Epistle to Nestorius on excommunication ["12 chapters"]

“Epistle to Nestorius on excommunication” (or “12 chapters”) (November 430) is one of the so-called “ecumenical” epistles. It is a detailed justification for the 12 anathematisms attached to it and is directed against Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who preached the heretical doctrine of the dual nature of Jesus Christ, denying His divine nature and asserting that God the Word only came into contact with man born of the Virgin, but did not unite with him in unity. The letter cites the Nicene Creed and affirms the unity of the Word with the flesh “according to Hypostasis” and the consequences of this unity: - The Word was born “according to the flesh”; - The Blessed Virgin is the true Mother of God; - The Word suffered “according to the flesh” and offered Himself as a sacrifice to God and the Father for our sins; - the flesh of Christ in the Eucharist is life-giving, since it is its own for the Word, etc. St. Cyril criticizes the teachings of Nestorius, analyzing its main provisions and refuting them from the point of view of Orthodox doctrine. He rejects the idea of ​​the Incarnation as the dwelling of the Word in man, the terms “God-bearing man,” “union,” and unity “in dignity and power.” The saint emphasizes that Nestorius distorts the doctrine of the Incarnation, denying that the Word of God became flesh, suffered, died and was resurrected for the salvation of mankind. Such a teaching contradicts the Holy Scriptures and the tradition of the Church, and therefore Nestorius must be excommunicated from the Church. It is believed that the message was adopted at the III and IV Ecumenical Councils. Cyril and the Council, gathered in Alexandria from the Egyptian district, wish Nestorius, the most reverent and most God-loving colleague, every good thing in the Lord. After our Savior clearly says: “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37), what must we endure, from whom your reverence demands a love for you greater than for Christ, the Savior of us all? Who will be able to help us on the day of judgment? Or what excuse will we find for ourselves in such a long silence in the face of such slander against Christ? If you, having such thoughts and teachings, only harmed yourself, then we would have less to worry about. But since you have seduced the Church and spread the leaven of an extraordinary and alien heresy among the people, and the books of your interpretations are carried not only there * but everywhere, then what other reason will be sufficient for our silence? Or how involuntarily you don’t remember Christ’s words: “Do not remember that he came to bring peace to the earth, but a sword. For I came to separate a man from his father, and a daughter from her mother” (Matthew 10:34-35). For when the faith is distorted, then respect for parents perishes, as if outdated and unfounded, the law of love for children and brothers ceases, and, finally, death for the godly becomes more pleasant than life, “that, according to the Scripture, they may receive a better resurrection” (Heb. 11:35). So, here, together with the holy Council, assembled in great Rome, under the chairmanship of our most holy and pious brother and co-celebrant, Bishop Celestinus, we address you with our third letter and unanimously advise you to abandon that false and perverse teaching that you invent and dispel, and instead choose the right faith, first delivered to the Churches by the holy apostles and evangelists, who were “secularists” and “ministers” of the Word (Luke 1:2). If your reverence does not do this by the time appointed in the message of the aforementioned most holy and pious brother and co-servant of ours, Bishop Celestinus of the Church of Rome, then know that you have no fellowship with us, no place or account between the priests of God and the bishops. For it is impossible for us to remain careless when the Churches are so indignant, the people are seduced, the right faith is trampled upon and you are scattering the flock - you, who should keep it if, like us, you strongly loved the right faith, strictly following the piety of the holy fathers. And with all the laity and clergy whom your reverence excommunicated or deposed for their faith, we are all in communion, for it is unfair for those who know how to philosophize Orthodoxy to be subjected to your heavy sentences, because they began to contradict you with a good purpose. You declared this very thing in the message you wrote to the most holy bishop of great Rome and our co-bishop Celestine. However, it will be enough for your reverence to only confess with us the Symbol of Faith, once expounded in the Holy Spirit by the holy and great Council, which was assembled according to circumstances in Nicaea, for you understood and explained it incorrectly and even pervertedly, although in words you confess as it is stated, but it follows that you confess in writing and with an oath that you curse your wicked and vile teaching and You will philosophize and teach just like all of us, Western and Eastern bishops, teachers and leaders of nations. As for the epistles written for your reverence by the Church of Alexandria, as compiled correctly and irreproachably, the Holy Council of Rome and all of us agree with them. We have attached to this epistle what we should contain and learn, and what we should avoid. This is the faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which all Orthodox bishops, Western and Eastern, agree. “We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of everything visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, i.e. from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, through whom everything happened both in Heaven and on earth; for the sake of us, men, and for the sake of our salvation, who descended, became incarnate and became human, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living dead. And