Thus also of Christ thou hast predicated two natures, but thou sayest that the distinction between them is not in the natures and in the ousias but only in the understanding and in the sayings. 'Our brothers in Antioch call those things whereby Christ is known a diversity of natures, as though merely accepting [them] in idea alone, because the divinity and the humanity are not one thing, as I have said, in natural quality' . . . . Thou hast said in quality and not in ousia. But the quality, however, is not the nature of the ousia but either the schema of the ousia or of the nature or of [that which is] not ousia or a view in mere idea only expressed concerning the natures. [As for] this quality, it has not the natural / diversity of the natures but a diversity of the natures without ousia; yet thou sayest that they exist only in the sayings, in reflection about the natures, without ousias. And this he says, that they call the things whereby Christ is known the diversity of the natures, as though merely accepting them in idea alone, because the divinity and the humanity are not one thing in natural quality, as I have |322 said. . . . But they of Antioch are not content either to say this or to hear any man that says [it]; but they say that, touching the sayings of the Gospels concerning Christ our Lord, we know certain divines who make [some] of the things that are common relative to one prosôpon, but divide [others] of them between two natures. . . . They have said that they surely divide; they have predicated the sayings of two natures and accept not the diversity merely in idea alone. It is not by sayings but by sayings concerning two natures that they draw a distinction in the matter of the ousias. Two natures, which are to be distinguished by the sayings indicative of them, are distinguished. The natures are not without hypostases, nor in idea without the hypostases of the natures do they constitute [them] by sayings in reflection, but by reflection upon the natures with the ousias, if not upon the ousias and the natures, they establish the ideas and the natures.
For the one is very distinct from the other; for the one says that they accept merely in idea alone the sayings about the diversities of the natures / and accepts not the idea of the natures with the ousias, but [says that] they are without hypostases and not subsisting, [and that] their origin indeed is from reflection and [that] they are whole in [its] wholeness. The other says that the idea and the sayings about the natures are indicative of the ousias both at the beginning in the idea and [afterwards] in the natures and in the ousias, in such wise that there are three kinds arising out of the nature of the ousias which are required of him who considers: the ousia itself and the idea of the ousia and the saying indicative of the idea. But whoever says that they [are] merely in idea alone, says two kinds [of things]: merely the idea and its own saying. For this reason he attributes the diversity to the idea alone of the nature and not to the ousia, but to a quality [resting] upon an illusion and upon a supposition of the nature, upon a schema of the nature and not upon the ousia of the nature. For [as to] the quality of the nature and the schema as well as the appearance of the ousia, all these things indeed he deduces and infers that it is without ousia. Who would |323 take account of one who makes use of divine things so disdainfully? He has not one pure and confident idea and he reckons everything in this way and surely makes sport of those who are distressed in heart and [who] are zealous to learn the truth. And he is like unto Origen who says everything so that he may be accepted of every one, laying up favour with every one in whatever / he says, and persuades all [men]; [it is] for these things that he is hated of every one, because he turns about and suppresses the things which he has prepared by means of the opposite. For he wants every one to persist in whatever things please any one, and whoever changes them as an enemy is as the enemy of every one. And they rejoice not and are [not] delighted at the things which they have prepared [so much] as contrariwise they surely blush at the very things which they have prepared. The others rejoice not at the things which delight him, for they suppose that they are outside the truth. But he makes [his] defence against those who have exalted themselves against him as against an enemy of the truth, namely on behalf of the faith of the Easterns, and he has not kept their own defence, such as it is, without an admixture [of falsehood].
Cyril. For because the confederates of the impiety of Arius, in impiously adulterating the power of the truth, say that the Word which [proceeded] from God became indeed man but made use of a soulless body,----but they do this craftily, that, in distinguishing human sayings [as] his and proving to those whom they deceive that he was in a state of inferiority to the sublimity of the Father, they might say that he was [of] another nature than he----therefore the Easterns, fearing this that perhaps then the glory of the nature of God the Word might be made inferior by reason of the things which are humanly spoken on account of the incarnation with / the flesh, distinguish the sayings, not dividing the one Son and Lord into two prosôpa, as I have said, but distinguishing [some] of them indeed [as belonging] unto his divinity and [others] of |324 them again [as belonging] unto his humanity, but all of them however [as belonging] unto one.
Nestorius. For if they attribute the divine and the human sayings unto the one nature of God the Word as diverse only in sayings, how do they escape from saying that the human [attributes] belong to the ousia of God the Word? But concerning the human [attributes] thou hast said that they [exist] not solely, [and] that they are indeed alien to the nature of the Father, seeing that he is one. For he is not another in nature in saying [alone], but also in ousia. For the ousia of man, as thou hast said, is the ousia of God: 'He is God and man.' [He is] then alien to the Father in every way whatsoever and he is inferior in everything according to thy own imagination, since thou imaginest that he is man also in the one same ousia. For drive not by force, thinking yourselves wise, though you are not so in the truth. They have distinguished the sayings, that they may be supposed to distinguish them as it were between two natures of ousias, and they are blamed for an attempt against God the Word [in saying] that these are imagined without ousia in respect to the natures in idea alone, as thou feignest to call the ones and the others. But the others distinguish these sayings / as though between two natures which exist by ousia, as in truth they exist. And they reject the calumny of the Arians against God the Word; for he who joins naturally the two [kinds of] sayings to the one nature and the same ousia, aids and abets the Arians in every way whatsoever, [teaching] that God the Word [is] alien to God the Father. |325
Cyril. This is not unknown to thy Saintliness, that, in casting upon my letters the faults of the idea[s] of Apollinarius, they have supposed also that I say [that] the holy body of Christ was without a soul and that there was a mixing and a confusion and an intermingling and a change of God the Word with the flesh, or that the flesh was transformed into the nature of the divinity so that naught was preserved pure and that [the flesh] was not what it is. But with this they have supposed that I was implicated also in the blasphemies of Arius in that I was not willing to acknowledge the diversity of the sayings and to say that [some] of them are suitable to God but [others] of them [are] human and suitable rather to the dispensation with the flesh. But thy Perfection bears witness for me unto the others that I am far from such things as these; but I ought however to defend myself before those who have been scandalized, and for this [reason] I have written unto thy Piety that I have never been reconciled to the [teaching] of the adherents of Arius or of the adherents of Apollinarius and that I say not that God the Word was converted into the flesh nor that the flesh was altered / into the nature of the divinity, because the Word of God is unchangeable and invariable and incomprehensible in all things. Nor again have I ever abolished the diversity of the sayings, but I know that our Lord speaks at the same time divinely and humanly, because he is at the same time God and man. |326
Nestorius. How hast thou said all these things which are supposed against me because thou wouldest not acknowledge the distinction between the sayings, when thou hast not abolished the diversity of the sayings? How art thou supposed, after what thou hast not abolished, to be reconciled to the [views] of Arius or to those of Apollinarius: that God the Word was changed into the flesh or the flesh was changed into the nature of the divinity? For in that thou makest [it thy] defence that some persons suspect thee of being unwilling to acknowledge the diversity of the sayings, by the very cause of [this] defence thou accusest thyself, as though thou hast given cause for them to suspect thee. But in those things, whereby thou defendest thyself, saying 'I have not abolished the diversity of the sayings', thou accusest thine own self both in the eyes of those who suspected thee, and especially in the eyes of Acacius, without any occasion for suspicion, as indeed he had accepted these very sayings which formerly thou usest not to accept. Either how knowest thou of thyself that I have not abolished the diversity of the sayings, while thou art supposed [to have done] / the contrary? Or how hast thou said that God the Word was not changed into the flesh and the flesh not into God the Word and [that] the diversity is only [one] of the sayings and not indeed of ousias, and that the ousia of the divinity persisted in its very nature and the ousia of the flesh persisted in the very ousia of the |327 flesh, if their ousias were not changed? Or how assigncst thou human and divine [attributes] unto the one nature of God the Word, in such wise that God the Word is in the same [ ousia ] God and man and was not changed into the flesh or into man? For it is impossible that both of them should be in the same ousia, when the one ousia is not as also the other [is], or perhaps becomes not existent. And is it what it became and is it changed into what it became, that is, into the ousia of man, or [is] the ousia