Messages

Most of the letters refer to the last period of St.'s life. Gregory the Theologian and addressed to his friends and relatives, a significant part of them is autobiographical in nature. Among the letters there are also petitions, requests, and complaints. Only a few letters are dogmatic in content. These include: 1. “Message to the monk Evagrius. About the Divine" (Message 1). In it St. Gregory answers the question of how the unity of the Divine is preserved in the existence of three separate Persons. But in manuscripts it is attributed to St. Gregory the Theologian, then St. Gregory of Nyssa, then St. Gregory the Wonderworker (in the Syriac translation with the inscription: “To Philagry on consubstantiality”). Based on this, and also due to the difference in style compared to other letters of the saint, doubt is expressed about his identity as St. Gregory the Theologian. 2. “To Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople” (Epistle 2). In a letter to Nektarios, successor of St. Gregory on the See of Constantinople, probably written in 387, the saint draws attention to the revival of heresy, especially Apollinarianism. St. Gregory refutes these misconceptions and points out the need for church excommunication of those who share these opinions, and civil measures against the free dissemination of their teachings by them. On March 10, 388, an edict from Emperor St. Theodosius against heretics, in particular, forbade the Apollinarians to hold meetings and have bishops. 3. Two epistles to the presbyter Kledonius (Epistle 3,4), who ruled the Nazianzi Church for some time. They were written in 382 and directed against Apollinaris. They reveal the teaching about the incarnation of the Son of God (only that which is united with God is saved, and “what is not received is not healed”; just as in a person the body, soul, mind and Holy Spirit coexist, so in the God-man the coexistence of two perfect natures is possible, etc.). In the first letter of St. Gregory accuses Apollinaris of docetism and sees signs of subordinationism in his teaching. The union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ was not a temporary union of two opposing natures. God took upon Himself human nature forever. The second coming of Christ, according to St. Gregory, will be the appearance of the Lord in a transformed and deified human body. The second message is similar in content to the first. Apollinarian docetism is contrasted with the Orthodox teaching of Christ as a perfect God and a perfect man. These messages laid the foundation for further polemics with Nestorianism and Monophysitism in the era of the Ecumenical Councils. Thus, during the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus (431), St. Cyril of Alexandria, who opposed Nestorius, used references to the letters of St. in his argumentation. Gregory the Theologian to Kledonius. Contents Message 1. To the monk Evagrius. About the Divinity Epistle 2. To Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople Epistle 3. To Presbyter Kledonius against Apollinaris - first Epistle 4. To Kledonius against Apollinaris - second Message 1. To the monk Evagrius. About the Deity I am very amazed at the clarity of your mind and am in utter amazement that through your precise questions you become the originator of such speculation and such important research, when you bring me into the need to speak and work on proofs by offering me necessary and useful questions. Because after your questions, it is absolutely necessary for me to give clear answers to them. So now the question you proposed was the following: how to imagine the nature (others would more correctly call this essence, and not nature) of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Simple or complex? If it is simple, then how does it contain three - the number mentioned above? What is simple is monotonous and innumerable; and what is subject to counting is necessarily cut up, even if it is not countable; and what is cut is subject to suffering, for cutting is suffering. So, if the nature of the All-Perfect is simple, then the naming of Names is in vain, and if the naming of Names is true and one must believe in the Names, then monotony and simplicity no longer have a place. Therefore, what is the nature of God? – you asked me. The Word of Truth will present this explanation with all care; it will not, due to a lack of evidence, unreasonably replace them with the specter of unaccountable faith, it will not attempt to cover up the instability of its conviction with the evidence of ancient fables, but with accurate research and direct conclusions it will make clear the reliability of speculation. Let our word do this, and let it say how one should imagine the Divinity, whether simple or threefold? For the trinity of names compels us to speak and believe this way. And some, having used these names for evil, composed unsteady and completely inappropriate teachings, believing that with the pronunciation of the names together the essence already suffers separation. But we, as you yourself say, need to leave those who unsteadily prove the teaching acceptable to them; Let us direct our minds to the correct assimilation of knowledge. So, first let us define what God is; Then we will carefully examine the evidence. The essence of God is, without a doubt, simple and inseparable, having in itself simplicity and incorporeality by its very nature. But perhaps this is contradicted by the concept of the separateness of names, the