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St. John Cassian
On the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius

Christology

On the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius

St. John Cassian · c. 429 AD

3h 49m read

Nicene

Cassian's Christological defense of orthodox teaching against Nestorius, written at the request of the Roman archdeacon Leo.

Table of Contents

1Book I 1The heresy compared to the hydra of the poets 2Description of the different heretical monsters which spring from one another 3He describes the pestilent error of the Pelagian 4Leporius together with some others recants his Pelagianism 5By the case of Leporius he establishes the fact that an open sin ought to be expiated by an open confession; and also teaches from his words what is the right view to be held on the Incarnation 6The united doctrine of the Catholics is to be received as the orthodox faith 2Book II 1How the errors of later heretics have been condemned and refuted in the persons of their authors and originators 2Proof that the Virgin Mother of God was not only Christotocos but also Theotocos, and that Christ is truly God 3Follows up the same argument with passages from the Old Testament 4He produces testimonies to the same doctrine from the Apostle Paul 5From the gifts of Divine grace which we receive through Christ he infers that He is truly God 6That the power of bestowing Divine grace did not come to Christ in the course of time, but was innate in Him from His very birth 7How in Christ the Divinity, Majesty, Might and Power have existed in perfection from eternity, and will continue 3Book III 1That Christ, who is God and man in the unity of Person, sprang from Israel and the Virgin Mary according to the flesh 2The title of God is given in one sense to Christ, and in another to men 3He explains the apostle's saying: “If from henceforth we know no man according to the flesh,” etc 4From the Epistle to the Galatians he brings forward a passage to show that the weakness of the flesh in Christ was absorbed by His Divinity 5As it is blasphemy to pare away the Divinity of Christ, so also is it blasphemous to deny that He is true man 6He shows from the appearance of Christ vouchsafed to the Apostle when persecuting the Church, the existence of both natures in Him 7He shows once more by other passages of the Apostle that Christ is God 8When confessing the Divinity of Christ we ought not to pass over in silence the confession of the cross 9How the Apostle's preaching was rejected by Jews and Gentiles because it confessed that the crucified Christ was God 10How the apostle maintains that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God 11He supports the same doctrine by proofs from the gospel 12He proves from the renowned confession of the blessed Peter that Christ is God 13The confession of the blessed Peter receives a testimony to its truth from Christ Himself 14How the confession of the blessed Peter is the faith of the whole Church 15St. Thomas also confessed the same faith as Peter after the Lord's resurrection 16He brings forward the witness of God the Father to the Divinity of the Son 4Book IV 1That Christ was before the Incarnation God from everlasting 2He infers from what he has said that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a Son who had pre-existed and was greater than she herself was 3He proves from the Epistle to the Romans the eternal Divinity of Christ 4He brings forward other testimonies to the same view 5How in virtue of the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ the Word is rightly termed the Saviour, or incarnate man, and the Son of God 6That there is in Christ but one Hypostasis (i.e., Personal self)7He returns to the former subject, in order to show against the Nestorians that those things are said of the man, which belong to the Divine nature as it were of a Person of Divine nature, and conversely that those things are said of God, which belong to the human nature as it were of a Person of human nature, because there is in Christ but one and a single Personal self 8How this interchange of titles does not interfere with His Divine power 9He corroborates this statement by the authority of the old prophets 10He proves Christ's Divinity from the blasphemy of Judaizing Jews as well as from the confession of converts to the faith of Christ 11He returns to the prophecy of Isaiah 12How the title of Saviour is given to Christ in one sense, and to men in another 13He explains who are those in whose person the Prophet Isaiah says: “Thou art our God, and we knew Thee not.”5Book V 1He vehemently inveighs against the error of the Pelagians, who declared that Christ was a mere man 2That the doctrine of Nestorius is closely connected with the error of the Pelagians 3How this participation in Divinity which the Pelagians and Nestorians attribute to Christ, is common to all holy men 4What the difference is between Christ and the saints 5That before His birth in time Christ was always called God by the prophets 6He illustrates the same doctrine by passages from the New Testament 7He shows again from the union in Christ of two natures in one Person that what belongs to the Divine nature may rightly be ascribed to man, and what belongs to the human nature to God 8He confirms the judgment of the Apostle by the authority of the Lord 9Since those marvellous works which from the days of Moses were shown to the children of Israel are attributed to Christ, it follows that He must have existed long before His birth in time 10He explains what it means to confess, and what it means to dissolve Jesus 11The mystery of the Lord's Incarnation clearly implies the Divinity of Christ 12He explains more fully what the mystery is which is signified under the name of the man and wife 13Of the longing with which the old patriarchs desired to see the revelation of that mystery 14He refutes the wicked and blasphemous notion of the heretics