Five Tomes Against Nestorius

Most vigorous onslaught, my friend, and truly spirited hast thou made upon the doctrines of piety. And the Divine-uttering Baruch, pointing out the Word of God already Incarnate and seen in likeness to us, says, This is our God, there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him, He found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved: afterward did He shew Himself upon earth and conversed with men. But THOU calling out and that full often, This, yea all but putting forth thine hand;—who is it that you manifest to believers and cause to be seen of them, yea, and say that he advanced by little and little unto High Priesthood? I suppose it is surely he of whom but now specifying thou saidst, "Therefore a Merciful High Priest is he that suffered, not the quickening God of him that suffered: the seed of Abraham he who is yesterday and to-day, as Paul saith, not he who saith, Before Abraham was I am; like to his brethren in all things he that assumed brotherhood of human soul and flesh, not He Who saith, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." And that in affirming that the Life-giving Word of God is God of him who suffered, involving yourself in the charge of inevitable blasphemy, you have done no slight wrong, sufficient reasoning made clear to us. But I marvel that thyself oblivious of thine own words, thou deemest right to say alike and think that He by little and little advanced unto the dignity of the High Priest, Whom thou sayest is even God Almighty. For the Epistle written to the Hebrews being before thee, thou art caught saying, "Yet is This man Who after the flesh is akin to Israel, Who in that which is visible is Man, Who according to Paul's speech was made out of the seed of David, by connection God Almighty." How did He yet advance, according to that idle talk, to the dignity of High Priest albeit testified by thy voice too as Almighty God?

And though you utter the ill-famed connection and invented I know not whence by yourself alone, I will pass it over for the present: but I will ask, bidding the argument advance straight on its own befitting and proper course, Does not that which advances unto Priesthood and glory make its advance or progress unto the better and more excellent? and how will not every one whatever give his vote for the truth of this? Greater therefore than the being Almighty God, is the High Priesthood. Then how does he whose lot is the Priesthood minister too and stand as a worshipper by God, and as a servant by his master, offering what is customable and bringing sacrifices, and He Who is crowned with the Supreme glory receives the sacrifices and is honoured by the service?

But thou sayest (I suppose) this, Being God Almighty the Same hath become High-Priest. He hath been emptied therefore and hath abased Himself by descent into the inferior. How therefore did He yet advance unto dignity when made an High Priest? Remember again thine own words, for thus thou saidst a little above, "If the Godhead be High Priest, who is He who is served by the ministry of the High Priesthood? if He Who offereth be God, there is none to whom the offering is made, for what is there worthy of Godhead that as inferior It should make offering to a greater?" Stand now at least to your own words; but this you cannot do, for you will be borne about (so to say) by every wind, and perceive not that you are being driven about, one while springing off from those into these, other while again from these into those, and in no wise are you afraid of what Paul saith, For if what I destroyed this I build again, I make myself a transgressor.

But you will perhaps say, Affirming that the Word out of God the Father is everywhere One Christ and Son and Lord, with His own Flesh, how sayest thou now that He has been set forth as an High Priest and Apostle? dost thou not in so saying insult the Supreme Dignity of His Divine Glory?

Because, good Sir, (shall I say) the Only Begotten Word of God has been made man and in the measures of the human nature, the fact of Priesthood will not unbefit Him, and moreover the saying that He has been sent, for He despised the shame, as the Divine-uttering Paul writes, and endured yet lower and worser things for our sakes: for He gave His bach to the scourges, His Face He turned not away from the shame of spittings, and endurant He bore the contumelies of the Jews. But thou deemest not meet to call Him Priest, as being God? admit the words pertaining to the Economy, consider the emptying, the descent unto the servant's form. For we say not that the Word of God advanced and hastened unto dignity, if He have been styled our High Priest, but rather that He descended herein too unto emptiness. Since how has He been emptied and is He said to have been abased, albeit He possesseth unchangeableness and is in Form and Equality in everything with His Father? how too advanced He by little and little and this (as thyself sayest) unto the dignity of the High Priesthood? what sort of growth received He hereunto? If then it were a bodily one, I will ask again, Doth bodily growth lead up to the glory of the Priesthood: be then this common [to all] and let this method of reasoning of yours belong to every one who advanceth bodily, But of a truth the Priesthood beseemeth not all those who customably advance unto bodily growth; how therefore blushest thou not in putting forth unto us for demonstration of those things which thou saidst, what was spoken by the Divine-uttering Luke, But Jesus was advancing in stature and wisdom and grace?