number three destroying the uniformity of the All-Perfect. Is it really necessary for us to abandon the confession of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the sake of uniformity? No way. For the naming of names will not harm the indivisible unity of the All-Perfect. The intelligible, although it has many names (in every nation it is called by very many names), is nevertheless above any name, because for the intelligible and incorporeal there is not a single proper name. And how, in fact, should we name something that is not subject to our gaze, which we cannot at all grasp with human senses? But for the most accurate understanding of the whole, let us take the smallest particle of what is intelligible - the soul. The soul is called by the name of the feminine gender, but does not have any feminine properties in itself, since, in its essence, it is neither male nor female. In the same way, the λογος (word) born by the soul, although it has a masculine name, however, as is known, it also consists outside of any, whether male or female, corporeality. And if the last of the intelligibles - the soul and the word - do not have proper names, then how can one say that such objects are called by proper names, which in the series of intelligibles are the first and even higher than the intelligible? But although the use of names is useful out of necessity, since it leads us to the formation of a concept of intelligible objects; however, some, thinking that together with the names the essence itself is roughly divided into parts, imagine in their thoughts something in all respects unworthy of the Divine. We, connoisseurs of truth, need to know that the divine and indivisible essence of the All-Perfect is not complex and uniform, but for the benefit of our spiritual salvation, as we said, it is apparently divided by names and allows for the need for division. Just as the soul, which itself is an intelligible being, gives rise to a multitude of boundless thoughts, but is not divided from what is subject to thought, and from the thoughts that preceded it is not exhausted in the wealth of thoughts, but is enriched more than it becomes impoverished; and just as this word, brought in and common to all, is not separate from the soul that pronounces it, but nevertheless exists at the same time in the souls of those who listen, so that it is not separated from the former, and is found in the latter, and produces more unity than the separation of their souls and ours - so you imagine the Son in no way separate from the Father, the Holy Spirit inseparable from the Son, inseparable, like a thought from the mind. Just as it is impossible to imagine any division or section between the mind, thought and soul, so it is equally impossible to imagine any division or section between the Holy Spirit, and the Savior, and the Father, because, as we said, the nature of the intelligible and the Divine is inseparable. Or again: how it is impossible to find divisions between the solar circle and the ray due to immutability, incorporeality, simplicity and indivisibility; on the contrary, the ray is connected to the circle and, conversely, the circle, like a spring, pours out streams onto all the rays, as if flooding us with light and suddenly plunging us into a sea of ​​beauty; Thus, like some rays, the luminous Jesus and the Holy Spirit were sent down to us from the Father. For just as the rays of light, by their nature having an inseparable relationship with each other, are not separated from the light, are not cut off from each other, and bring down the gift of light to us - in the same way, our Savior and the Holy Spirit, as the only ray of the Father, teach us the light of truth, and remain united with the Father. And how from a water source that gives sweet water without depletion, sometimes a plentiful and uncontrollable stream, emerging at the beginning from one spring as a single current, is cut into two streams in the flow and, if you look at the resulting streams, has a double flow, in the very essence nothing changes from such a division, because the flow, although divided by the position of the streams, nevertheless retains the same quality of moisture, and each of streams, although it seems to be lost in the distance and far removed from the source, but, due to the continuity of the flow in the source, relative to the beginning, it is connected with the source that generates it: in the same way, the God of all good things, the Builder of truth, the Father of the Savior, the first wine of life, the stem of immortality, the source of ever-essential life, sent down to us a deep, intelligible gift - the Son and the Holy Spirit, but Himself and in His essence, did not suffer any damage from this (for he did not suffer any derogation as a result of Their coming to us). Having descended to us, they nevertheless remain inseparable from the Father, for, as we said at the beginning, the nature of the All-Perfect is indivisible. Quite a lot, most venerable, and much more than has been said, could be found for a clear presentation of the most necessary question about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, how exactly it should be understood, but since it is not difficult for you and for those like you to learn a lot from a little, then for this reason I considered it fair to stop speaking here about this member of the teaching. Epistle 2. To Nektarios, Bishop of Constantinople Apparently, our present life has been left in everything without