of man [changed] into the ousia of God? If God and man are in one and the same ousia and in one nature, while the distinction into two is suppressed, how are the ousia of the flesh and the ousia of God in their being without being changed, since they are not to be conceived in the natures wherein they are without change? Yet if indeed they are conceived without change, how are they which are two not conceived [as] two? How is the distinction into two abolished and suppressed? How would these, even though it were a stone or a demon to whom naught that was pleasing was pleasant, not move and sink / to the perception of their baseness? For he proclaims that the work is his own and, like those that are surely mad, that he does all things and says this and that and other things and all things and nothing. But he makes all men adhere, however, to absurdities such as these, though they understand neither what they are saying nor what they are affirming. For they have not one and the same idea concerning the same thing, but they deny and persist in those things which they deny that they confess, as though they are indeed the true faith and cling in [their] faith to the things which are not of the faith and believe not the things which are evident and are confessed by all men. For the faith is one thing and the nature is another; for he who says that the things which are evident and known in respect to the ousia are something else in respect to the faith, suppresses not the [properties residing] in the nature but seeks to persuade [men] of those which are not in the nature. But that which is in the nature is compulsorily that which the prosopon is. For example, [in] what he says of the bread: ' It is my |328 body ,' he says not that the bread is not bread and that his body is not a body, but he has said demonstrably bread and body, which is in the ousia. But we are persuaded that the bread is bread in nature and in ousia. Yet in believing that the bread is his body / by faith and not by nature, he seeks to persuade us to believe in that which exists not in ousia in such wise that it becomes this by faith and not in ousia. If it is [a question of the] ousia, what is the faith worth? For he has not said: 'Believe that the bread is bread,' because every one who sees the bread itself knows that it is bread, nor further does he make it be believed that the body is body; for it is seen and known of every one. But in that which it is not he requires us to believe that this is [so], in such wise that it becomes this by faith to them that believe. Therefore it is not possible that the [properties residing] in the ousia should be one thing and another in one [thing] of which we should believe that it is said to be another, though it exists not in its own ousia, that they may become two and be alien to one another in the ousia. But he who therein suppresses the ousia, therewith suppresses that too which is conceived by faith.
Therefore also it is not in any way pleasing that we should openly make use indeed of what he thus says; for surely he is deceiving [us], since he accepts and suppresses these things so that he proves to every one that there are [views] true and false, both of orthodoxy and of heresy, in him; and I have obeyed him as one [would do] in what he requires. Nor have they been able to prove in any of those things which have been said by me that I am an heretic, but he has proved me / in all the [doctrines] of orthodoxy. And the things which he stirred not up in the beginning, he had stirred up in the [arguments] wherewith he defended himself, as he has now also defended himself on behalf of the Easterns, howbeit boldly and cunningly. But some one will say: 'Why have the Easterns accepted the deposition of thine Impiety whereof they accuse thee, although however thou hast taughtnothing at all alien [to the faith]? But they too seem to accuse [him] of the same things whereof thou accusest him |329 and they set aside these things while accepting also those very things, and there is nothing more. . . .' For we ought to ask the one and the others likewise concerning these things. But if you are willing to learn even from me, I will speak of that which [has become known] gradually unto every one, not that I may be accepted and helped by men----for I neglect for my part all human things, since I have died unto the world and I am living unto whom I am living----but I will speak because of those who have been scandalized, not of myself nor after my own [words], but after this man himself whom Christ has constrained to make defence on my behalf. For they have said naught else except that they have been constrained by the command of the Emperor to accept all these things.
Cyril. The bishops at Constantinople have said: 'The pious bishop John must anathematize / the teaching of Nestorius and confess in writing his deposition.'
Nestorius. Therefore until then, according to the bishop of Antioch and according to the Easterns and according to the orthodox bishops, I was bishop.
Cyril. As then the pious Emperor agreed with them very joyfully therein, my lord the admirable tribune and secretary Aristolaus was sent for the correction of this [business]. But when the command of the Emperor was |330 shown unto the Easterns, as though it had been [issued] by the will of the holy bishops who were assembled in Constantinople the capital, they were assembled----I know not what they thought----with the saintly and pious Acacius, bishop of Aleppo, and made him write unto me about the manner of the reconciliation of the peace of the churches; [that] it ought not to take place otherwise except in so far as it seemed good unto them. But this demand was hard and serious; for they were requiring that all the things should be suppressed which had been written [by me] in letters and books and writings.
Concerning what had taken place after the enforced peace .
Nestorius. Until then, when they wrote these things, the other also was [to be found] among the heretics, when every one, and not [only] certain individuals, knew and was blaming the things which were written by him. The hand was [the Emperor's] which led them by force, while there was / nought at [my] disposal to be done against what they were requiring. For all those who hear us have understood----for [many a] one used to suffer with us owing to the violence which took place by the command of the Emperor----that they have brought me |331 to [such] an extremity as this. But some one will grow angry, [asking] for what reason they abode not by the things which they once judged. For they are but slightly busied, [in taking measures] against what has been carried out against me for the sake of the correction and the confession of the faith and the agreement of the churches. Like the manner, however, of a tyrant when he comes to capture and cannot take a city, but for the declaration of peace seeks to procure the death of him who is fighting for them against him, that, when he has procured it, it may be defeated, thus the latter too has asked for my deposition to be granted without judgement. Let this be [so]. It concerns not me [to busy myself] with what has been carried out against me, but only that there may be peace among the churches. And I endure all things for the ordering of the churches. But all things have happened to the contrary.
For after he [had] received that for which he was anxious, he both reduced them under his hand for the sake of an apparent peace and knew that he profited naught by what was carried out against me; but the confession of the faith, for the sake of which there was war against me, was confirmed. And it had been evident that there was enmity and violence and that it was a proof of the things which were taking place and that it would be possible for them also easily to be kept secret. But, that this might not take place, and further that my own enemies / might not become his accusers, [namely] those who had formerly aided him in the things which were carried out against me, he began to be drawn towards the confession of the faith, showing himself wise and making sport of the two sides with contrary confessions [of faith]. But they accurately examined and knew that certain among them were become enfeebled and had suffered many things, without even having been accounted worthy of any aid. And for this reason they were not easily breaking the peace which they [had] made as a result of the writings which were written by them from one side and another, desiring to be left in the same [circumstances], that they might think thus. But |332 because he had been accused by those who were clinging to his [side] and were confessing [the same faith] with him as one who went beyond the common opinion and had destroyed alone the zeal of all of them by his authority and by his disdain of them, he feared lest they should be alienated from him or rise up against him, and he was zealous to perform more than they were requiring.
And like the manner of those who are taken in war, [who,] seeking to prove that they are like-minded with their captors, spare not friends nor sons nor fathers in order that they may make them believe that they hate their [own] race, so also he immediately inclined himself to rise up against the Fathers who aforetime had passed away, against Diodorus and Theodorus, who were the common Fathers [of all] both while they were living / and when they [had] passed away, both his own [Fathers] and ours the same. Although he designated them, with whom he used to participate, as the enemies of every man and was clinging to the very Fathers and to the orthodox, yet he had even obtained with all zeal their own labours on behalf of the faith and had commanded [them] to be sent unto all. Yet, while he sought however to persuade [men] that he held not back against me out of hatred, he was seeking to anathematize those against whom no one would have expected nor even [have made bold] to suppose that he would have dared any such thing. And, what is baser than all things, he destroyed the sermons which were published against Apollinarius and supported those of Apollinarius, saying, 'It is the faith of the Church'. [Do you ask] on which party one would lean: on the party of Apollinarius, or that of the holy Fathers in all the world whom also all the world glorifies and whom it has reckoned with the single zeal as [of] a common mouth against Apollinarius and Arius and Macedonius and Eunomius and all the heresies, or on the side of Apollinarius? Suppose that I, who have not been obedient in the things which thou hast required of me, have been an enemy unto thee; for what reason dost thou war on my account with those who have passed away in orthodoxy? Or perhaps thou |333 warrest on account of them who [are] with me? / But, that I may speak the truth, thou warrest with every man because of thine impiety in all things.