But thou sayest that the growth was unto wisdom, albeit how is not this without learning? for we believe that out of the very belly and womb of the Virgin, Emmanuel being God proceeded forth Man, full surely of the wisdom and grace that are inherent of Nature. What sort of growth then will He admit of, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom, Who is with God the Father Co-giver of the grace from above? how then is He said to advance? it is, I deem, by God the Word co-measuring with the increase and stature of His own Body, the manifestation of the most God-befitting goods that are in Him. For let us consider that although He has been made Man as we, He was zealous to lie hid at the first, and administered by little and little as it were noiselessly and in silence the might of the Mystery; and of this God the Father Himself will be our assurance saying, Jacob My Servant, I will defend Him, Israel My chosen, My Soul received Him, I gave My Spirit upon Him, He shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles: He shall not cry nor lift up, nor shall His voice be heard without: a bruised reed. He shall not break and smoking flax He shall not quench. And He was somewhere rebuking the holy Apostles themselves that they should not make Him, known. Hence a thing unwonted and strange and worthy of looking into, would have been shewn, if being yet a babe, He had made a God-befitting demonstration of wisdom: but He little and little and proportionably to bodily stature, extending it and making it manifest to all, will be said to advance and that with reason. How therefore did He advance by little and little unto the Priesthood, tell me, by being perfected in virtue? Then how or whence may one doubt that that which faileth of perfection in virtue, will be under blame, and not wholly an object of admiration, yea rather haply under charge of sin? But it is indeed true that He hath done no sin neither was guile found in His Mouth, as it is written. Full-perfect therefore is He being such unto every thing, and in no wise will He have the lack of being complete unto the achievement of virtue. And when was He That was God in the womb too not Perfect unto good, of Whom the Prophet Isaiah too saith, Butter and honey shall He eat, before He have knowledge to prefer evil, He shall choose the good, because before the Child shall know good or ill, He shall disobey vice to choose the good? where then will you be able to demonstrate Christ's yet imperfectness unto good? or what advance will He need who is so Perfect as to disobey vice and to prefer to it, yea only choose, good?

Yet I know not how he who affirmeth and saith "This is he who by little and little advanced to the dignity of the high priesthood," and who brought forward in proof of his words, Jesus advanced in stature and wisdom and grace, all but marking out the uncomeliness of his own words and gliding into forgetfulness of the things of which he assumed were right, affirms to us that the mode of perfection was wrought in another way, saying, "This is he who in time has been made High Priest, who was perfected through sufferings." Is not this manifest distraction? yea rather a proof of utter recklessness? for our Lord Jesus Christ has been made perfect through sufferings, but this man albeit he was not ignorant of the mode of being made perfect, carries away the minds of the simpler unto certain strange perversions of ideas and says that He advanced unto being High Priest and has been perfected unto this, "Who is said to have been emptied because this took place. And as though he had full clearly shewn that neither was the Word of God made flesh, nor yet proceeded Man out of woman, he chides those who have chosen thus to hold and says, "Why therefore doth thou mis-interpret Paul, commingling with earthly body the Impassive God the Word and making Him a passible High Priest?" Hear therefore from us too, to whom rather the truth is dear, Why dost thou mis-interpret Paul, yea rather slanderest the whole God-inspired Scripture, withdrawing the Word of God from the economy with flesh, and settest over us as priest a man honoured with mere connection? albeit thou hearest that the Same is at once High Priest and Co-Throned with God the Father, as we have already said. For Paul said, We have such an High Priest, Who sat on the Right Hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the heavens. For that the Word out of God the Father is Impassible, is I suppose clear to every one: that He hath suffered for us in the flesh, the voice of inspired men will seal up for a truth. But if thyself bear away the Word out of God from earthly body, the whole will come to nothing. For if He have not been made Man, neither did He die for us, and if He have not given unto death His own Body, how is He said to be the first begotten from the dead? Hence Christ neither died nor revived. Let the Divine-uttering Paul therefore come forward, let him cry aloud saying, If the dead are not raised, neither has been Christ raised, if Christ have not been raised, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins: they also which fell asleep in Christ perished. But Christ has been raised from the dead, for the Only-Begotten Word of God has been made Man and, taking an earthly body and uniting it Personally to Him, by the grace of God, as it is written, tasted death for every man. He has been named first-fruits of them that slept, having been raised from the dead. Sure therefore and not vain is now our faith, which we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast, as it is written.

And he, as though he had in no wise wronged the plan of the economy with flesh, through saying such things and pouring forth untempered and foulest vomit upon the doctrines of the truth, proceeds to another mis-counsel, yea rather manifest blasphemy and says,

"This man alone therefore being our High Priest, feeling and kin and sure, turn ye not away from the faith Him-ward; for He was sent, the blessing which was proraised us out of the seed of Abraham, as offering the sacrifice of His Body for Himself alike and His race."