in the Holy Spirit. Those who say that there was a time when there was no Son, that He did not exist before His birth and came from the non-existent, or who assert that the Son of God has existence from another being or essence and that He is subject to transformation or change, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes such.” Following in all respects the confession of the holy fathers, which was established under the guidance of the Holy Spirit speaking in them, strictly examining the purpose of the thoughts contained in it and walking, as it were, in a royal way, we say: the only begotten Word of God, born from the very essence of the Father, true God from true God, Light from Light; by which everything that is in Heaven and on earth received being, for the sake of our salvation, it came down (from heaven) and was humbled, became incarnate and became human, i.e., having received flesh from the Holy Virgin and assimilated to Itself from the very conception, it underwent our birth and came from the Woman as man, not losing what it was, but even after receiving flesh and blood remaining what it was, i.e. God by nature and in truth. But we do not say that the flesh has changed into the nature of the Divine, nor that the ineffable nature of God the Word has changed into the nature of the flesh. For it is not subject to transformation and change, but, according to the Scriptures, it always remains exactly the same (Heb. 13:8). Having become visible and while still a baby in swaddling clothes, It, like God, filled all creation in the bowels of the Virgin who gave birth and sat with Him who gave birth to Him. For the Divinity has neither quantity nor magnitude and does not tolerate any limitation. Confessing that the Word was united with the flesh hypostatically, we worship the one Son and Lord Jesus Christ, and in this case we do not separate man and God into parts, especially when they are not united by unity of dignity and will (for this is idle talk, and nothing else), we do not call Christ separately the Word that is from God, and also Christ separately another that is from woman, but We recognize Christ alone - the Word who is from God the Father, with His own flesh. For then He is anointed according to humanity (with the Holy Spirit), although He Himself gives the Spirit to those worthy to receive it, and gives beyond measure, as the blessed Evangelist John says (John 3:34). Nor do we say that the Word, which is from God, dwelt in the one born of the Holy Virgin, as in an ordinary person, lest they imagine Christ as a God-bearing man. For although the Word dwelt with us (John 1:14), it is said that in Christ dwelt bodily and all the fullness of the Godhead (Col.2:9). And we keep in mind and determine that the Word, having become flesh, dwelt in Christ not at all in the same way as, they say, He dwelt in the saints, but, having become one with human nature in hypostatic existence and not turning into flesh, the Word arranged such a dwelling as, one might say, the soul of a person has with its own body. So, there is one Christ and Son and Lord, however, it is not as if man has a union with God only by unity with God in dignity or in will. For equal dignity does not yet unite natures. For example, Peter and John are equal in dignity to each other, like apostles and holy disciples, but both are not one. We do not understand the image of union either as an application, for this is not enough for the unity of natures, nor as an agreement of properties, just as we, clinging to the Lord, according to Scripture, are “one spirit” with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). We even avoid the name “union” (συνάφειας), as it cannot sufficiently express unity (ένωσιν). We do not call the Word, which is from God the Father, God or the Lord of Christ, so that again the one Christ, Son and Lord, is apparently not cut in two and, making Him God and Lord of Himself, does not fall under the guilt of blasphemy. For the Word of God, as we have already said before, having become one with the flesh hypostatically, is the God of all and rules over everything, and for Himself He is neither a slave nor a Master. To philosophize and speak in this way is foolish and even wicked. True, He calls the Father His God, although He Himself is by nature God and (born) from His essence, but we know that, being God, He also became a man, subordinate to God, according to the law to which human nature is subject. But for Himself, how can He be God or Master? So, as a man and having descended to humiliation in external condition, He says that together with us He is subject to God. In the same way, He became under the law, although He Himself spoke it and, like God, He Himself is the lawgiver. We avoid such speeches about Christ: “For the sake of him who bears honor; For the sake of the invisible, I worship the visible.” It is terrible to add to this the following: “The perceived God acts in concert with the one who perceives.” Whoever says this again cuts Christ in two and makes man a separate part, and God also, for he openly denies the unity according to which no one accepts worship as one in another, nor does God act collectively (with man), but Jesus Christ is recognized as one, the only begotten Son, honored with His own flesh by one worship. We confess that the Son himself, born of God the Father, and the only begotten God, although impassible by his own nature, nevertheless suffered for us in the flesh, according to the Scriptures, and in the crucified Body dispassionately assimilated to himself the sufferings of his own flesh. By the good pleasure of God, He accepted death for everyone (Heb. 2:9), giving over His own body to it, although by nature there is Life and He is the Resurrection. So that in his own flesh, as if in the firstfruits, trampling down death with ineffable power, he could be the firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18) and the