Письмо XVIII. Написанное от лица Георгия, преблагословенного наместника Африки, александрийским монахиням, отпавшим от соборной Церкви

I believed that you, truly firmly strengthened, do not deviate with the movement of your soul from the right and pious confession and hope of the immaculate and unerring faith of Christ, reverent before God's grace, which called you, and united you with the living, unharmed and immaculate body of the holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and strengthened those already destroyed by the destructive disease of error and ignorance, and made you useful members of the universal body of the Church, in which the pious, and right, and true, and saving mighty teaching of the apostolic faith is proclaimed, embracing the whole of heaven and constantly adding what is missing, adding it to what has already been collected, and showing that everyone, from the end of the earth to the end of it, has one soul and one language of spirit according to the unanimity and unanimity of faith, which God the Word, who created people, ineffably accepted flesh, possessing an intelligent and rational soul, and not a change in the Divine for the sake of people, becoming truly a man, one of the people and similar to people, but, of course, without sin - he taught us, people, to confess and maintain, without denying any of His natures after the union, or after incarnation [340] - neither the Divine, according to which He Himself is eternally God and consubstantial with the Father and remains such, nor the human, according to which He is truly for us became a man, because he loves mankind, and by which he is consubstantial with us. After all, He did not change from what He was and will always be God by nature, and what He became - man, by inseparable union with animate flesh - He did not change nature, for He is still both God and man - not by name alone and being God and man, but actually and truly being in the proper sense God and man, and in truth being so called. He possesses unity from union and uniqueness by hypostasis, and not by nature, as the Fathers teach, saying: “If both are one, then not by nature, but by descent,” 222 according to which for our sake, for He loved mankind, He accepted complexity by dispensation, preserving without damage even after the incarnation the natural simplicity, by which He is of the same nature with the Father and of the same essence. For Divinity and humanity are not identical. Although God the Word became man, he became man in a mental way by taking on flesh, united with Him inseparably by hypostasis. Therefore, He is also God in the proper sense, and man, for He is both one and has become another, being both completely, not being mixed in the extreme uniqueness of the hypostasis so that the logos of difference is completely absent, but also not being separated by the undisturbed otherness of the natures from which it was composed, according to which, due to the union, the logos of difference was in no way destroyed. This means that since even after the union the difference of the natures of which Christ consists is preserved, there is no reasoning at all, as it seems to me, that could prove that it is correct not to profess the number of parts that are naturally different and preserved in Christ by indissoluble union, since any difference along with it certainly brings with it the quantity of some things that differ in some way from each other. For apart from quantity, no man, even the most inventive and resourceful, will ever be able to affirm the existence of difference, [341] if only he has a sound mind, and has at least a little understanding of the truth, and, therefore, clearly understands something in the essential otherness of some things, or in the dissimilarity of some things in terms of qualities and characteristics, consists of any difference, which in any case is created by the quantity of different things, whether they exist in combination or without him. Indeed, in things in which the same logos is not seen in all respects, there is an image of quantity, and difference is its distinctive property. This means that since in Christ, because of the union, it follows by reason, as the Fathers teach, to affirm the complete hypostatic singularity, and because of the difference in the natures that constitute Christ, which are preserved in Christ unfused and inseparably even after the union, it is logical and decent to affirm the quantity, then it is clear that if one does not affirm that Christ, by the hypostatic union, is the one incarnate nature of God the Word, correctly understood by the interpretation of the Holy our father and teacher Cyril, does not believe in the completed union, and who does not confess after the union the two natures of which Christ consists, cannot claim that the difference remains between them. For after the union, the difference lies in the natural otherness of the parts of which Christ is composed, and not in a mere qualitative difference, without regard to the natures underlying the qualities - without them, the presence of a quality in itself belongs to things impossible, unless we wish to introduce an empty, or, more precisely, a false and invalid difference. Convinced that you hold this confession of faith in agreement with the teachings of the Fathers, I never found it difficult to write to the patriarchs and bishops, and to the rulers, and to our most pious and all-merciful sovereigns themselves, thanking God and declaring to everyone your sincere conversion and faith in Christ. And I never thought, as I already said, that you would so quickly turn away from your saving calling. But since, due to my sins, the evil one, who initially deceived the human race into destruction and destruction, was able to seduce you so that you would prefer lies [342] to the truth and more than to God and the blessedness appointed by the saints, to give in, according to his evil skill, to deceivers who only know how to lure you to death, and was able to return you, in the words of the prophet, like dogs to their own vomit ( Proverbs 26:11 ) - I order you, if you are truly struck so incurably and have decided to completely reject the grace of Christ, to give the gifts that you received from me to the servant Theopemptus, who was sent by me solely for this purpose with a written order, so that you do not have any confusion in this matter. And one more thing: if something comes to the mind of our most pious, Christ-loving, and all-merciful sovereigns and holy patriarchs, when they learn everything about you from me, who with God’s help appeared in the face of their lordship, then I will consider that it must be fulfilled. Yes, I won’t keep silent about such evil. If, thinking in your mind about the terrible judgment seat of Christ, at which it will be accomplished in the presence of angels, and archangels, and all the warriors of the heavenly armies, and all human nature, I predict to you! - punishment for this act of yours, you will repent and return to God, who again calls you in goodness, then I, too, wish to leave the building given to you by me, and I will not stop, as long as Providence wants me to live this temporary life, to invent ways to provide you with an abundant existence, and I will not refuse to redeem your souls myself, if circumstances certainly require it. And I will give willingly, for God calls me to this by His grace - if only you return yourself again to Christ God and by your return completely correct the falling away by which you cut yourself off from His body. Gregory the Theologian. Homily XXX (On Theology IV), PG 36 113 44–46 VII, 10–11 (Barbel). – Approx. resp. ed. You might be interested in: