Five Tomes Against Nestorius

The Word after the Union One Incarnate Person. Similitudes of unlike things united. ' Connection ' does not unite. The Name Christ means God the Son Incarnate. Jacob's pillar a type. To His human nature belong the anointing and His subjection to the Law: yet He is God. Cyrus how christ, the Babylonians how holy. Personal Union. Christ's glory no imparted glory but His own inherent glory. If community of names unite, Emmanuel has nought more than we. The human cannot be allotted to a distinct person. God the Son incarnate to be worshipped just as before His Incarnation. Speak not of 'hidden' and 'manifest' as though Two, they are One. Worship of Him taught by God the Father.

The tongue is a fire and an unruly evil, as it is written; thrusting from him the mischief therefrom, the Divine-uttering David says, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, a door of fencing around my lips, incline not mine heart to words of wickedness. For to be able to speak aright, and to have an exact control over the tongue, as to what it should speak, what not, is of a truth God-given, and is no slight matter with those who practise a conversation not void of admiration. But recklessness in speech and unbridled licence unto trickery, are replete with danger and bear down to the pit-fall of hell those who use it. And it is written, Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, they that master it shall eat the fruits thereof. A certain other too of the wise men hath said to us, If thou hast a word of understanding, answer, if not, lay thine hand upon thy mouth; for how is not silence better than unlearned speech? But accursed is it in another way too to belch forth bitter words, and to heap down sinful sayings upon the ineffable Glory, albeit it ought to be honoured by us with unceasing praises. And when we sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, we sin against Christ, for so hath written the Divine-uttering Paul.

And this I say having read Nestorius' words and observing that he not only says that we ought not to say that the holy Virgin is Mother of God and that she hath borne Emmanuel Who is God, but yet in addition to this and in many ways is he minded to make war upon the glory of Christ. For he endeavours to shew us that He is God-bearing and not truly God, but man associated with God; as in equality of rank. For thus seems good to him alone apart from every one else, to think and to speak, albeit the Catholic Church, which Christ Himself presented to Himself, has not the wrinkles of him who has compiled such things, but rather as unblemished, she keeps wholly without rebuke her knowledge of Him, and hath made full well her tradition of the Faith. For we believe in One God, the Father Almighty, of all things both visible and invisible the Maker, and in One Lord Jesus the Christ, and in the Holy Ghost: and following the confessions annexed hereto of the holy Fathers, we say that the Very Word Essentially sprung from forth God the Father, was made as we and was Incarnate and made Man, that is, took to Himself a Body from forth the holy Virgin, and made it His Own: for thus will He be truly One Lord Jesus Christ, thus let us worship Him as One, not putting apart Man and God, but believing that He is One and the Same, in Godhead and in Manhood, that is, God alike and Man.

But the inventor of the most recent impiety, albeit making feint of saying One Christ, ever divides the Natures and sets Each by itself, saying that they did not truly come together; but making excuses in sins, as it is written, devises some mode of connection, of merely (as I said) equality of rank, as shall be shewn from his own words: and he makes the Word out of God indwell by participation, as in a common man, and distributes the sayings in the Gospels, so as one while to attribute certain to the Word alone and by Himself, other while to him that is born from forth a woman separately. Yet how is it not obvious to all that the Only-Begotten being God by Nature has been made man, not by connection simply (as he says) considered as external or accidental, but by true union, ineffable and passing understanding. And thus He is conceived of as One and Only, and every thing said befits Him and all will be said of One Person. For the Incarnate Nature of the Word Himself is after the Union now conceived of as One, just as will reasonably be conceived in regard to ourselves too, for man is really One, compounded of unlike things, soul I mean and body. But it is necessary now too to notify that we say that the Body united to God the Word is ensouled with a reasonable Soul. And I will for profit's sake add this too: other than the Word out of God is the flesh, in regard to its proper nature, other again Essentially the Nature of the Word Itself. But even though the things named be conceived of as diverse and sundered in diverseness of nature, yet is Christ conceived of as One out of both, the Godhead and manhood having come together one to another in true union.