God’s care, which protected the Church in the times before us. And my spirit has fallen so low from the disaster that I do not consider my own sorrows in my life to be misfortunes, although they are very difficult and numerous and, if they happened to someone else, would seem unbearable, but I look at the general suffering of the Church, the healing of which, if we do not take care at the present time, then the matter will gradually reach complete hopelessness. Heretics, Arians and Eudoxians, I don’t know by whom, driven to madness, as if having received freedom to do so, flaunt their illness, gathering the Church, as if they were doing this by right. And the quarrelsome followers of Macedonius have reached such madness that, having appropriated the name of bishop, they appear in our places, calling Eleusius their ordainer. Our domestic evil - Eunomius - is not content with something ordinary, but considers it a loss for himself if he has not carried everyone along with him to destruction. But it's still bearable; Most painful of all in the church disasters is the insolence of the Apollinarians, whom, I don’t know how, such holiness allowed to usurp the power of the assembly on an equal basis with us. Without a doubt, you, by God's grace, are very knowledgeable in the divine mysteries, not only can you defend the right teaching, but you also know that what has been invented by heretics is against sound faith, however, and perhaps from our humility. It will not be untimely for your honor to hear that I have in my hands the work of Apollinaris, in which what is presented surpasses any heretical teaching. And it states that the flesh accepted by the Only Begotten Son of God in the work of economy for the renewal of our nature was not subsequently included, but initially this bodily nature was in the Son, and as proof of such absurdity, making bad use of one saying from the Gospel, Apollinaris cites: “no one ascended into heaven except the Son of Man who descended from heaven” ( John 3:13), - as if He was already the Son of man even before descending to earth and descended, bringing with Him His own flesh, that which they had in heaven, pre-eternal and belonging to the essence. He also cites one apostolic saying, torn from the whole composition of the speech: “the second man is from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). Then he proves that this man coming from above has no mind, and the Only Begotten Divinity, filling the place of the mind in Him, constitutes part of the human composition and precisely the third, because in Him there is a human soul and body, but no mind, but the place of the mind is filled by God’s Word. And this is not the worst thing, on the contrary, what is most unbearable is that, according to Apollinaris, the Only Begotten God himself, the Judge of all, the Author of life and the Destroyer of death, is mortal, accepted suffering with His own Divinity, and during the three-day mortification of the flesh, the Divinity was also mortified, and thus was resurrected from death by the Father. It would take a long time to retell everything else that he adds to these absurdities. Therefore, if those who think in this way have the right to have their own assemblies, let your wisdom, tested in Christ, judge that when we do not agree with them in the way of thinking, giving them the right to have their own assemblies means nothing more than admitting that their teaching is truer than ours. For if they are allowed, as pious ones, to teach in accordance with their way of thinking and to freely preach the teaching they contain, then isn’t this clearly condemning the teaching of the Church, as if the truth is on their side? For it is not natural for two opposing doctrines about the same thing to be true. How did your highly gifted and lofty mind suffer so as not to take advantage of the usual freedom to heal such evil? But if this was not done before, at least now let your perfection, impeccable in virtue, arise and convince the most pious King that there will be no benefit from all his concern for the Churches if such evil, striving to overthrow the sound faith, increases because of the freedom given to him. Epistle 3. To the presbyter Kledonius against Apollinaris - first Gregory, the most honest, most God-loving brother and co-presbyter, Kledonius, wishes to rejoice in the Lord. I want to know what kind of innovation this is in the Church, according to which anyone who wants and, according to Scripture, “passing by” (Ps. 79:13), is allowed to dissolve and plunder a well-trained flock, making furtive attacks on it, or better yet, instilling in it banditry and strange teachings. If those who are attacking us now could condemn us for anything regarding the Faith; then they should not have dared to do such things without first admonishing us. Before, it was either necessary to convince, or to want to be convinced, if only we meant something, as God-fearing people, who labored for the sake of the word and did something useful for the Church, then, if something new was introduced, perhaps the offenders would have some kind of excuse for it. But when our faith is preached in writing and unwritten, here and in distant countries, with dangers and without dangers; How do some decide to do such a thing, while others remain silent? And it is not only difficult (although this is not easy) that they pour their false teaching with the help of malicious people into the minds of the simple-minded, but the fact that they