to have an irrational soul; they denied him a rational one: they gave him the soul of a beast, they withdrew from him the soul of man. His third error finally was that, thinking the flesh of Christ unlike and not taken from the flesh of the Blessed Virgin, a part of the very substance of God was converted into flesh, and came down from heaven. Hence Athanasius in the Epistle to Epictetus exclaims thus against that nefarious dogma: Whence pray, he says, have these things come forth? What infernal ones further belched forth that the body begotten of Mary is consubstantial with the Deity, or that the Word itself was converted into flesh, bones, hair, and indeed the whole body, and changed by its own nature? etc. More truly to insane astonishment was it that, as Nazianzen relates, Oration 16, Apollinaris affirmed that in no wise adventitious was the flesh which the only-begotten Son according to the dispensation assumed for restoring our nature: but that already even from the beginning that carnal nature was in the Son. Which impious fiction indeed he proved from that word John 3: No man ascends into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.

From those nefarious errors another was asserted by them heretics by consequence; namely, that the Divinity of Christ suffered and died, as St. Ambrose relates in the book On the Incarnation of Christ, chapter 6, tacitly naming the Apollinarists. There are some who have proceeded to such a pitch of impiety, he says, as to think that because the Divinity of the Lord was circumcised, and made imperfect from perfect, on the wood not flesh hung but that divine substance, worker of all things, curdled in the species of flesh. But who would not shudder? Who could hear that the Word made for himself passible flesh not from the Virgin Mary, but from divine substance? Asserting this they will slide so far as to contend that the body of the Lord was not assumed in time, but was ever coeternal with the Word of God. The authors of all these are they who said the Divinity and the flesh of the Lord were of one nature.

Errors concerning the Faculties of the Soul of Christ.

It is certain that the Apollinarists, of whom mention was just made, erred concerning the human intellect of Christ the Lord; inasmuch as they affirmed the Soul in Christ lacked its own mind and power of understanding; whose place the Divinity of the Word supplied, which as mind is far more excellent than the human intellect. Which opinion Apollinaris had expressed out of Platonic Philosophy, witness Nemesius at the beginning of the book which he inscribed On the Nature of Man. For certain ones, he says, among whom is Plotinus, establishing that soul is one thing and mind another, wish man to consist of three things, body, soul, and mind. These Apollinaris Bishop of Laodicea followed: for casting this foundation of his opinion, he superstructed the rest consonant to his dogma.

The Agnoetae also erred about the year of Christ 535, so called from ignorance, because they attributed ignorance to the intellect of Christ the Lord. Concerning whom Leontius Scholasticus relates these things, book On Sects, Action 5: While Theodosius lived privately at Byzantium, the dogma of the Agnoetae, so called from ignorance, was set in motion. For because the Lord says no one knows the hour of Judgment, not even the Son, except only the Father, inquiry was made whether Christ as man was ignorant of it: Theodosius denied that Christ was ignorant, and wrote against the Agnoites. Others however handed down that Christ was ignorant of the hour, just as we said he felt pain. Thence they were divided from Theodosius, who are called Agnoetae, and when they had made for themselves a peculiar Church, they communicated apart: and again: They say we are assimilated to Christ in all things: therefore if we are ignorant, he also was ignorant. Holy John Damascene also makes mention of them in the book On Heresies, observing that they were also called Themistians from Themistius, who was of the sect of the Theodosians. That error long buried Luther anew aroused: for he taught that Christ knew many things not, as man, in the Sermon on the Nativity of the Lord, expounding that passage of Mark 13: But of that day, etc. And Homil. 1. of the Sunday after Epiph., on these words, He advanced in wisdom and age.

Errors concerning the Will of Christ.

I pass over the Apollinarists, who by the very fact that they denied a rational soul in Christ the Lord took away from him also the human will; as well as the Arians resting on the same principle; and the Eutychians, of whom below. For from the fact that they established one nature in Christ the Lord, into which they wished the human to be converted, consequently they acknowledged one will only in him. I bring forward only those who, thinking well concerning the twofold nature, namely divine and human, of Christ the Lord joined in the hypostasis of the divine Word: nevertheless maintained there to be one divine will only in him, but none human.

There come forth above all the Monothelites: whose heresy had its beginning about the year of Christ 633, as Theophanes, Cedrenus, and others everywhere among the Greek Annalists relate; so narrate Baronius and Petavius. For when Emperor Heraclius, the Persian war finished, journeying through the East, had come to Hierapolis, a certain Athanasius Patriarch of the Jacobites approached him, whose Sect was Eutychian; when the Emperor had told him he would appoint him Patriarch of Antioch if he approved the Council of Chalcedon, and confessed two natures in Christ, and renounced the Eutychian dogma; enticed by this hope Athanasius began to profess two natures in Christ: then he proposed in turn to the Emperor the question lately agitated by Theodore of Pharan concerning the will and operation of Christ — whether it ought to be twofold or one. Hesitating over which interrogation, the Emperor consulted Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople by letter; who since he too was a Syrian, sprung from Jacobite parents, and secretly a defender of the same heresy, which acknowledged one nature in Christ, and therefore one will and operation, gave a response consonant to his own error: which when the Emperor had received, and communicated it to Cyrus Bishop of Phasis, and shortly after to the Patriarch of Alexandria, since Cyrus himself was infected with a like stain and heresy, thenceforth their counsels having been shared, those two Patriarchs, namely Sergius of Constantinople and Cyrus of Alexandria, together with Macharius Patriarch of Antioch, gave strength and force to this heresy; truly especially Cyrus, who at the beginning of his promotion to the Alexandrian Patriarchate, under the pretext of reducing to the Church the Theodosian heretics and Acephali, of whom there was an immense number in that city, convened a Synod: in which he publicly set forth nine Chapters with anathemas: of which the seventh was, that in Christ there is one Theandric, that is, Divine-human operation. Those Chapters moreover exist in act 13. of the sixth Synod.