And the God-inspired Scripture confirms us hereto by ten thousand words and acts: using similitudes whereby one may (and that without labour) clearly advance so as we may behold the Mystery of Christ. The blessed Prophet Isaiah said therefore, And there was sent to me one of the Seraphim and in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar and he touched my mouth and said, Lo this hath touched thy lips and shall take away thine iniquities and purge thy sins. And searching according to our power into the depth of the vision, we say that none other save our Lord Jesus Christ is the spiritual coal laid on the altar whereon by us it gives forth the sweet savour of incense to God the Father: for through Him have we had access and are acceptable, offering the spiritual worship. This Divine Coal therefore, when it touches the lips of him who approaches thereto, will straightway exhibit 'him pure and wholly imparticipate in any sin. And in what way it touches our lips, the blessed Paul will teach saying, Nigh thee is the word, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that if thou say with thy mouth Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised, Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And He is compared to a Coal, because conceived of as from two unlike things, yet by a true concurrence they are all but knit together unto union. For the fire entering into the wood, will transelement it somehow into its own glory and might albeit it hath retained what it was.

Our Lord Jesus Christ again likens Himself to a Pearl, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who when he had found one Pearl of great price hath gone and sold all that he had and bought it. I hear Him in another way manifesting Himself to us and saying, I am the flower of the plain, the lily of the valleys. For He has in His Proper Nature the God-befitting Brightness of God the Father, and gives forth again His Savour, in respect I mean of spiritual fragrance. As therefore in the pearl and also the lily, the thing itself is conceived of as body, the brilliancy or fragrance therein considered in its proper definition as other than they in whom they are, yet are the things inseparably innate again the own properties and not alien from those which possess them:— in this way (I deem) shall we both reason and think of Emmanuel too. For of diverse kind by nature are Godhead and flesh , yet was the Body of the Word His own, and not severed from His Body is the Word which is united thereto; for thus and not otherwise will Emmanuel, i.e., God with us, be conceived of. Hence one while as Man, and making Himself manifest to us from the measures of the emptiness too, He said, No man takes My life from Me, another while again conceived of as God the Word and out of Heaven and One with His proper flesh, He says, No man hath ascended up to Heaven but He That came down from Heaven, the Son of Man.

The Holy Scripture therefore from every side knitting together unto inseverable and true union the Son and bearing us back in faith unto One Person, this extraordinary man manifoldly severs, and hath babbled idly, calling the Word out of God the Father God of Christ Himself too, as our discourse as it advances will clearly demonstrate in its own time and place. For he feigns that he is afraid lest any overcome by reverence for the holy Virgin, and calling her Mother of God, should, supposing that there is a mixture and immingling of the Persons one with another pour forth uncomeliness upon the doctrines of the Church, albeit no one thus thinks: and rectifying (as he deems) a thing so dire, he utterly confuses all things, regardless of ideas which pertain to rightness and truth: for he said thus;

"If in simple faith you had been putting forward the word Mother of God, I would not have grudged it you, on examining the sense of the word. But since I see that you, on plea of honouring the blessed Mary, are maintaining the blasphemy of the heretics, I therefore ward off the putting forth of the word, suspecting the danger that is concealed therein. But to speak clearly and more intelligibly to all, it is the aim of the party of Arius and Eunomius and Apolinarius and of all who are of like brotherhood, to bring in Theotokus, as though, a mingling having taken place and the two natures not divided, nought of the meaner things were taken of the human nature, and they had place at length against the Divinity, as though all things were spoken of One, not in regard to the rank from connection, but to Nature. For One is Christ, and One Lord: but in respect of Christ, I mean of the Only-Begotten Son, both Christ and Son are said, one while, of the Godhead, another while of the Manhood and Godhead."