slander us, calling us like-minded and agreeing with them, they put bait on the bait and through this deception they maliciously carry out their will and our simplicity, by which we looked at them as brothers, and not as strangers, they turn into an aid to their malice. And not enough of this; but, as I hear, they say that they were accepted by the Western Council, which, as everyone knows, previously condemned them. But if the followers of Apollinaris are either now accepted, or were formerly accepted; then let them prove this, and we will calm down. Then it will be obvious that they agree with the right teaching; otherwise it would have been impossible for them to achieve this. They will prove it, without a doubt, either by a cathedral scroll, or by sociable messages; for such is the law of the Councils. If these are just words and fiction, invented by them for the sake of appearance and in order to acquire, probably, the reliability of people’s faces, then teach them to be silent and expose them. We consider this decent both to your way of life and to your Orthodoxy. Let them not deceive others, and let them not themselves be deceived, accepting that the man of the Lord, as they say, or better yet, our Lord and God, has no mind. We do not separate in Him man from the Divinity, but we teach that one and the same is not first a man, but God and the Only Begotten Son, eternal, having neither a body nor anything corporeal, and, finally, a man, taken for our salvation, subject to suffering in the flesh, impassive in the Divinity, limited in body, not limited in spirit, one and the same - earthly and heavenly, visible and intelligible, contained and incontainable, so that the whole man who fell under sin would be recreated as a whole man and by God. If anyone does not recognize Mary as the Mother of God, then he is excommunicated from the Divinity. If someone says that Christ passed through the Virgin, as through a trumpet, and was not formed in her divinely and humanly: divinely, as born without a husband, humanly, as born according to the law of pregnancy, then he too is godless. If anyone says that man was formed in the Virgin and then gave way to God, then he is condemned, for this does not mean recognizing the birth of God, but avoiding the birth. If anyone introduces two sons - one from God and the Father, and the other from the Mother, and not one and the same, then let him lose the adoption promised to the faithful. For although there are two natures - God and man (as in man there is soul and body), but not two sons, not two Gods (just as here there are not two people, although Paul (2 Cor. 4:16) called both the external and the internal in man man). In short, in the Savior there is something else and something else, because the invisible is not identical with the visible and the pre-temporal with that which is under time; but there is no place in Him for another, and let there not be another! For both together—God became human, and man became deified, or whatever one might call it. When I say “other and other,” I understand this differently than how the Trinity should be understood. There is Another and Another, so as not to merge the Hypostases, and not another and another, for the Three Hypostases in Divinity are one and identical. If anyone says that in Christ the Divinity, as in the prophet, acted graciously, and was not essentially coupled and is coupled, then let him not have the best inspiration in himself, but, on the contrary, let him be filled with the opposite! If anyone does not worship the Crucified One, then let him be anathema and counted among the deicides. If anyone says that Christ became perfect through works and that He, either by baptism or by resurrection from the dead, was worthy of adoption (just as the pagans admit gods to be numbered), let him be anathema, for it is not God who received the beginning, or succeeds, or is perfected, although this is attributed to Christ (Luke 2:52), relative to the gradual manifestation. If someone says that He has now laid aside the flesh and the Divinity remains naked from the body, and does not admit that with the assumed humanity He now remains and will come; then let him not see such glory of His coming! For where is the body now, if not with Him who received it? It is not placed in the sun, as the Manichaeans say idlely, in order to be glorified by ignominy; it did not spread and disintegrate in the air, like the nature of a voice, and the outpouring of a smell, and the flight of unstoppable lightning. How else can we explain the fact that He was tangible after the resurrection (John 20:27) and will one day appear to those who crucified Him (John 19:37)? The Deity itself is invisible. But, as I think, Christ will come, although with a body, however, such as he appeared or appeared to the disciples on the mountain, when the Divinity conquered the flesh. But just as we say this to reject suspicion, so we write the following to correct the innovation. If anyone says that the flesh came down from heaven, and not from the earth and not from us, let him be anathema. For the words of Scripture: “the second man is from heaven,” and: “as he is in heaven, he also is in heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47,48), and: “no one ascends into heaven except the Son of man who came down from heaven” (John 3:13), and the like; we must understand what was said because of the connection with the heavenly; just as it is said that “all things” became Christ (1 Cor. 8:6) and