Then flourished at Alexandria Sophronius the Monk, a man of singular piety and doctrine, who when he recognized well the deceits and fallacies covered under the cloak of peace, pressed Cyrus vehemently that he rescind that seventh Chapter, which certainly he could not obtain. Wherefore he set out for Constantinople to Patriarch Sergius, that he might implore his aid against the arising heresy; but since Sergius was infected with the same stain, yet, as he was a crafty man, did not yet wish to divulge his error, he agreed with Sophronius himself that mention of one or two wills should be suppressed, as may be seen in the Epistle of Sergius himself to Honorius the Supreme Pontiff: where among other things he has this: Finally it stood and pleased, that the aforesaid venerable Sophronius should henceforth move no discourse about one or two operations, but let it suffice him to have advanced the cautious and tried tradition and doctrine of the holy Fathers, &c. — But when Sophronius himself shortly after was made Bishop of Jerusalem, a Synod celebrated, he decreed that two operations and wills in Christ must be admitted, as appears from that Epistle which he wrote to Sergius, which was read and approved in the sixth Ecumenical Synod; nay he even sent letters to Rome to Honorius the Supreme Pontiff through Stephen, Bishop of Dora, whereby he makes him more certain concerning the new heresy of the Monothelites, and shortly after died. — Sergius wrote to the same Honorius in the same year, concerning the controversy between Cyrus and Sophronius, not without malign interpretation of the mind and opinion of those who asserted two operations; as if it followed from thence that there were two wills contrary and conflicting with each other: wherefore it seemed more prudent to him that neither one nor two operations be named in Christ, but only one operator. Responding to which Honorius approved that counsel of Sergius, for the sake of preserving concord, otherwise professing that in Christ there are not two wills contrary to each other, but only one, that he might elude that conflict and discord of wills. — After these things Pope Honorius dies, succeeded by Severinus, whose ordination was delayed, because his election was not yet ratified by the Emperor, as was customary; and thus the Roman see lay vacant long. Meanwhile since the faction of the Monothelites gathered strength daily, and poured forth its virus, Emperor Heraclius, with Sergius as author, promulgated the Ecthesis, or exposition of the faith; wherein he asserted indeed one will in Christ, but as it were doing something else; since he expressly and openly established that no one name either one or two operations and wills in Christ. Which Ecthesis Sergius approved in a Synod held at Constantinople, and publicly proposed, and in the same year died; and Pyrrhus, partaker of the same heresy with Sergius, was substituted in his place; with whom John the Fourth, who had succeeded Pope Severinus deceased, pressed that the Ecthesis affixed in public places be taken down and condemned; which when he had been unable to obtain, a Council enacted at Rome, Emperor Heraclius in an Epistle to Pope John professed that he had not been the author of that Ecthesis, but Sergius, who had composed it, and had asked him to subscribe to it and order it promulgated in his name. — Two years after the promulgation of the Ecthesis Heraclius died, succeeded by Constantine his son, a Catholic Prince: but he dying after four months, not without suspicion of poison given by his stepmother Martina, whose counselor Pyrrhus was said to be, the other Heraclius reigned, or Heraclonas, together with Martina his mother; but those condemned to exile, and the nostrils of Heraclonas and the tongue of Martina cut off by decree of the Senate, in their place was substituted Emperor Heraclius, another son of Constantine, who therefore was named by the people Constantine and Constans, and emulating rather his grandfather than his father, defended most keenly the heresy of the Monothelites. Meanwhile Pyrrhus, harassed by popular sedition on account of the killing of Constantine, fled Constantinople, and withdrew himself into Africa, where he held a famous conference with holy Abbot Maximus, a man most religious and most learned, in a convent of Bishops and noble men; and the matter was conducted so that Pyrrhus convicted of error gave his hand to the Catholic truth: wherefore proceeding to Rome he offered to Pope Theodore, who had succeeded John the Fourth, a libellus, whereby his heresy being condemned he subscribed to the Catholic faith, and thus was received into communion. But afterward by order of Emperor Constans Olympius Exarch brought Pyrrhus with an army to Ravenna to resume his heretical profession; for which cause Pontiff Theodore deposed Pyrrhus and condemned him with anathema, and passed the same sentence upon Paul, who had been substituted in the place of Pyrrhus. Persuaded however by Paul himself, Emperor Constans promulgated an Edict, which they call the Type, in which, to sanction concord, he prohibited any one from claiming either one or two wills in Christ. — After the death of Theodore, Martin the First his successor convened at Rome the Lateran Synod of 105 Bishops, in which the Ecthesis of Heraclius or Sergius, and the Type of Constans, and therefore the favorers and dogmas of the Monothelites, are condemned. Moved by which Emperor Constans harassed Martin variously, that he recall the condemnation: but persevering he is sent into exile, where suffering various hardships he merited the crown of martyrdom. Finally, when Emperor Constans had been killed at Syracuse in Sicily by treachery, Constantine his son surnamed Pogonatus, that is Bearded, succeeded to the imperial dignity; who since he was a pious and Catholic prince, negotiated first with Donus, then with his successor Agatho concerning composing the peace of the Church; wherefore a General Council was celebrated at Constantinople; presided over by Legates of the Apostolic See, the Emperor present attended, in which the Monothelites heard anew, whose standard-bearer was Macarius of Antioch, it was decreed that in Christ there inhere two wills, and as many natural operations. The Council moreover was begun in the year 680, completed in the following. — It is disputed however whether the Monothelites truly asserted that there is one will in Christ; or rather merely denied the operation of the human will; so that indeed there was in Christ a twofold will; yet only the divine exercised its operation: nevertheless it is more probable that they admitted only one will, or volitive faculty: for first of all the aforesaid Ecthesis, although on first view it seems expressly to make mention neither of one only nor of two wills and operations, but merely established that, for the sake of granting peace, no one name either one or two operations and wills in Christ; nevertheless with double operation excluded, it pronounces one will alone to be asserted; that this may appear, I shall bring forward certain passages from it. For after a long and Catholic explanation of the Trinity and Incarnation, it in no way concedes to anyone of all to say or teach one or two operations in the divine Incarnation of the Lord: but rather as the holy and universal Synods handed down, to confess the one same only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ true God operating divine and human. It adds immediately the reason why it permits neither one nor two operations; Because, it says, the word of one operation, although spoken by some Fathers, nevertheless disturbs and estranges the ears of certain ones, thinking that the same was uttered for the perdition of the two natures, which are united in one subsistence in Christ our God. Similarly however, the word of two operations scandalizes many, as it were spoken by no one of the holy and principal Fathers: but also to follow therein, that we confess two wills reciprocally resisting each other: God the Word indeed accomplishing the most salutary Passion, but the Incarnation made in opposition to going against his will, and assaulting it, and thence two willing contraries introduced: which is impious, and foreign to Christian dogma. After however it thus determined concerning operation, so that it seemed to prejudge neither party, but with both suppressed provide for peace and concord, soon concerning the will it openly expresses the heretical virus, confessing one in Christ: Thence the holy Fathers, it says, following in all things and in this, we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ most true God. Therefore the Ecthesis has this proper to itself, that it prohibits saying one or two operations: but openly confesses one will. — It is proved further from that famous disputation of holy Maximus with Pyrrhus; in which especially that most holy man dwells, that he may prove that, because there are two natures in Christ, fitly there is apt to each to will and operate: likewise that Christ has a human will, because he has a perfect human nature; but natures cannot be called perfect without their properties. Likewise that Christ had a will, because he had an implanted power for defending his humanity, whence he subjoins: What good then did the Church of God do, if together with his humanity and created nature, it plainly confesses those things also which were implanted by himself in that creature, that soul, without which nature cannot exist? Finally Martin the First testifies the same in the allocution which he had to the Fathers of the Lateran Synod, in these words:

And Cyrus indeed before these eighteen years, defining one operation in Christ in the same city of Alexandria, ordaining his divinity and humanity in similitude of the Acephalan heretics, preaching chapters to the number of nine in another tome, with anathema against whoever should not think so, impiously promulgated. But Sergius through his proper Epistle written to the aforesaid Cyrus, receiving similarly the same one operation, dared with him to confirm with irrational presumption. And not only this, but also after several years the new invention of the same Cyrus, that is, fallen in the newly past twelfth indiction, himself also writing the heretical Ecthesis of the faith, under the name of Heraclius then reigning, instituted one will and operation in the same our Savior, according to the impious Apollinaris, from this because he says imprudently, that operation follows will.

THIRD CLASS OF HERETICS. — Concerning the union of the Divine nature with the human in Christ.

Among all the heretics who assailed the union of the Divine nature with the human in the unity of person, the most wicked of all were the Nestorians and Eutychians; but by a diverse and altogether opposite manner; since indeed the Eutychians contended that the human nature was transferred through the Incarnation into the divine, and as it were transubstantiated: but the Nestorians on the contrary asserted two natures at once, and persons, distinct in Christ: and this heresy preceded the other in time, therefore we have judged that we must begin from it.

NESTORIANS, so called from Nestorius, that impious and nefarious architect of that error, whom Suidas presents as grandson and son, that is disciple, of Paul of Samosata, that is, restorer of that condemned error. He was born at Germanicia in Syria: but having journeyed through various provinces, as Theodoret writes, book 1. On Heretics, c. 12, he finally settled at Antioch, where enrolled among the number of Priests, moderately learned in the liberal arts, he applied himself first especially to exercising his voice, which was by nature sweet and resonant in him: then because he was ready and eloquent in speech, and had obtained the office of teaching the people enjoined upon him, not an ingenuous one, says Theodoret, Epistle to Coradius, and fruitful character of speaking did he imitate, which could feed the minds of men; but declining toward popular favor, and angling like anyone else for the vain applause of the people, he stirred up the unstable and abject vulgar to desire of himself. There was added a certain affected species of sanctity, which both a black garment displayed, and a countenance composed unto sadness and gravity, and meanwhile no pallor of mortification as evidence: besides avoiding the concourse of the people he kept himself at home, where among books seeming to care for nothing of worldly matters, he lived a tranquil and quiet life; by which arts he stirred up very many into admiration and affection of himself: in which institute of living, when he had spent the greatest part of his life, and had conciliated for himself the highest veneration among all by this manner of living, finally it happened about the year of Christ 428 that, Sisinnius Bishop of Constantinople dying, he was chosen into his place; for since it seemed good to the Emperor to promote rather an outsider than a native to that dignity, he judged a Prelate ought to be sought from that city which before had given with such happy success John surnamed Chrysostom. Therefore he came to Constantinople in the year 428, and was ordained Bishop on the 10th day of April, with the highest gratulation of all Catholics, because they thought him a most keen defender of the faith. Hence St. Cyril, as soon as he heard him announced Bishop, wrote back letters full of office to him, as is gathered from his Epistle to Emperor Theodosius.

That estimation of himself, that Nestorius might sustain, he bore forth vehement zeal of his own against the Catholic religion, and hatred against heretics: which certainly he demonstrated above all in the first sermon which he held before Emperor Theodosius, in which, as Socrates narrates, he uttered this memorable word: Give me, O Emperor, a land purged of heretics, and I will give you heaven in return; uproot heretics with me, and I will crush the Persians with you. Of such persuasion therefore Emperor Theodosius issued a sanction against heretics: but while it seemed a splendid Catholic deed to undertake, he not only secretly favored his Pelagian friends; for indeed no mention is made of the Pelagians in that sanction; but even afterward he advanced to such audacity that he himself appeared the artificer of a new heresy, denying that the Son of God truly became incarnate man, or was begotten of the Virgin Mary according to the flesh; wherefore the impure man denied that the holy Virgin ought to be called θεοτόκος, that is, Mother of God: and wished to usurp in place of that name Χριστότοκος, that is, Mother of Christ: and therefore all his fury blazed forth in eradicating that little word Mother of God from use, as Theodoret relates.

Nestorius therefore established that the Person of the Son of God was one thing, and another the son of the Virgin Mary, and thence denied that she begot God and was Mother of God, but affirmed she begot mere man, who had been called Son of God with progress of time on account of some accidental union with the Word: which union indeed he first expounded by reason of indwelling, because the Divine Word dwelt in the person of the son of Mary as in a temple, according to that word John 2: Destroy this temple, etc., and that word 1. to the Colossians, in him it pleased that all fullness of divinity should dwell corporally; which exposition St. Cyril assails thus in defense of the first anathematism:

They strive to preach that Christ had God dwelling in him as one of the Saints, and persuade this is to be understood, not considering that God is also in us through the Spirit as in holy Temples; for it is written: Know you not that you are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone therefore corrupt the temple of God, him will God corrupt: for the temple of God is holy, which you are. But although we are named temples of God, when we have God dwelling > through the Spirit: nevertheless we know another mode of Sacrament according to Christ.

He deduced moreover from this union of indwelling that there followed further some other union of affection between the Son of God and the son of the Virgin Mary. According to that word John 8: He who sent me is with me, and has not left me alone: because I do always the things that please him: so that such a union of man to God be understood as is that of which the Apostle says, 1 Corinth. 6: Who is joined to God, one Spirit is. Thirdly from this union of affection he deduced that there was some other union, which is of operation, whereby namely the Word of God uses the son of Mary as a certain instrument for accomplishing miraculous works. Hence in his ninth anathematism he condemned those who thought otherwise. Fourthly from this threefold union of indwelling, of affection, and of operation, he affirmed another union arose, which he called of participation and communication of the same excellence and dignity; for just as from a union of affection between two men it sometimes happens that names which properly belong to God be transferred to men, whence they are called gods, Sons of God, saints, and Christs: so also divine names are bestowed on the son of the Virgin on account of eminent sanctity by a certain singular privilege. Thus thought Nestorius, anathematism 8. Fifthly finally he taught that although the Son of God and the Son of Mary are two persons, nevertheless those two persons can sometimes be called one person, as it is said of man and woman that now they are not two, but one flesh; and that by reason of that union through affection and consent of will; wherefore Theodore of Mopsuestia, as related in the 5th Synod, Collation s. Canon 12, said such a uniting of the Word of God to Christ was made, as the Apostle said of man and woman, They shall be two in flesh one.

To these erroneous assertions the heresy of Paul of Samosata, Marcellus, and Photinus, of whom above, gave assent; as the Clerics of Constantinople proved against the same Nestorius, comparing together between themselves the principal heads of either Dogma, as may be seen in act one of the Council. He said Christ was simply born of Mary: this same one taught this: Paul asserted Christ attained every grace from the Holy Spirit, from which he obtained only the dignity of adoption: but Nestorius taught Christ had some communion whatever of divinity, when after Baptism the Holy Spirit descended into him in the species of a dove. Finally both thought that wisdom, or God, dwelt in Christ in no other way than in the Prophets, except that an ampler abundance of heavenly grace poured forth into him than into these. Now the origin of this promulgated heresy Socrates relates thus, book 7. chapter 32. Nestorius had brought with him from Antioch to Constantinople a certain presbyter Anastasius, associate and partaker of all his secrets and counsels: he, when once holding a sermon to the people with Nestorius present, boldly uttered this criminal word: Let no one name Mary Mother of God: for Mary was a man; but it is impossible for man to bear God: which when it had excited great tumults among the Clergy and people, so far was Nestorius from correcting this criminal man, that rather he approved his sacrilegious saying. Which a certain Bishop also named Dorotheus performed, devoted exceedingly to flattery in hope of sordid gain, who wishing to curry favor with Nestorius, speaking to the people at the synaxis of the Church with Nestorius himself present, dared cry out: If anyone say Mary is Mother of God, let him be anathema: which impious deed Nestorius approved, for he admitted that Dorotheus immediately to communion, as appears from the sixth Epistle of St. Cyril. Hence it happened, as the same Cyril relates, Epistol. 9. to Celestine Supreme Pontiff, that the whole population of Constantinople except a few light and vain men, and flatterers of Nestorius, abstained from his communion, likewise all the Monasteries, and their Archimandrites: nay even, as Socrates relates, chapter 28, Proclus, Bishop of Cyzicus, then living at Constantinople, when on a certain Sunday he held a sermon to the people, pronounced that Homily on the praises of the Virgin, which is read prefixed at the beginning of the Council of Ephesus, in which he calls Mary Mother of God.

St. Cyril relates also, book 1. Against Nestorius, that when Nestorius himself holding a sermon to the people uttered certain execrable things against the divinity of Christ, a certain layman from the midst of the crowd exclaimed with what contention of voice he could, that the divine Word, begotten of the Father before all ages, received another generation according to the Flesh, and from a woman; which when Nestorius heard, moved with sharp bile, he vomited many revilings upon that monitor himself, and threatened grave threats, at hearing which a varied murmur arose in the assembly, very many trembling and crying out against Nestorius: We have a ruler, we do not have a Bishop. — Meanwhile Nestorius spoke and wrote various Homilies in defense of his error, which were published through the East. These heard, Cyril Prelate of Alexandria wrote an Epistle to the Egyptian Monks, whereby he strove to forewarn them against the pestilent heresy, however without any mention made of its author. When a copy of which Epistle carried to Constantinople had been received and read by Nestorius, grinding against Cyril, he first acted with blandishments with him, that he should assert the Virgin was not Mother of God: but when Cyril had written back to him various letters, whereby he attacked and condemned his heresy, Nestorius by himself and his followers forging unheard-of crimes and calumnies against Cyril, strove to raise up his authority among the faithful and Catholics, and with libelli disseminated everywhere did not cease to refute him, and add strength to his erroneous dogma. Nay even to Pope Celestine he himself wrote first, and sent to him libelli of his expositions; which heard, Cyril also wrote to Celestine, responding to both he commands Nestorius that he renounce the heresy, and commits his vicariate to Cyril, and orders that unless within ten days after being admonished Nestorius profess the Catholic faith, renounce, he is rejected from the communion of the Roman See and of all Bishops. Cyril relying on the authority of Pope Celestine, when he saw Nestorius confirmed in heresy, a Synod convened wrote to Nestorius an Epistle with twelve chapters, whereby with as many anathematisms they struck his heresy, denouncing to him that, unless he condemn the error and subscribe to these chapters, the sentence passed upon him by Celestine would stand ratified. He gave also letters to the Constantinopolitans, namely the Clergy and people, likewise to the Monarchs, wherein he signified the same: but Nestorius driven into fury, himself also opposed to the twelve chapters or anathematisms of Cyril as many others; whereby against the Catholic dogma he affirmed his heresy. Nor only in words did he rage against the faithful, but he undertook also to lay snares for them: for the Constantinopolitans, who almost all had departed from his communion, he harassed in various ways. Abuse of power of Prefects, especially against Monks, whom he acknowledged as most intense assailants of his error. He also rendered Emperor Theodosius more moved against Cyril by his calumnies, as if he raised tumults in the Church: but by prayers of Juvenal Bishop of Jerusalem, and of Archimandrites and Monks solicited to this by Cyril, the Emperor himself wrote to Cyril and other Bishops that he permitted a Synod to be convened at Ephesus after Easter of the following year of Christ 131, on the sacred day itself of Pentecost. He sent also Candidianus, count of the domestics, to be present, as appears from the sacred letter which is had in cap. 35; but with law and condition that with questions and controversies which arise concerning dogmas of faith no one hold anything common: Lest it be lawful, he subjoined, for one not inscribed in the Catalogue of most holy Bishops to mingle himself in ecclesiastical affairs and consultations: truly then in order that by all means he remove from that city Monks, Laity, and others flowing together there for seeing the Synod, who would bring obstacle to the Fathers by their tumult: then for hindering graver contentions which could arise in the Synod itself from mutual eagerness to resist: then that he take care all things proposed which pertained to faith be responded to all: then lest anyone depart from the Synodus, affecting return even to the Emperor, before the cause finished: then lest any ecclesiastical business or controversy be moved before the question begun by Nestorius had been concluded: finally that no pecuniary or criminal cause whatsoever be agitated there against anyone.