firstfruits from the dead (1 Cor.15:20) and open the way for human nature to achieve incorruption, He, by the good pleasure of God, as we just said, tasted death for everyone and, having ravaged hell, came to life on the third day. Therefore, although it is said that the resurrection of the dead was accomplished by man (1 Cor. 15:21), by man we mean the Word born of God, and we understand that by Him the power of death was destroyed. As the only Son and Lord, He will come one day in the glory of the Father, so that, as it is written, He will judge the Universe in righteousness (Ps. 37:9). We consider it necessary to add the following. Announcing the death according to the flesh of the only begotten Son of God, i.e. Jesus Christ, confessing His resurrection from the dead and Ascension into heaven, we make a bloodless sacrifice in the Churches, thus proceeding to the mysterious blessings and being sanctified, partaking of the holy flesh and honest blood of Christ, the Savior of us all; We accept it not as ordinary flesh (let it not be!), not as the flesh of a person sanctified and united with the Word by the unity of dignity or who has become the abode of the deity, but as truly life-giving blood and own for the Word itself. For It, as God and Life by nature, and having become one with His flesh, clearly made it life-giving. Therefore, although they say to us: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, neither do you drink His blood” (John 6:53), however, we must understand the flesh not of a man, one of those like us (for as the flesh of a man will be life-giving by its own nature), but the flesh that truly belongs to Him who for our sake became and acted as the Son of man. As for the sayings of our Savior contained in the Gospels, we do not attribute them separately to either two beings or two persons. For Christ alone is one and only, although he is recognized as united into an indivisible unity from two, and, moreover, different natures, he is not a subsistence; just as a person is recognized as consisting of soul and body, but not double, but one from both. Reasoning properly, we believe that human and divine sayings were spoken by one (Christ). It is when He speaks of Himself in a godly manner: “Whoever sees Me, sees the Father” (John 14:9) - and: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), then we understand His divine, ineffable nature, by which He is one with His Father and by the identity of essence is the image and mark and radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3). When, not finding dishonor in human nature, he says to the Jews: “Now you seek to kill Me, the man who told you the truth” (John 8:40), we again, and from the properties of His humanity, no less recognize Him as God, equal and similar to the Father. For if it is necessary to believe that the true God by nature became flesh, i.e. a man animated by a rational soul, then what reason does anyone have to be ashamed of His sayings that would be appropriate for a person? If He refused to speak in a manner befitting a man, then who would force Him to become a man like us? And when for our sake He brought Himself down into voluntary humiliation, then for what reason did He refuse to utter words befitting humiliation? So, all the sayings contained in the Gospels must be attributed to a single person, to a single incarnate hypostasis of the Word. For, according to Scripture, “there is one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6). Although Christ is called the messenger and high priest of our confession (Heb. 3:1), as the one who officiates before God the Father in the confession of faith that we offer to Him and through Him to God the Father and even to the Holy Spirit, despite the fact that we say that He is by nature the only begotten Son of God, and we do not attribute both the name and the very fulfillment of the priesthood to a person separate from Him. For He, having given Himself up as a pleasing aroma to God and the Father (Eph. 5:2), became a mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5) and an intercessor for reconciliation. That is why He said: “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings, but you made the body for Me. You did not favor burnt offerings and sin. Then he said, “Behold, I come: in the book of books it is written about Me, that I may do Your will, O God” (Heb. 10:5–7; Ps. 39:7–8). He offered His own Body as a sweet aroma for us, not for Himself. For being as God above all sin, what need did He have of an offering or sacrifice for Himself? If all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), since we have become prone to error and human nature has become weak from sin, then He is not like that, and therefore we are overcome by His glory. What doubt, however, can there be that He, the true Lamb, was slain for us and for us? To say that He offered Himself for Himself and for us is almost the same as being guilty of wickedness. For He did not sin in any way and did not commit any sin. What need did He have of an offering (for Himself), when there is no sin for which justice would require an offering? When He says about the Spirit: “He will glorify Me” (John 16:14), then we, reasoning properly, say that the one Christ and Son will receive glory from the Holy Spirit, not in the sense that he needs glory from anyone else, because His Spirit is neither better nor higher than Him. But since He used (the power of) the Holy Spirit when performing great deeds to prove His Divinity, in this sense He says that He will be glorified by Him, just as if one of us said about the power or knowledge he has in a certain matter: “They will glorify me.” Although the Spirit exists in its own hypostasis and is recognized as existing in Itself, since the Spirit is not the Son, He is not alien to Him, since it is called the Spirit of truth (John 16:13), and the truth is Christ (John 14:6). Therefore, when the Spirit performed