that Christ dwells in our hearts (Eph. 3:17), refers not to what is visible, but to what is intuited in God, because both natures and names are united, and pass one into another according to the law of the closest union. If someone puts their trust in a person who does not have a mind, then he really does not have a mind and is not worthy of being completely saved, for what is not perceived is not healed, but what is united with God is saved. If Adam fell with one half, then one half was taken up and saved. And if the whole one fell, then he was united with the whole one who was born and is completely saved. Therefore, let them not envy us for our all-perfect salvation, and let them not attribute to the Savior only the bones, veins and appearance of a human being. If he is a man without a soul, then the Arians also say this in order to attribute suffering to the Divine, since what set the body in motion was what he suffered. He is a man who has a soul, then, without a mind, how could he be a man? Man is not an unreasonable animal. And necessity will require admitting, under the image and cover of a human, the soul of some horse, or ox, or other unreasonable animal. And so will the thing that is saved. So, I am deceived by the Truth itself and am proud when another is honored. If He is a reasonable man, and not devoid of intelligence, then let the madmen be silent. But they say: “Instead of the mind, the Divine is enough.” What do I care about this? A deity with one flesh is not yet a man, and also with one soul or with flesh and soul, but without mind, which primarily distinguishes man. So, in order to show me a perfect benefit, preserve the whole person and add the Divinity. But you say: “He did not combine two perfect things in Himself.” I didn’t combine it, if you imagine this in a physical way. A vessel the size of one medimn cannot contain two medimni; Likewise, the space occupied by one body cannot accommodate two or more bodies. If you imagine this as mental and incorporeal, then look: I also contain within me the soul, and the word, and the mind, and the Holy Spirit; and even before me, this world, that is, this totality of the visible and invisible, contained within itself the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Such is the nature of everything intelligible that it is not corporeal and is inseparably united with its own kind and with bodies. And many sounds are contained in one hearing, and the sight of many is located on the same visible objects, and the sense of smell - on the same smelled objects; but the senses are not constrained or supplanted by one another, and sensed objects are not diminished by the multitude of senses. Moreover, how can the mind of a person or an angel be called perfect in comparison with the Divine, so that the presence of the greater supersedes the other? It is impossible to call any lighting perfect in comparison with the sun and a little moisture in comparison with the river. Let's take something unimportant as an example - the lighting of a house and the moisture of the earth, so that in this way large and most perfect objects can be combined. For how can two perfect things be combined in themselves: a house - lighting and the sun, and the earth - moisture and a river? Let us consider this, because this subject is truly worthy of great attention. Don’t they know that what is perfect in relation to one can be imperfect in relation to another, as, for example, a hill is imperfect in relation to a mountain, a mustard seed is imperfect in relation to a bean or some other large seed, although it itself is called large in comparison with similar seeds, or, if you like, an angel in relation to God, and a man in relation to an angel? Therefore, our mind is something perfect and sovereign, but only in relation to the soul and body, and not simply perfect; in relation to God, it is something slavish and subordinate, and not equal in power and not equal in honor. And Moses is a god to Pharaoh and a servant of God, as it is written (Exodus 7:1, Numbers 12:7). And the stars shine at night, but they hide in the sun, so that they cannot be noticed during the day. And a small lamp brought to a larger burning fire does not disappear, and is unharmed and indistinguishable, but everything seems to be one fire, because what prevails wins. But you say: “Our mind is condemned.” What about the flesh? Isn't she condemned? Go put away your flesh - because of sin, or allow your mind - for the sake of salvation. If the worst is accepted so that it is sanctified by the incarnation, why should not the best be perceived so that it is sanctified by humanization? If the clay received leaven into itself and became a new mixture; then, O wise ones, how can one not accept the leaven of the image into oneself and unite with God, becoming deified through the Divine? Let's add the following. If the mind, as sinful and condemned, is completely despicable, and therefore the body is taken over and the mind is abandoned, then those who sin with the mind are excusable. For, according to your words, God’s testimony clearly showed the impossibility of healing him. I will say even more: you, most excellent, as one who bows to the flesh, while I bow to man, dishonor my mind in order to connect God with the flesh, as if he is not connected with anything else, and for this you take away the mediastinum. And as I reason, a man who is unwise and unlearned, the mind is united with the mind, as with the closest and more akin, and