Therefore the Council convenes at Ephesus at the appointed time. In the city long before, that is shortly after Easter, was present Nestorius. On the appointed day attended Juvenal of Jerusalem with the Bishops of Palestine: absent was Capreolus of Carthage, and with him also the African Prelates were absent: they gave reason of their absence to the Council by letters, because assuredly journeys were not free to them on account of the ferocity of the Vandals. They added Augustine to have died before the very Letters of the Emperor received, whereby Letters he was ordered specially to come to the Council. John of Antioch was awaited, who after two weeks elapsed signified that the Fathers ought not wait longer for him. This delay was, to gratify Nestorius. So assert the Fathers of Ephesus in an Epistle to Celestine sometime after the middle of the third action.

The Council is begun with Cyril of Alexandria presiding, who held the place of Celestine, sixteen days elapsed, as Memnon Bishop of Ephesus testified, from the advent of the Fathers, who were two hundred in number. Before all the Imperial Letters were read, whereby the Council was convened. They are had in 1. part. c. 32; which read Hermogenes, Bishop of Rhinocorura, reported, and with him three others, that by ordination of the Fathers they had met Nestorius, whom they admonished that he not wish to be absent from the Synod itself on the day named: who replied he would deliberate, and if he judged necessary would attend. They added also six or seven other Bishops who were in the company of Nestorius had signified, whose response was hardly dissimilar. The Council orders that he be again admonished to be present by several Bishops. They come to the house of the same, find a multitude of soldiers with clubs, who prevent their arrival being signified to Nestorius, and say they were ordered not to admit anyone for the cause of meeting him. The same response of certain Clerics whom those Prelates addressed. Finally a certain Tribune approaches them, who when he had ordered them to wait, about to bring a response, returning after some time with a certain cleric, said he had not been permitted to see Nestorius, who nevertheless signified through others that when all the Bishops shall have convened together, then he too would come. Which reported to the Synod, it is decreed that by several Bishops he be summoned by a third citation. They obey: within the vestibule they find armed soldiers, who say they have in mandate to permit absolutely none sent from the Synod to enter to him. But so great is their insolence that they permit not even the venerable Prelates to stand under the shade, nor pushing them hither and thither grant them a tiny bit of place where they can fix a foot. They return, having waited many hours, without other response.

After a triple citation the doctrine of Nestorius is weighed. The Nicene Symbol is read. The Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius is read, which exists in 1. part. cap. 8, and it is defined that it be consonant with the Nicene Symbol: the Epistle of Vestorius to Cyril is read, which exists there, cap. 9, and it is judged contrary to the Nicene Symbol: wherefore all, that heard, said anathema to Nestorius. Afterward the Epistle of Celestine to Nestorius is read, which is had in cap. 18, and it is judged consonant with the Epistle of Cyril. Read the Epistle of the Alexandrian Synod to Nestorius, which exists in cap. 26, the Bishops are heard through which those Letters were given to that Nestorius, who relate that he neither made response to them, nor was changed by them into better, but on the contrary taught much worse things even until this day. The Prelates also are heard, who testified Nestorius still persisted in his error. Then are read the opinions of the holy Fathers, Bishops, and Martyrs on that matter, whereby the tradition could be established. Are read also the Commentaries of that Vestorius, in which he openly affirmed that none of the Doctors existing before him had spoken to peoples the things he himself spoke. Finally is read the Epistle of Capreolus of Carthage, of which above, where he expressly thinks he stands on the ancient dogmas of faith, which was also the voice of all the Bishops; finally the proceeding came to the condemnation of Vestorius by the Bishops, tears meanwhile pouring forth, wherefore on account of blasphemous voices against Christ the Lord he was deprived of episcopal dignity, and defined to be alien from the whole fellowship and assembly of Priests. You have these in Action 1. Which when heard, the whole people of the city, who had waited for the judgment of the Synod from morning till evening, began to glorify God and praise the Synod, since the enemy of the faith had fallen; nay with such acclamations it escorted the departing Bishops with torches and firebrands even to the lodging. Whom Matrons also bearing thuribles preceded. Then lights hung throughout the whole city, in sign of joy.

The day after, the sentence of deposition was sent to Nestorius by the Synod, which made the Constantinopolitan Clergy more certain of it. Meanwhile Candidianus the count, devoted to Nestorius, before the Synodal acts were completed and sent to the Emperor, wrote to him a relation full of lies, and calumnies against the Synod; the same did also Nestorius with ten Bishops, complaining of violence and injury inflicted on him by Memnon of Ephesus: chiefly because of John, and

They had been unwilling to await the advent of the Orientals. The Legates of Celestine approved this definition of the Council, who came to the Synod when it was done, after they had had the Epistle of Celestine, which they carried according to the ancient custom of the Church, read first in Latin speech, then in Greek, whereby it was received unanimously by the Synod, as appears from Action 2.

But John of Antioch, who had come to the Synod after the condemnation made and before the advent of the Legates, favoring Nestorius and Candidianus, and bearing with indignation that he was condemned absent himself and without his counsel, Nestorius compelled a Conciliabulum of thirty Bishops, favorers of Nestorius, or disciples of Pelagius, or of some criminal matter, in which Theodoretus was ordered to refute the anathematisms of Cyril: episcopal honor and name taken away from Cyril and Memnon, as if they thought the same as Apollinaris; and whoever had attended the Council were excommunicated. To this pseudo-Council they give the name of the Council of Ephesus. They write to the Emperor that Cyril and Memnon are deposed, who deluded by the false relation of schismatics wrote to the Ephesian Synod through Palladius Magisterianus, ordering null what had been done hitherto, and a legitimate judgment to be instituted anew. Meanwhile the Oriental schismatics together with the Nestorians plotted nothing not toward oppressing the Catholic Synod and obliterating its acts. Indeed with feigned calumnies and lies against it they filled the ears of Emperors and Princes: Candidianus and Irenaeus Counts laboring strenuously for this, who holding in their power all ways and ports and ships, diligently acted lest any letters from the Ecumenical Synod reach the Emperor whereby he might know the matter certainly as it was done; while meanwhile only the commentaries and Epistles of the Orientals were carried to Constantinople.

The Fathers of the Council having received the Emperor's Epistle write back to him through the same Palladius, narrating the order of the matter done from truth, and form a complaint concerning the counts Candidianus and Irenaeus, by whom they suffered many unworthy things. But Palladius did not give the received Epistle of the Synod to the Emperor; wherefore the Fathers of the Council entrusted other letters written to Bishops and Monks to a mendicant man, wherein they expounded the truth of the matter. These letters received, the Monks gave strenuously their aid, and before all Dalmatius Archimandrite, a most holy man, who for whole forty-eight years had not lifted his foot from the Monastery, although he had often been asked about him by the Emperor. But that he might then go out he was compelled by a voice sent from heaven, and with other Archimandrites and very many Monks approaching the Emperor opened the whole matter, as it was.

The Emperor demands legates be sent to him from either side. For the Orientals is sent Irenaeus count, who proceeding to Constantinople found there the legates of the Catholic Synod, and so profited by frauds and lies that the Emperor circumvented again — which is very marvelous — suffered himself by that leader to order ratified the deposition of three, Nestorius, Cyril, and Memnon, whom all judged condemned by a legitimate Synod, concerning which sacred letter, as was customary to call it, he wrote to the Ephesian Fathers through John Count of the sacred largesses: who when he had come to Ephesus gave those three into private custody, and the letters of the Emperor to those Fathers, whereby power was made to the Fathers of departing. Finally seven Bishops chosen from either side are sent to the Emperor, who, the truth found out, restored Cyril and Memnon free to their Churches, condemns Nestorius and orders him into exile, and substitutes another in his place on the Constantinopolitan see. Nestorius returned to Antioch lived four years in the Monastery of holy Euprepius where he had once dwelt; but since there he corrupted many by his colloquies and letters, at the admonition of John of Antioch Theodosius ordered him relegated into Oasis; where agitated by many calamities, with the same tongue whereby he had uttered sacrilegious voices against the Mother of God, eaten away by worms even while yet alive, shortly after, either crushed to the ground, as Evagrius wishes, book 1. chapter 7, from madness and fury; or as Theodoret has it, book 4 of heretical fables, swallowed up by the lurking gulf of earth he died most miserably. But although extinguished thus unhappily, his heresy did not lie altogether buried: for since his books had been prohibited by Ecclesiastical and Imperial constitution, his defenders emitted three books, of which the first was that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Master of Nestorius, which they translated into various idioms; the second of Theodoret; the third was that book or Epistle of Ibas Bishop of Edessa city to Marin the Persian; concerning which three books or chapters action was taken in the fifth Synod.

EUTYCHIANS. — The Eutychian heresy began about the year of Christ 448.¹ Its author Eutyches, who was Presbyter at Constantinople, and presiding over the Monks in the most celebrated Monastery, and archimandrite, as Liberatus says. Renowned for surpassing piety, but far more renowned on account of the work strenuously performed in the Nestorian heresy, both growing and sprouting again after condemnation needing to be vanquished; who since he inveighed most fiercely against the Nestorians admitting two persons in Christ, declined extremely into another error no less pernicious, affirming indeed two natures in Christ before the union, but in the union the human absorbed into the divine, and thenceforth one subsisting alone. Of whose error indeed ignorance gave rather the beginning than affected malice, witness Leo the Great in Epistle 13. which he wrote to Augusta Pulcheria:

That error, he says, which, as I judge, was born more from unskilfulness than from craft, let it be taken away, before it acquire for itself any strength from the consent of imprudent men through pertinacity of depravity: because also ignorance sometimes falls into grave lapses, and often heedless simplicity rushes into the snares of the devil, through which I understand the Spirit of falsity to have crept in in the aforesaid case.

— Now the capital dogma of the Eutychian heresy was threefold. First indeed, that the flesh of Christ denied being taken from the Virgin. So testifies Vigilius at the beginning of book 3. Against Eutyches;

The Eutychian heresy, he says, has slipped into so great an error of impiety, that it believes not only one nature of Word and flesh: but truly says this same flesh was not assumed from the sacred body of the Virgin, but says it was brought down from heaven, according to the unspeakable error of Valentinus and Marcion; so pertinaciously asserting the Word made flesh, that it seems to have passed through the Virgin as if water through a pipe; not however seeming to have assumed from the Virgin anything of our kind.

This same Eutyches himself had attested in the Constantinopolitan Council, as Flavian relates in his Epist. to Leo, which is in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. Theodoret similarly affirms, book 4. Of heretical fables, chapter 13, that Eutyches denied a body was assumed by God: For nothing, he says, proper to man did God the Word receive from the Virgin, but himself without any mutation converted, and only flesh, passed only through flesh. — The second head of the error of the Eutychians was, that before union two natures existed; as Pope Leo indicates, Epist. 10. to Flavianus: where he marvels that so absurd, and then so perverse profession of his was reprehended by no rebuke of judges: and that speech too senseless and too blasphemous was sent forth, as if nothing whereby it would offend were heard. And he subjoins in the Epist. to Julian of Coe that he suspects such a speaker to have persuaded himself of this, that the soul which the Savior assumed first dwelt in the heavens before he would be born of Mary Virgin, and that the Word joined it to himself in the womb. By which it is established Eutyches understood that priority, whereby it pertained to the humanity of Christ to exist before it was assumed by the Word, to be not merely priority of nature, but of time; for since he had learned from common Christian profession that God-man was made, and nevertheless asserted one nature in Christ; he could reconcile these things and extricate himself no otherwise than by saying one nature was made out of two: and therefore two natures existed before they were joined together among themselves.

— Third finally, and indeed the principal head of the Eutychian heresy was, that it acknowledged one nature only in Christ after the union: which he himself professed before Flavian and the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan Synod, of which we shall speak soon: for asked whether he thought our Lord born of the Virgin to be consubstantial with us, and consisting of two natures after the incarnation, he thus opened his mind: I confess our Lord to have been of two natures before the union: after the union truly I profess one nature. The same Flavian testifies, Epistol. to Leo, where relating the dogma of Eutyches he says: Before the inhumanation indeed of our Savior Jesus Christ there are two natures, of divinity and of humanity: after the union truly one nature made. Which erroneous dogma its Assertors expounded variously, just as Eutyches himself (as is the custom of heretics) nowhere constant with himself: for now he asserted that superior nature to be human, into which Divinity seemed converted and as if absorbed, whence Theodoret relates that Eutyches asserted God converted without conversion, and made flesh: whence he taught the Divinity of the Only-begotten nailed with nails and affixed to the cross to be uncircumscribed, indeterminate, and incomprehensible, inasmuch as it had descended into human nature. But Theodoret himself in the second dialogue introduces the Eranistes, or Patron of the Eutychian error, disputing with the Orthodox, pronouncing thus, that the divinity alone remaining he says the human nature was absorbed: for to the Catholic inquiring how after union he acknowledged one nature, whether one conflated from both; or with the one remaining he thought the other extinguished: responds the Eranistes, I say the Divinity remained; but humanity was absorbed by it.

In which dogma chiefly Eutyches agreed most with Apollinaris and Valentinus, who said the nature of Christ was one. This Eutychian error was brought forth into public, and condemned in the year 448. When a Synod of 40 Bishops was collected at Constantinople for disputation of the controversy between Florentius, Bishop of Sardis, Metropolitan of Lydia, and two Bishops of the same Province, John and Cossinius. This suit decided, since Eusebius Bishop of Dorylaeum sat among the Judges, familiar and most friendly of Eutyches, who had accused him of error by private colloquies, and had more often admonished him not to speak such things, he brought to the Synod a suppliant libellus, wherein was contained the Eutychian error, demanding Eutyches be summoned to plead the cause; but he called the third time, when he had responded once and twice to delegates of the Synod that it was not lawful for himself to go out from the precincts of the Monastery, in which he lay shut as it were in a sepulcher, finally cited the third time, excusing ill health asked time be prorogued to himself until the seventh day: which obtained, finally he came, not as it were to a Council, but as it were to war; attended namely not only by an immense crowd of Monks, but also by a numerous crown of soldiers lent to him by Patricius the Florentine by favor of Chrysaphius the Eunuch, whom he had received from baptism. There interrogated by the Bishops, and by Florentius himself, he professed his heretical dogma before all, nor could he be induced that he renounce it: therefore he is damned by the sentence of the Council, and stripped of Sacerdotal dignity and every prefecture of the Monastery, removed from all Ecclesiastical communion, as may be seen in act one of the Council of Chalcedon.

But relying on aid of the same Chrysaphius he plots nothing not against Flavianus prince of that Synod; complains especially of him, and of the rest of the Synodal Fathers before Leo supreme Pontiff; to him Flavianus equally writes, and transmits the Synodal acts; which received Leo held ratified the damnation of Eutyches, and among others wrote to Flavianus that most celebrated Epistle, whereby he declared most abundantly and learnedly the Catholic dogma of the Lord's Incarnation. Meanwhile Chrysaphius plotted nothing not in behalf of Eutyches and for oppressing Flavianus before Theodosius, striving by fictitious criminations and calumnies to call Flavianus into suspicion; whereby he cast him down from episcopal see; wherefore the Emperor orders a general Synod convened at Ephesus in year 449. He orders Dioscorus of Alexandria to preside, and Juvenal of Jerusalem to attend, Domnus of Antioch, Flavianus of Constantinople, asking equally Leo Roman Pontiff that he deign to attend the Synod, which he could not perform. He sent legates Julian, Velgibus Bishop of Puteoli, Renatus Presbyter, and Hilary Deacon with letters of Leo himself: one to Savianus, another to the Synod, containing the right and Catholic faith. Also Barsumas the Syrian Archimandrite — or trulier say, an immense sicarius — the Emperor wished to attend the Council, who should act for Eutyches against the Bishops who had condemned him; whom likewise the Council wished to attend not as judges, but as actors.

Therefore the Council convenes, and the Legates of the Roman Pontiff ask that his Epistle be read first according to the ancient custom of the Church. Dioscorus obstructs, procuring for Eutyches, who before all have the Constantinopolitan acts examined, wherefore the Legates withdraw from the Council, both on account of letters not read, and also because the first place was not conceded to them. Then Dioscorus, the acts of the Constantinopolitan Synod read, soon wished the decree of the Ephesian Synod against Nestorius read, whereby it was prohibited that anyone inquire or retract further beyond those things which were there established concerning faith; otherwise if he were Bishop or Cleric he would be deposed; after these things Dioscorus against Flavianus and Eusebius Bishop of Dorileum as violators of that Decree, because they had constituted something new of faith, passed the sentence of deposition, and restored Eutyches in integrum, forcing the other Bishops to subscribe to his own sentence by violence threatened by three hundred Monks and very many soldiers, who with armed hand, the sentence of Dioscorus heard, break into the Synod, extort the judgments of the Bishops against Flavianus, and drive them to subscribe in white membranes, into which whatever they wished they might afterward add, as was attested in act one of the Council of Chalcedon. The Legates of the supreme Pontiff protest, but even they are compelled to place their safety in flight; Flavianus appeals to the Roman Pontiff; but immediately he is cast into chains by Dioscorus, assailed with kicks, as Evagrius relates, book 2. chapter 2; harassed by very many blows even, and injuries by soldiers, says Liberatus; and as the acts of the Synod of Chalcedon relate, he is killed by Barsamas with his Monks crying out, Kill, Kill. Meanwhile Pope Leo groans, who a Synod convened at Rome rescinds whatever had been done at Ephesus.