who said that God dwelt and spoke in Christ as in an instrument or a statue 15What the prayers of the saints for the coming of Messiah contained; and what was the nature of that longing of theirs 6Book VI 1From the miracle of the feeding of the multitude from five barley loaves and two fishes he shows the majesty of Divine Power 2The author adapts the mystery of the number seven (made up of the five loaves and two fishes) to his own work 3He refutes his opponent by the testimony of the Council of Antioch 4How the Creed has authority Divine as well as human 5He proceeds against his opponent with the choicest arguments, and shows that we ought to hold fast to the religion which we have received from our fathers 6Once more he challenges him to the profession of the Creed of Antioch 7He continues the same line of argument drawn from the Creed of Antioch 8How it can be said that Christ came and was born of a Virgin 9Again he convicts his opponent of deadly heresy by his own confession 10He inveighs against him because though he has forsaken the Catholic religion, he nevertheless presumes to teach in the Church, to sacrifice, and to give decisions 11He removes the silent objection of heretics who want to recant the profession of their faith made in childhood 12Christ crucified is an offence and foolishness to those who declare that He was a mere man 13He replies to the objection in which they say that the child born ought to be of one substance with the mother 14He compares this erroneous view with the teaching of the Pelagians 15He shows that those who patronize this false teaching acknowledge two Christs 16He shows further that this teaching is destructive of the confession of the Trinity 17Those who are under an error in one point of the Catholic religion, lose the whole faith, and all the value of the faith 18He directs his discourse upon his antagonist with whom he is disputing, and begs him to return to his senses. The sacrament of reconciliation is necessary for the lapsed for their salvation 19That the birth of Christ in time diminished nothing of the glory and power of His Deity 20He shows from what has been said that we do not mean that God was mortal or of flesh before the worlds, although Christ, who is God from eternity and was made man in time, is but one Person 21The authority of Holy Scripture teaches that Christ existed from all eternity 22The hypostatic union enables us to ascribe to God what belongs to the flesh in Christ 23That the figure Synecdoche, in which the part stands for the whole, is very familiar to the Holy Scripture 7Book VII 1As he is going to reply to the slanders of his opponents he implores the aid of Divine grace to teach a prayer to be used by those who undertake to dispute with heretics 2He meets the objection taken from these words: No one gave birth to one who had existed before her 3He replies to the cavil that the one who is born must be of one substance with the one who bears 4How God has shown His Omnipotence in His birth in time as well as in everything else 5He shows by proofs drawn from nature itself, that the law which his opponents lay down; viz., that the one born ought to be of one substance with the one who bears, fails to hold good in many cases 6He refutes another argument of Nestorius, in which he tried to make out that Christ was like Adam in every point 7Heretics usually cover their doctrines with a cloak of holy Scripture 8The heretics attribute to Christ only the shadow of Divinity, and so assert that he is to be worshipped together with God but not as God 9How those are wrong who say that the birth of Christ was a secret, since it was clearly shown even to the patriarch Jacob 10He collects more witnesses of the same fact 11How the devil was forced by many reasons to the view that Christ was God 12He compares this notion and reasonable suspicion of the devil with the obstinate and inflexible idea of his opponents, and shows that this last is worse and more blasphemous than the former 13How the devil always retained this notion of Christ's Divinity (because of His secret working which he experienced) even up to His Cross and Death 14He shows how heretics pervert holy Scripture, by replying to the argument drawn from the Apostle's words, “Without father, without mother,” etc.: Heb. vii 15How Christ could be said by the Apostle to be without genealogy 16He shows that like the devil when tempting Christ, the heretics garble and pervert holy Scripture 17That the glory and honour of Christ is not to be ascribed to the Holy Ghost in such a way as to deny that it proceeds from Christ Himself, as if all that excellency, which was in Him, was another's and proceeded from another source 18How we are to understand the Apostle's words: “He appeared in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit,” etc 19That it was not only the Spirit, but Christ Himself also who made Him to be feared 20He tries by stronger and weightier arguments to destroy that notion 21That it must be ascribed equally to Christ and the Holy Ghost that His flesh and Humanity became the temple of God 22That the raising up of Christ into heaven is not to be ascribed to the Spirit alone 23He continues the same argument to show that Christ had no need of another's glory as He had a glory of His own 24He supports this doctrine by the authority of the blessed Hilary 25He shows that Ambrose agrees with S. Hilary 26He adds to the foregoing the testimony of S. Jerome 27To the foregoing he adds Rufinus and the blessed Augustine 28As he is going to produce the testimony of Greek or Eastern Bishops, he brings forward in the first place S. Gregory Nazianzen 29In the next place he puts the authority of S. Athanasius 30He adds also S. John Chrysostom 31He bemoans the unhappy lot of Constantinople, owing to the misfortune which has overtaken it from that heretic; and at the same time he urges the citizens to stand fast in the ancient Catholic and ancestral faith