then with the flesh, through the mediation of the mind between the Divine and the body. What is the reason for their humanization or (as they say) incarnation? If God, who is otherwise inconceivable and in the flesh, can be contained, as if under a veil, talks with people, then they will have one elegant mask and spectacular acting. Not to mention the fact that it was possible to talk to us differently, as before in the bush of fire and in human form. If the one to destroy the condemnation of sin, sanctifying like with like; then He needed both flesh for the sake of the condemned flesh and the soul for the sake of the soul, and the mind for the sake of the mind, which in Adam not only fell, but, as doctors say about diseases, was the first to be struck. For what received the commandment did not keep the commandment, and what did not keep it dared to commit a crime, and what transgressed was most in need of salvation, and what was in need of salvation was accepted. Therefore the mind is perceived. So, this, against their will, has now been proven with geometric, as they say, necessity and strict arguments. But you act in the same way as if you healed the leg of a person who injured his eye and then injured his leg, but left the eye uncured, or if, when a painter painted something badly, you replaced what was written with something else, but did not touch the painter, as if he had done his job. If, forced by these conclusions, they resort to the idea that it was possible for God to save a person even without accepting the mind; then let's say: of course. It was possible for him to save a person without taking on the flesh, with a single will; since He produces everything else without a body. Therefore, take away your flesh along with your mind, so that you can reach perfection in your madness. But they are deceived by Scripture and therefore resort to the flesh, not knowing the manner of expression common to Scripture. Let us enlighten them on this too. That Christ in Scripture is everywhere called man and the Son of man, is it necessary to talk about this to people who know? If they rely on the words: “the word became flesh and dwelt in us” (John 1:14) and on this basis they cut off the best part of a person, like shoemakers cutting off the thick parts of the skin, just to mold God with the flesh; then they should have said that God is the God of bodies only, and not of souls, on the basis of what is said in Scripture: “as thou hast given him authority over all flesh” (John 17:2); and: “all flesh will come to you” (Ps. 64:3); “and bless all flesh,” that is, every person, “His holy name” (Ps. 145:21); or again it would be necessary to tell them that our fathers came to Egypt disembodied and invisible and that only the soul of Joseph was bound in bonds by Pharaoh, also on the basis of what is written: “seventy and five souls went down into Egypt” (Deut. 10:22), and “his soul passed through iron” (Ps. 104:18), - such a thing that cannot be bound. Those who assert this do not know that similar names are taken together, so that by part they mean the whole. Thus, it is said that the “chicks of the ravens” call on God (Ps. 146:9), meaning a whole genus of birds; the “Pleiades and Esperus and Arcturus” are mentioned (Job 9:9), meaning all the stars and God’s providence for them. Moreover, God’s love for you could not be expressed in any other way than through mention of the flesh, because for our sake He condescended to the worst. For every sane person admits that the flesh is less important than the soul. Therefore, the saying: “the word became flesh,” as it seems to me, is equivalent to saying that He became sin (2 Cor. 5:21) and “a curse” (Gal. 3:13) not because the Lord was transformed into this (how is this possible?), but because through the perception of this He perceived our iniquities and suffered illnesses. So, this is sufficient in the present case, for reasons of clarity and intelligibility for many. For we write this with the intention not to compose a book, but to stop deception. We will offer a more complete and extensive word about this, if you wish, later. There is, however, no need to ignore what is more important than what has been said so far. Oh, that those who disturb you and introduce new Judaism, new circumcision and new sacrifices were cut off from us! If this is so, then what prevents their rejection from being born again to Christ, again being betrayed by Judas, and crucified, and buried, and resurrected, so that everything would be fulfilled in the same order, in accordance with the rotation accepted among the Hellenes, according to which the same movement of the stars leads to the same events? What kind of addition is this, according to which some of what happened then still takes place, and others are left, let the wise men, who boast of many books, explain this. Since, proud of their book about the Trinity, they slander us, as if our Faith is not sound, and they deceive many; then it is necessary to know that Apollinaris, although he assigned the title of Divinity to the Holy Spirit, nevertheless did not retain with Him the power of Divinity. For to compose the Trinity from the great, greater and greatest, as if from radiance, ray and sun (that is, from the Spirit, Son and Father), which is clearly written in his books, is such a ladder of the Divinity that does not lead to heaven, but brings down from heaven. But we know God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and these are not bare names by which inequality of merits and powers is distinguished, but a single and also both the name and the nature of the Divine, a single essence and power. If anyone believes that we are saying this correctly, and yet accuses us of communicating with heretics; then let this be proven by one of our people: then we will either be justified, or we will retreat from communication. And before the trial, it is unsafe to introduce something new, either in anything else or in a matter so important and concerning such subjects. We have already testified to this both before God and before people, and now we are ready to testify. And rest assured, we would not be writing this now if we had not seen that the Church is being torn and dissected both by other monstrous false teachings and by the current host of vanities. If someone, when we say and testify to this, either out of some benefit, or out of human fear, or out of inappropriate cowardice, or out of lack of a shepherd and leader, or out of attachment to strangeness and readiness for innovation, despises us as unworthy of attention, turns to such people and tears apart the beautiful body of the Church; then whoever he is will bear judgment and give an answer to God on the day of judgment. If extensive books, new psalms that contradict David, and pleasant verses are considered the third testament, then we will begin to sing psalms, write a lot and compose verses: “I believe that I also have the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 7:40), if only this is the grace of the Spirit, and not a human innovation. I want you to testify to this before many, so that it does not happen to us that such evil is left unattended, and through our negligence, the evil teaching does not spread and intensify. Epistle 4. To Cledonius against Apollinaris – second Since many, coming to your piety, require confirmation in the Faith, and therefore you lovingly asked me for a brief definition and rule setting out the way of my thoughts; then I wrote to your piety that I (which you knew before my writing) have never preferred and cannot prefer anything to the Nicene Faith, set forth by the Holy Fathers who gathered in Nicaea to overthrow the Arian heresy, but with the help of God I hold and will hold on to this Faith, clarifying only what was incompletely said in it about the Holy Spirit; because even then the question did not arise that in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one must recognize one Divinity, confessing the Spirit as God. Therefore, whoever thinks and teaches this way, you, like me, have fellowship with him, but turn away those who hold other teachings and consider them alien to God and the universal Church. Since the question of God’s humanization or incarnation is also being proposed, then assure everyone about me that I bring the Son of God, born of the Father and then of the Holy Virgin Mary, into one and do not call him two sons, but I worship one and the same in indivisible Divinity and in indivisible honor. If anyone either now does not agree, or later does not agree with this, then he will give an answer before God on the day of judgment. This, in brief words and with such strength, is my objection and opposition to their insane opinion regarding the mind: for almost alone they teach what they actually endure, cutting off the mind out of madness. And so that they do not accuse me of having previously accepted, but now rejecting, the faith of my beloved Vitaly, which he set out in writing, at the request of Blessed Damasus, Bishop of Rome; I’ll explain this and that briefly. When they theologize in front of their sincere disciples and those initiated into their mysteries, like the Manichaeans in front of their so-called chosen ones, then, revealing to them all their illness, they barely appropriate the body to the Savior. But when the general concepts of humanization, which Scripture presents, are exposed and led into difficulty, then they profess pious sayings, but regarding the mind they resort to cunning; they do not say that Christ is a man without soul, word 2 and mind and imperfect; but instead of soul, word and mind, they introduce the Divinity itself, as if it were united with the flesh. It is one, and not something of yours and human, although sinlessness is higher than our nature and is the purification of our infirmities. Thus, these words: “we are the mind of Christ imams” (1 Cor. 2:16), they interpret badly and very absurdly, by the mind of Christ they mean the Divinity, and not as we understand that those who have the mind of Christ are those who have purified their mind through imitation of the mind that was received by the Savior for our sake, and, if possible, conforming to this mind; just as one could say that those who have taught their flesh have the flesh of Christ and in this regard have become “fellows and partakers” (Eph. 3:6) of Christ. And “as we have put on the image of the earth,” so it is said, “let us also put on the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:49). In the same way, they teach that a perfect person is not a person tempted by all kinds of sins that are only akin to us (Heb. 4:15), but the union of deity and flesh: this, they say, is perfect. They also get clever in explaining the word “humanization.” “He became human,” they interpret, does not mean: he was in a man, whom he united most closely with Himself, according to what was said: “He Himself knew what would happen in a man” (John 2:25), but it means, they say and