Nestorius. First, then, investigate that which thou hast said. / Prove this to us, that God wishes it so. For the whole opinion of the world is agreed that God can do everything whatsoever he wishes. But again thou hast made use of proofs to the contrary. For he who becomes man from stone or from earth is the nature of man, in that he truly has become man, and not the nature of stone or of earth; and that which has become a pillar of salt from a human body is only the nature of whatever it has become. For things which are changed from their first ousia possess only that nature into which they have been changed. Therefore, if thou sayest that he became the nature of the flesh from the former hylê of the nature of God, he possesses that ousia which he has become without having been [it]. And it is of no importance that, as I have said, the ousia of man issues from a stone or from earth or from the seed of man, for that which is from a former ousia is changed into the nature which it has become; and if he is not changed, he does not at all become flesh by nature.
Sophronius. Divine Scripture solves for us this problem and does not permit us to be obstinate and to speak arbitrarily. For the staff of Moses, when it became truly a serpent, was a serpent as well as a staff; and the waters of the Nile, which became blood, became the nature of blood as well as of water. The ousia was the same although it was changed and for this reason / the children of Israel used water which had become blood as the nature of the water, and Moses [used] a serpent as a staff, in that it was truly both of them. For God sustains natures as he will. |18
22. Concerning this: that the waters of the Nile, when they were transformed into the ousia of blood, were only that ousia into which they were changed.
Nestorius. Again thou usest proofs like these because, as I suppose, thou art bewildered. There were then two ousias; for the water which was taken by the Hebrews was blood and water and that which was taken by the Egyptians was both in the same way. But if the former was only water and the latter only blood, then they were afterwards changed; for when they were taken, those which were taken were changed and further were something else, namely that which they became. How then is it not seen that that which it became by nature is by all means that which it has become and nothing else?
Sophronius. And behold! we see that Divine Scripture / has said that from the same ousia there are two things by nature, when that which has become man by nature from dust and earth and is man by nature, says: I am dust and ashes, if it be that thou mayest not revile Divine Scripture as though it has said things that are impossible, when it says of him who was man, by nature man, I am dust and ashes.
23. Concerning this: that one ousia, which appears in two ousias, is in the one ousia by nature but in the other in schema only.
Nestorius. If Divine Scripture, in reiterating these things about the nature of man, says [that], and [if] every man is the nature of man and nothing else, then also God the Word, who truly became man in nature, is dust and ashes in nature and is not of the ousia of God but of dust and ashes. If it [were the divine ousia] from which he became [man], it indicates----if indeed every man is this [ ousia ] by nature while he is not this ousia but the ousia of God----[that] he was not man except in schema, as the Manichaeans say; and the statements also concerning him are in schema, that it may not be revealed to every one what he is; since one ousia, if it be recognized in two ousias, in the one / is ousia but [is] in the other in schema or in falsehood and in illusion. |19
Sophronius. So thou art attributing to God nothing more than that he should be God truly by nature and man by nature. It is the same nature in both of them, except that God is in man. And what is the Incarnation except that he became man by nature in the nature of man and that he spoke to us in our nature and that he endured naturally all the things that are ours, since for this thing indeed he became incarnate. But, further, you lay down that God did [this] by means of an intermediary and the clothing of the schema, and absurdities such as this, in that he likened himself to tragedians and singers who somehow disguise themselves.
24. Concerning this: that he who can be visible by his nature has no need to become anything else in order to be visible in it.
Nestorius. But, O admirable man, it remains to compare the things which have been said by thee, [namely] that he appeared to us in his own nature without an intermediary. For what reason then hast thou said that he became the nature of man while remaining God? For he who appeared in his nature had no need to become another ousia in which to appear. If he appeared in his own, then thou sayest an impossible thing, that he was a mediator for him[self]. / For a mediator is not of one, but God is one, and consequently he cannot be God but the mediator of God.
25. Concerning this: that if, when God appeared to the saints, he appeared in a change of ousia, he therefore became incarnate in many ousias and not in one.
But further be persuaded to consider this: dost thou predicate of God one incarnation or many? What sayest thou of this? Then, since you say that he became the nature of man and was seen by Abraham and Jacob, and by each one of the saints in any schema whatever, in whatever schema he was, he |20 was naturally changed into the nature in which he was seen and in the last days he was changed into the nature of man in order to become incarnate. [Therefore] you predicate many incarnations, if indeed you agree that the Incarnation was to become incarnate in his nature. There are many changes through which he appeared in schema.
Sophronius. One incarnation do we predicate, [affirming] that at that time he truly became incarnate in his nature and appeared not to some men, as to Abraham and to Jacob, but to all men.
26. Concerning this: that if the word incarnation is employed of his appearing to all men and not to certain ones, as to the saints, / in that he appeared not to all men, he has not then indeed become incarnate at all.
Nestorius. [It follows] from this statement that he became not incarnate at all, in that he appeared not to all men, but [only] to those in Palestine. Why then was his incarnation partial and not for all men? Or is this what thou callest the Incarnation, that he became man in nature when he became incarnate for all time and appeared to all men?
27. Concerning what has been said about the Incarnation, in that he appeared in human nature.
If then the Incarnation was truly one and for all men and not for some, both for those who saw him and for those who saw him not, both for those who were [present] and for those of old, and if the Incarnation happened at the same time for all nature, we duly confess that God the Word was not the nature of man; for that is not the nature of man which is not the nature of man but of God. But in the ousia of man [he is] truly man, of the true nature of the true man in which he became incarnate altogether for all and which he made his prosôpon, and he was revealed in the things of men in comporting himself in the nature of man, being God in human nature. As a king in the schema of a soldier comports himself as a soldier and not as a king, / he is clad in the manner of a soldier against whatsoever has |21 need of correction, and it is said that in everything he is [so] clad, in that he has become the schema of one soldier, even that which clothes all the soldiers. So he became incarnatein one man for all men who are of the [same] nature, since he was in their nature, and in it he spoke to all men, as if he spoke in his own nature.
Sophronius. Then, when he was in the nature of man, it is said that he became incarnate; and through it and in it for all men and not rather on his own account, in that he became a man in truth and thereby was associated with a man who was of their very nature. And in truth incarnation took place in that by his own nature he became man and had no need of another nature.
Nestorius. The Incarnation indeed lay not in this, as a king, in using as a king the schema of soldierhood, becomes not a soldier indeed in the manner of a soldier; or perhaps it is] as if one were to say that in name only he becomes a soldier. Thus no more did God become incarnate, being not in human nature, but ....
Sophronius. What meanest thou by 'as a king' and 'as a soldier'?
Nestorius. Just as purple is the clothing of royalty but not of soldierhood and as the clothing of soldiers is the equipment which belongs to soldiers and not to kings, when / therefore a king wishes to put on the clothing, that is the equipment, of soldiers and to lay aside the purple of royalty, though [clothed] in the schema of a soldier of which he has made use without descending from his royal dignity, he then remains in majesty and authority over everything, even in this schema. But when he wishes to condescend and to become one of the soldiers, [wearing] the clothing of one of these soldiers, as if he had become a soldier, and not [that] of royalty, and concealing himself in it and talking with them on equal terms and persuading them without constraining them, he so performs the duties of royalty in the schema of a soldier. Thus also God, when he wished to become incarnate, if he had not |22 come in human nature but had become flesh in his own ousia, would not at all have become incarnate, in that he would have become incarnate for them in his own ousia and not in the nature of men.
28. Concerning this: that he who by a change of ousia becomes man is of another nature and not of the nature of men.
He indeed who by a change of ousia becomes man is of another nature and not of the nature of men, in that he has another description of nature and not that of men; because he is God by nature, and the ousia of man is something else than the nature of God, as both of them exist by nature: not that he passed from the nature of God to the nature of man nor [that he was] something else than these; / he is by nature in both of them, but the man is only man and God is only God.
Sophronius. And he had not so received the incarnation,but [if it] took place in another human nature and not from the ousia of God, how does the Trinity not accept an addition in [its] nature, since it has accepted the ousia of another? Or how is this God of the nature of men and not of the ousia of God?
29. Concerning this: that, in that he has become man in the ousia of man and has not become man in [ his own ] ousia, neither in nature nor in prosôpon does he accept any addition.