Tell me: Were there not Basil and Gregory in the days of Diodorus? Were there not also at Alexandria bishops known for [their] conduct and for [their] words? Were there not at Rome accomplished men who would suffice to stand up on behalf of the churches? And were not they who were doctors in all the world [sufficient] to stand up on behalf of the churches, men who were not [living] in luxury and in glory and in honour and in pleasure, but in persecutions and in distress and in wars and in fear, who had preserved and kept the true faith without wavering, [rather] than he who was an heretic and deceived----that is Diodorus, who was in every man's mouth and is handed down in books and was a [cause of] fear unto heretics, who by the word of doctrine and by divine grace raised himself up against the commands of [his] Majesty for the people of God and let them not perish but increased them manifold, and the whole concord of the churches was won by him? Then he was not an heretic neither for them of that time nor yet for thee thyself nor for thy [followers] nor yet during the disturbance itself which thou madest against me. But after thou wast encouraged and wast entered [on the way] whereon thou wast entered and [hadst] reached this tyrannical agreement, then were Diodorus and Theodorus and the rest of the others / become heretics in thine eyes. For the way was becoming [open] before thee also against Basil and Gregory and Athanasius and Ambrose and against the rest of the others who at the same time said the same things.
Who is there who would not groan that this idea was come [to pass]: that, encouraged by the commands of [his] Majesty and by fear and by punishments, they were constraining the Easterns and, after the peace, were dragging and bringing them like captives and pressing round them to make them anathematize their Fathers? They reached this peace and this unanimity: thus they thought one thought, thus they rested from the suffering of wrongs, when they [had] delivered me |334 over to my enemy. Because they were fearful, they were saying that it was better that one man should suffer injury and [that] the faith should prevail. But would indeed that this had been true! How this would not irk me! But on the contrary I should have surely rejoiced when aught for which they were eager was receiving correction. But on the contrary they had suffered for [the words] which they allowed me [to say] and for the things which they let be said and further [for those] which people allowed them not to say, though I myself was saying them, and for which they had cast me out. And after that they fought against Theodore and after him against Diodorus and then also against every single / one of the rest of the others, and they were intent on the same intention, having set themselves to drive them out with me, as indeed they were saying those very things and naught else. And they ought either to drive them out with me for the same [reasons] or to accept me, even me, and to accept them too. But they dared not say that I should be accepted, because they had once driven me out; and it would have been necessary also for them, though grieving, to drive them out and afterwards for these same [reasons] to drive out also the others themselves, because those others were imagining and teaching the same things, and [saying] that these things were true. And with this boldness he hoped to rise up against all the saints to accept [their doctrine] and thereupon to invert and to alter the things which he [had] received.
For this man himself showed his [true] self after the original confession [of the faith], both gradually adding and subtracting and saying the same things; and he denied therein the compulsion and the authority, acting and scheming until he suppressed [the doctrine] that those whereof Christ is are two natures; and he placed the natures in the names and not in the ousias and imposed the confession of one nature as if by law. Then, in striving to undo and to overthrow those who predicated two natures, [he attacked,] not indeed all of them at the |335 same time, but / in the first place certain men, in order that, when he [had] prevailed against the latter, he might go to war little by little against the rest of them, as against persons who were saying these [same] things as the others. For those too of whom they were making use in [bearing] witness to what the others [had] said, were saying those very things----and this is not a new discovery----[and] he was driving them out as heretics. And I too say these [same] things as those [others], and thus they confess as heretics! And they and all of them at the same time were increasing this very depravity of impiety in the face of every one. For he was not citing the [words] of the orthodox and of those doctors who [were] before me so as to prove that I am an heretic, but on the contrary he was taking my own [words] against them that he might prove that they [were] heretics, because the things which were said by them were like unto mine. But let us show also the things which were coming to pass after these things and took [their] beginning therefrom.
[Selected footnotes. Note that all the Greek given from Labbe is omitted]
1. Viz. Cyril.
2. Viz. Candidianus.
3. So marked in the Syriac text as the heading of a new section.
4. Viz. Cyril.
5. Viz. Cyril.
6. No new paragraph is marked here in the Syriac text.
7. Viz. Theodotus.