teach, that He talked and lived together with people; and in confirmation of this they resort to the saying: “For this reason he appeared on earth and lived with men” (Bar.3:38). Why else argue with them? Rejecting man and the internal image through the new and only visible mask they introduce, they purify one of our external ones, contradicting themselves to such an extent that for the sake of the flesh they sometimes explain the other roughly and carnally (hence their new Judaism, the thousand-year, unfounded pleasure in paradise, and the opinion that we will again accept almost the same thing and for the same use that we have now), and sometimes they introduce more of a ghost of the flesh than the real one. flesh, they introduce such flesh that does not experience anything characteristic of us, even that which is free from sin; and in support of this they take the apostolic word, only not understood and expressed in the apostolic way, namely, that our Savior “was in the likeness of men, and was found in the likeness of a man” (Phil. 2:7), as if these words meant not a human image, but some kind of deceptive idea and ghost. So, since the same words, if understood well, agree with piety, and if interpreted poorly, contain wickedness; What is surprising if I, convinced of my own desire, accepted Vitali’s writing in a pious sense, while others are offended by the meaning of what was written? It seems to me that Damasus himself, having examined the matter again and heard together that they remained with the previous interpretations, excommunicated them from the Church and blotted out their written statement of faith with the pronouncement of an anathema, being upset with them for the very deception to which they fell through their simplicity. Therefore, having been so clearly convicted, let them not be angry, but let them be ashamed and erase from the doors this great and amazing destiny and proclamation of Orthodoxy, and no longer begin to greet those entering first of all with the question and distinction that they should worship not the man-God-bearer, but God the flesh-bearer. Could anything be crazier than this, although these new preachers of truth think highly of this saying? It is nothing more than a sophistical amusement consisting of the speed of transformation, the agile throwing of stones, amusing the ignorant; in fact, it is something from the funny to the funny, from the unreasonable to the unreasonable. For if someone, having changed the words “man” and “flesh”, of which the first is pleasant to us, and the second to them, into the word “God”, then uses this wonderful and God-loving transformation, what will happen then? That which should be worshiped not by God-bearing flesh, but by God the man-bearer. How absurd! Today they are only returning to us the wisdom hidden from the times of Christ, which is truly worthy of tears! For if the Faith began only thirty years earlier, and almost four hundred years have passed since the appearance of Christ, then, during such a long time, our gospel was in vain, our faith was in vain, the martyrs suffered martyrdom in vain, so many great leaders ruled people in vain, and grace consists in verses, and not in faith. But who would not marvel at their learning? They themselves clearly distinguish what concerns Christ, and the fact that He was born, was tempted, hungered, thirsted, toiled, slept, is attributed to human nature, and the fact that He was glorified by the angels, defeated the tempter, fed the people in the desert and fed miraculously, walked on the sea, is attributed to the Divinity; They also say that the words: “Where will you put Lazarus?” (John 11:34) are characteristic of our nature, and what was said: “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43), and the resurrection of the four-day-old dead, belong to what is above us, likewise the fact that He mourned, was crucified and was buried refers to the veil, and the fact that He trusted and rose again and ascended into heaven refers to the inner treasure. After this they accuse us of introducing two perfect or opposing natures and dividing a supernatural and miraculous unity. They should either not do what they accuse others of, or not blame them for what they themselves do, if only they knew how to be true to themselves, and not express both their own opinion and the opinions of their opponents. Such is unreason: it is in contradiction both with itself and with the truth, so that they either do not understand or are not ashamed of their predicament. And if anyone thinks that I am writing and saying this voluntarily, and not under extreme compulsion, and that I am averse to unity, and not particularly trying for it; let it be known that he reasoned incorrectly and did not guess my desire. For me there is and never has been anything preferable to peace, as the deeds themselves assure me; although unanimity is completely blocked by what they do and undertake against me. That is, the human mind. The word (λογος) in the Holy Theologian probably has the same meaning that St. Damascus attributes to it in the “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” (Book 2, Chapter 27), where it says: “In a rational being, one ability is contemplative, and the other is active. The contemplative comprehends what a thing is; and the active one considers and determines the proper price of what should be done. The contemplative faculty is called νουζ (mind), and the active faculty λογος (word)." You might be interested in: