Five Tomes Against Nestorius

Herein therefore he stiles heretic him who holds the right and admirable faith about Christ, and who since He is truly God, calls her mother of God who bare Him. But there will be no doubt to any of those who think aright, that it is himself who, fastening the blame of heresies on them who choose to deem aright, is establishing the unbeauty of his own words, and has all but confessed openly that he is being borne outside of the straight way, and is making crooked paths. Next how (tell me) do you not grudge this title to the holy Virgin, albeit you take away the dignity of the Divine Birth, and say that she is not Mother of God? but debasing the expression and affirming that it is full of blasphemy, how do you bid those who so will, to apply it to the holy Virgin (though I hear you call her august)? and then deem the so blasphemous word (as you alone think it) meet to adorn the most august one, and you feign to crown her, putting about her as some choice honour, a calumny against God the Word? For if it be wholly abhorrent to the Word Who is sprung of God to endure fleshly birth and you permit her who did not bear God to be called Mother of God, is it not true to say that you have openly depised the Lord's will? will you not be caught insulting rather the august one, than (as you suppose and say) electing to honour her, by allotting to her a name hated of God? For not to those whom we determine to honour [do] we give names whereby the glory of the Supreme Nature is dishonoured, first of all we shall unawares be involving our own selves in the charge of such impiety, next we shall do them no slight wrong, decking as if in honour those we praise with what is no praise, and weaving for them a laudation hated of God.

One may moreover marvel at this too: that striking right and left at the words of the unholy heretics and in no wise allowing them to prevail, because they take away the truth of the Divine doctrines, next allotting no slight blame to the word Mother of God and accusing it amongst other things as untrue and impious, you said that you pardon it and will not grudge it to the Virgin even if one should choose to call her Mother of God. Will you permit it therefore to those too who are diseased with the madness of Arius, to say that the Son is inferior to the Father? or again to the rest who bring down the Nature of the Holy Ghost from its God-befitting excellency? But you would not choose to do this; and if any one desire to learn why, you will (I suppose) surely say, I do not endure a blasphemous word. Hence if she be not Mother of God, and you permit this to be said, know that you are deserting the truth, and reck little about any longer appearing wise. For do you not say that Elisabeth too or any other of the holy women is worthy of all reverence? will you then not grudge it, if any one choose to call them too mothers of God? But I suppose that you will surely and utterly withstand them and say, This is not so; for they bare sanctified men and none among them was God by Nature. Hence either drive away this from every woman; or if you allow the holy Virgin alone among all to have it, what words will you use for your defence? For if it be true of her and she has truly borne God, in that the Word of God has been made flesh, confess this with us, and you will free yourself from the charge of impiety: but if she hath not borne God, to permit any to call her Mother of God is to partake of their impiety. But she is Mother of God, because the Only-Begotten has been made man as we, united of a truth to flesh, and enduring fleshly birth and not dishonouring the laws of our nature, as I said before.

But since he says that he knows that she, i.e. the holy Virgin, is august, come I pray come let us consider the reason too of the reverence that was done her: "for I know (he says) that she is august , through whom the Lord of all passed, through whom the Sun of righteousness beamed." How then do you say that she received God? or in what way did the Lord of all pass through her? or how beamed the Sun of righteousness? For if she hath not borne God, after the flesh I mean, how received she God? how passed He through her? But haply you will say this wise word of yours as you think and dare to speak it " The Word was God both connected with man and indwelling him." But the tradition of the faith makes itself ready against your words as to this, No God-bearing man, but God Incarnate have we been taught to worship: but not so speakest THOU: how then do you not see that you are babbling and falsely marking the truth that is in the Divine dogmas? For the Word has been made flesh. How did you now say that she received God except you have believed that she hath borne Emmanuel Who is God by Nature? how passed the Lord of all through her and how beamed the Sun of righteousness? And who is he that you think fit to embellish by such names? is he a common man, like one of us, yet hallowed, as having the Word of God indwelling? Then how will such an one be Lord of all, and Sun of righteousness? For the power of lordship and dominion over all and of illumining things possessing intelligence, will pertain not to our measures, but will be attributed to the Supreme and Most High Nature alone.

But since taking (I know not whence) the word passed through, you have applied it to God, explain the word; the meaning of the passage through here spoken of, will belong to your wisdom to tell us who know it not. For if the Word of God so passed through her, as to pass from one place to another, you cast Him down forthwith; for you will hear Him saying by the voice of the saints, Do not I fill Heaven and earth saith the Lord? For not in place is the Godhead nor knoweth It bodily changes of place, for it filleth all things. But if while awaiting the fit period of birth, He made an incidental indwelling in man, and so you say that God made passage through the holy Virgin, or passed through her (for I will use in all thy holy words): we see nought in the holy Virgin more than in other women. For Elisabeth bare the blessed Baptist who had been hallowed through the Spirit through Whom the Son Himself also makes His abode in us. And the wise John will witness saying, Hereby know we that He is in us, because He gave us of His Spirit. The Word of God therefore passed through Elisabeth herself too, indwelling in the babe through the Spirit even before its birth.

But you feel suspicious of the applause as though it came to you from the people for having chosen to speak right things? for having called Him Who was born of the holy Virgin Sun of righteousness and Lord of all; you then again feign to speak with precision, and find fault with the applause, and accuse again those who are rejoicing over you of not having understood. O great strength which is in your words! you have made no delay in the needed vexing of them, you turned straightway their joy into mourning, you rent off their rejoicing and girt them with sackcloth, straightway adding, "Again I suspect your applause, how did ye understand passed through? I have not said passed through in the sense of was born, for not so quickly do I forget my own words. That God passed through from out the Virgin Mother of Christ, was I taught by the Divine Scriptures, that God was born of her, was I nowhere taught."

Those therefore are thy perverted sayings; the applause was of love, in that your mind had some guise of orthodoxy. But I will press on now too no less and say, What is passed through, if it mean not birth? will you say that the Word out of God Himself by Himself and apart from flesh hastened through the Virgin? yet how would not this be replete with all folly? For it would be necessary to suppose that the Godhead were recipient of quantity, and of movement which bears from one place to another; or if the Godhead be unembodied, at large and everywhere, and not in place and circumscript, how will it pass through a single body? But whatever it be that you are saying, how do you not need to clear it up and say it more openly, if confident in your own opinions about it, you are able to testify to their incorruption? where (I pray) have you heard the God-inspired Scripture say that the Word of God passed through the holy Virgin? For that brief and contracted is the life of those upon earth, the blessed David taught saying, Man, I his days as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth through him and he shall not be, but of the holy Virgin what thing of this sort can you say has been written? That God has been born of her, after the flesh I mean, God-inspired Scripture has clearly shewn.

But I will go again to your own words, O all-excellent, for you have yourself too confessed and this most often that the Word has been made Flesh, and you reject it not. And this too you say besides: for you say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten was clearly and openly Incarnate. You have written in this wise,

"Thus it says elsewhere too, He spoke to us in His Son Whom He appointed Heir of all things through Whom also He made the worlds, Who being the Brightness of His Glory: having put Son, it calls Him fearlessly both Brightness of His Glory, and appointed Heir; Heir, appointed after the Flesh, Brightness of the Father's Glory after the Godhead: for He departed not, made flesh, from likeness to the Father. And in addition it again says thus, for the times of ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men to repent, because He fixed a Day in which He will judge the world by the Man Whom He appointed, having given assurance unto all men in that He raised Him from the dead. Having first said, By the Man, he then adds, In that He raised Him from the dead, that no one might suppose that the Godhead Incarnate had died."