Finally Emperor Theodosius, the Epistles received from Leo supreme Pontiff, hearing that the Eutychian heresy was condemned and proscribed, and the flagitious acts of the Ephesian Synod, which afterward was called the Robber Synod of Ephesus, the truth of the matter found out, took action against those by whom he had been circumvented: Chrysaphius author of all evils he relegated, and shortly after dies: Marcian succeeding him took Augusta Pulcheria to wife; who by exhortation of Pope Leo acted first against Clerics and Monks, who leaving behind the true cult of orthodox Religion, had followed the heresy and abominable dogmas of Apollinaris or Eutyches. Then he decreed a general Synod to be convened.

Therefore a general Council is convened in the year 451, that of Chalcedon, of 630 Bishops; the Legates of Leo preside, namely Paschasinus and Ascelanus Bishops, likewise Basilius and Bonifacius Presbyters. Dioscorus attends also, and when what had been done in the Constantinopolitan Synod and pseudo-Ephesian by Eutyches and Dioscorus were read, he is ordered to depart; and afterward all things duly weighed, he is deprived by the Synod of episcopal honor and all functions of Priests. After these things very many of the Bishops who had sat at Ephesus beg pardon and confess their crime: the Epistles of Leo to Flavianus are read, at which the Fathers acclaimed in this manner: Peter has spoken through Leo. Eusebius Bishop of Dorileum is pronounced truly Catholic: Flavianus is declared martyr, who fell asleep in defense of the Orthodox faith, and in act eleven this voice is read: Flavianus lives after death a martyr; let him pray for us.

Meanwhile Chrysaphius, by the nod of Pulcheria, as Marcellinus says, was killed, and Eutyches by command of Marcian is sent into exile; but what thereafter was done about him, whither he was deported, and what end of life he had, deep silence is among authors: thus the most celebrated Synod had a happy exit, in which the robber acts of Ephesus were rescinded, and a certain ratified form of faith written. But the devil, who always oversows cockle, assailed the Synod of Chalcedon with the greatest endeavors of heretics. For Eulogius Patriarch of Alexandria writes that after the death of Marcian, when Leo had succeeded him, the Egyptians returned from the Synod stirred up the greatest tumults throughout the whole world; everywhere disseminating that Cyril was condemned in that Synod, and Nestorius received as Catholic. Thence burst forth very many detractors of that Synod of Chalcedon, truly especially at Alexandria, who were called Acephali; because succeeding Peter Mongus their Patriarch, himself

also Eutychian, they communicated apart, and without their head: for neither did he openly assail the Council of Chalcedon, but only secretly strove to raise up its authority. Yet afterward Severians were named from Severus, an Eutychian Monk, then constituted Bishop of Antioch, and then sprouting into many other heads, now Gaianites from Gaianus, Theodosians from Theodosius, Jacobites were named from Jacob. All complained that the Council of Chalcedon had been a gathering of Nestorians: for so familiar is it for heretics to accuse Catholics of the heresy set opposite to Catholic truth.

Errors concerning the filiation of Christ. — It is the common dogma of the Catholic Church that Christ the Lord, even as man, is the natural Son of God. Nevertheless two Bishops, Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo, Charles the Great reigning in Gauls, Adrian I indeed sitting at Rome, about the year of our Lord 790, restoring in part the extinguished and compressed heresy of Nestorius, contended Christ God and man has within him as many sons as there are natures in him; one natural, which is God, and Word: another adoptive, which is man; concerning whom Eginhardus writes thus in his Annals:

Orgellis (others name this Urgella) is a city situated on the ridge of the Pyrenees mountain: whose Bishop named Felix, Spanish by nation, consulted by letters by Elipardus Bishop of Toledo, what he ought to think concerning the humanity of the Savior God, and our Lord Jesus Christ: whether according as he is man he should be believed and called proper or adoptive Son of God: very imprudently and inconsiderately, and against the ancient doctrine of the Catholic Church, not only pronounced adoptive, but also took care with books written pertinaciously most to defend to the aforesaid Bishop the opinion of his depravity. For cause of this thing he was led to the Palace of the King, who then resided at Regino (Regensburg, a city of Bavaria, in which he had wintered); where a Council of Bishops gathered, he was heard, and convicted of erring, sent to Rome to the presence of Pope Adrian; where even before him he confessed and abdicated the heresy; which done he returned to his city.

— But two years later, since Elipandus continued to defend and propagate that depravity of error already condemned in many Councils, especially truly at Forojulium and Ratisbona, and had impelled Felix to resume its patronage: nay even had written an Epistle for it to King Charles; he summoned from every Province of his dominion Bishops, and men renowned in fame of erudition, to a Synod at Frankfort; who meeting together, the epistle of Elipandus read, likewise that of Pope Adrian to the Bishops of the Spains, and the sacred-syllable book of Paulinus of Aquileia against the heresy of Felix and Elipandus, with unanimous consent of all in that Council this heresy was condemned and proscribed. Moreover Charles the King wrote a luculent epistle to the Spaniards against the same heresy, which he sent to them together with the epistles of Adrian and of the whole Synod, and the book of Paulinus.

These are the principal heads of hereses assailing the Incarnation of Christ the Lord: for the rest, which fight against Christ, seem rather to war against his divinity, or merit, or cult, than against the mystery of the Incarnation. But if any remain sprouting again from those more ancient heresies — as I do not deny there truly are several, especially in these latter times, into which not only the ends of ages seem to have come, but the throats of errors to have flowed forth — we shall commemorate scatteredly in the elucidation of the following Disputations and Questions. Wherefore the ampler relation of heresies omitted, now the Tractate of Theology must be auspicated.