miracles through the holy apostles, after the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ into heaven, He glorified Him. For people then believed that He is God by nature, that He works again by His Spirit, therefore He said: “What He will receive of Mine, and will tell it to you” (John 16:14). However, by this we do not say that the Spirit is wise and powerful by borrowing (εκ μετοχής) (from another person), for He is all-perfect and does not need any good. But since He is the Spirit of the Power and Wisdom of the Father, i.e. Son, then for this very reason He is Wisdom and Power. And, as the Holy Virgin in the flesh gave birth to God, united with the flesh into a (single) hypostasis, therefore we say that She is the Mother of God, not, however, in the sense that the nature of the Word has the beginning of being from the flesh (for “in the beginning was”, “and God is the Word, and the Word is to God” (John 1:1) and It itself is the creator of the ages, coeternal with the Father and creator everything), but in the fact that the Word, as we have already said before, having accepted human nature into personal unity with Himself, underwent a carnal birth from Her womb, not because again, as if for the sake of His own nature it had the need for a temporary birth, in the last times of the world, but in order to bless the very beginning of our existence, so that with the birth of Him, united with the flesh, from the Wife the oath over the entire human race, betraying our earthly bodies of death, so that with the abolition through Him of the sentence: “In sickness, give birth to children” (Gen. 3:16) - what was said by the prophet would be justified: “The sacrifice will be possible death; and again: God will take away every tear from every face” (Is. 25:8). We say that for the same purpose, by a special dispensation, He himself blessed the marriage and, when they invited him along with the holy apostles, he went to Cana of Galilee. We are taught to think this way by the holy apostles, and the evangelists, and by all the inspired Scriptures, and by the true confession of the blessed fathers. All this must be accepted by your reverence, and accepted without any deceit. And what needs to be anathematized for your reverence is stated below, in the addition to our message. 1. Whoever does not confess that Immanuel is the true God and therefore the Holy Virgin Theotokos, since in the flesh She gave birth to the Word who is from God and became flesh, let him be anathema. 2. Who does not confess that the Word, which is from God the Father, was united with the flesh hypostatically and that therefore Christ is one with his flesh, i.e. one and the same is God and at the same time man is anathema. 3. Whoever in the one Christ, after the union (of natures), separates the persons, uniting them only by the union of dignity, i.e. in will or in strength, and not, better, in a union consisting in the unity of natures - anathema. 4. Whoever applies the sayings of the Gospel and Apostolic books, whether used by the saints about Christ or by Him about Himself, separately to two persons or hypostases and applies some of them to man, whom he represents as different from the Word of God, and others, as fitting for God, to the Word of God the Father alone, is anathema. 5. Whoever dares to call Christ a God-bearing man, and not, better, true God, as one Son (with the Father) by nature, since the Word became flesh and came close to us, taking on our flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14), is anathema. 6. Whoever dares to say that the Word of God the Father is God or the Lord of Christ, and does not confess, rather, Himself as God and together as man, since, according to the Scriptures (John 1:14), the Word became flesh, is anathema. 7. Whoever says that Jesus as a man was an instrument of the actions of God the Word and is surrounded by the glory of the Only Begotten as existing separately from Him is anathema. 8. Whoever dares to say that a person assumed (by God) should be worshiped together with God the Word, should be glorified together with Him and together called God, as one in another (for the constantly added ** particle συν - together with makes one think so), and does not honor Emmanuel with a single worship and does not send up a single glorification to Him, since the Word became flesh, is anathema. 9. Whoever says that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Spirit in the sense that through Him he used, as it were, an alien power and from Him received the power to overcome unclean spirits and perform divine signs in people, and does not honor His own Spirit, through which He performed miracles, is anathema. 10. Divine Scripture says that Christ was the High Priest and the mediator of our confession, that He offered Himself for us as a pleasant aroma to God and the Father. So, if anyone says that our High Priest and intercessor was not God the Word himself, when he became flesh and a man like us, but as if another and someone different from Him, descended from a wife; or whoever says that He offered Himself as an offering and for Himself, and not for us alone, since, not knowing sin, He had no need for an offering (for Himself), is anathema. 11. Whoever does not confess that the Lord’s flesh is life-giving and actually belongs to the Word of God the Father Himself, but belongs, as it were, to someone else, different from Him, and united with Him in dignity, i.e. who has acquired only divine (in himself) dwelling, and does not confess, as we said, His life-giving flesh, since it has become the own of the Word, which can give life to everything, is anathema. 12. Whoever does not confess that God the Word suffered in the flesh, was crucified in the flesh, suffered death in the flesh, and finally became the firstborn from the dead, since He is life and life-giving as God, is anathema. Nestorius in his dogmatic conversations. You might be interested in: