. . . . and first laying down the names of the two natures which indicate that these are common, without the Sonship |142 or the Lordship being separated and without the natures, in the union of the Sonship, coming into danger of corruption and of confusion.
Observe then first who reduces and takes away from the deposit which has been laid down by the fathers, but lets not [anyone else] steal aught therefrom. This man [it is] who has made no mention of the beginning and avoided the beginning and made a beginning which they laid not down but in this wise passed over the beginning and wished not to make a beginning therefrom, whereas [it is] I who have established the things which the fathers rightly said, and I said that we would make a beginning from here showing also the cause wherefore they first laid down the names which are common to the divinity and the humanity and then built up thereon the tradition of the Incarnation and of the Sufferings and of the Resurrection, 'first laying down the names of the two natures which indicate that these are common, without the Sonship or the Lordship being separated and without the natures, in the union of the Sonship, coming into danger of corruption and of confusion.' Why then / hast thou passed by these things as superfluous, as things which ought not to be said? Was it because thou didst suppose that it was the same and people ought not to speak thus, but that it was enough for them to begin thence whence thou didst begin and didst make a beginning and correct them? But those [fathers] anathematize those who make additions or diminutions, but they have done improperly and not according to the opinion of the fathers. But he gave a contrary explanation when I said unto |143 him that 'this is the beginning and thence rather ought we to begin whence I have admonished thee'. But he was disputing against me as though in his wisdom he were teaching all men lest through their ignorance they should fall short of this impiety. For what reason then, when thou didst lay down the faith, didst thou also not begin from here whence they began as touching that which was under inquiry? For we were searching how we ought naturally to understand and to speak of these properties of the flesh and of the rational soul and of the properties of God the Word, seeing that [either] they both belonged by nature to God the Word, or to Christ, so that both natures were united by the very union of one prosôpon. But I said and affirmed that the union is in the one prosôpon of the Messiah, and I made known in every way that God the Word was made man and that God the Word was at the same time in the humanity, / in that Christ was made man in it. And for this reason the fathers, in teaching us what Christ is, about whom they used to dispute, laid down first those things which constitute Christ; but thou [actest] in the reverse way, because thou wishest that in the two natures God the Word should be the prosôpon of union. Thou allowest these things [to pass] as superfluous and thou makest a beginning after them, as they do; and thou transferrest from the one unto the other all those things of which Christ is naturally [formed] and said. And since the Christ of the fathers is the opposite of thine, thou hast declined to acknowledge him and thou sayest with me, though thou wishest not, that Christ is in two natures but that God the Word is not in two natures.
But hear [an extract] from what he has written unto me, that you may know that there is nothing just in him but that he is arranging in everything that there may not be a judgement and an examination, which would make known his enmity toward me, which was not on account of the faith.
Diverse are the natures which have come unto a true union; but from them both [there has resulted] one Christ and Son, not because the diversity in the natures has been |144 abolished by reason of the union, but because they have perfected for us rather one Lord and Messiah and Son.
Not indeed as though the ousia of God the Word who remains eternally as he is and receives neither addition nor diminution, was perfected in a change of natures; / but owing to the concourse of the union of the divinity and of the humanity there came into being one Christ and not God the Word; for he exists eternally. Christ therefore is the prosôpon of the union, whereas God the Word is not of the union but in his own nature, and it is not the same thing to say and to understand [the one for the other]. And for this reason, O admirable man, the fathers also, adhering to the Divine Scriptures, have said 'One Lord Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son', on account of the prosôpon of the union, and then teach what those who are united are, and in whom. Who is he who was born of the Father only-begotten? Our Lord Jesus Christ. 'The only-begotten Son of God, that is, from the ousia of God the Father. God from God and Light of Light, Very God of Very God, born and not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all that is in heaven and in earth was [made].' Of whom have you spoken, O fathers? Of something else or him [of] whom you have written before, 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God'? Who is this and of whom? Of the Father, 'Very God of Very God, born and not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all was [made], who on account of us men and on account of our salvation came down. Who is this? Tell me and him and all men, O fathers. What is he? Another / or the Only-begotten? Him we teach you and none other, who 'on account of us men and on account of our salvation came down and was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, who also was made man'. Thus far, then, that 'He came down, was made flesh and was made |145 man', they have taught us about those things which concern the divinity of Christ: and in 'He was made flesh' about his union with the flesh; but for the rest, about the flesh wherein he was made flesh: 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.' For does not 'of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary' teach us concerning the birth of the flesh? 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.' What is his nature? That which his Mother also was, of whom the passible flesh was born. And 'He suffered and rose on the third day and ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead'. Who is this? 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father.' They call him both things: 'consubstantial with the Father' and 'consubstantial with the mother, one Lord Jesus Christ', [speaking not of] God the Word as in both [ ousias ] by nature, but of 'one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God'. For the union is in the prosôpon and not in the nature nor in the ousia, but a union indeed of ousias, namely, the ousia of God the Word and the ousia of the flesh; and they were united not in the ousia ----for God the Word and the flesh became not one ousia and the two ousias became not flesh----[but] God the Word and the flesh [were so united]. And thou dost confess all these things with me / when thou sayest that the natures of the divinity and of the humanity are diverse and that the two natures remain in their own ousia and that their diversities are not made void by the union of the natures; for the two natures complete one Christ and not one God.
Of what then dost thou accuse me? Speak before all those who read our words. For I say this, and when thou hast spoken and confessed [this], thee too I have praised for what thou hast said, in that in thy discourse thou hast made a distinction between the divinity and the humanity and [hast united] them in the conjunction of one prosôpon; and [I have praised] thy saying that God the Word had not need of a second birth from a woman and that the divinity admits not of sufferings; faithfully hast thou spoken; and these [are the words] of those who are correct in their faith and are opposed to the wrong faith of all the heresies concerning |146 the Lord's nature. Where then have I said that Christ was a mere man or two Christs and that there was not one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, of the union of the two natures one prosôpon? And even unto thee thyself I have said, as brother unto brother, that we should not distinguish the union nor the prosôpon which [results] from the union. Nor again do we begin from God the Word, as from a prosôpon of union, but from him from whom the fathers began, who were wiser than thou and who were excellently acquainted with the Divine Scriptures. And see how / they tear up as from the foundation and destroy all those things which effect a change. For if thou referrest all the properties of the flesh to God the Word, see that, after stealing, as thou hast said, the properties of the natures, thou dost not say those things which the three hundred and eighteen fathers have with one voice and with one mouth and with one conscience rejected: that there was when God the Word was not, that is, [that] when his flesh was not, then God the Word was not; that is, that, before his flesh was born, he was not. In that thou hast said that he made for himself all the properties, so then God the Word was born of things which were not, because his flesh was [formed] of things which were not, unless thou darest to say that the flesh itself has eternallyexisted and sayest that God the Word was of another hypostasis and another ousia, and not of that of the Father but of that of which the flesh was, and [that] God the Word is changeable and corruptible on account of his flesh which is therein. For the fathers anathematize those who predicate these of God the Father.
Now God the Word is not of them both in ousia, nor again is God the Word in flesh, nor is God the Word of two nor is God the Word two natures. / For herein only, in his being co-essential with the Father, is God the Word conceived. For he was made flesh and was revealed in flesh; but if he was made flesh in the flesh, it is evident that [it was] in that flesh which had been made, and he who was made flesh in |147 that which was made made not his own ousia the flesh, so as to make the properties of the nature of the ousia of the flesh his own properties, but with a view to the revelation he carried out all the operations of his prosôpon. For he made use of the likeness and of the prosôpon of a servant, not the ousia nor the nature, in such wise that he was by nature in them both, as being Christ. What therefore has carried him away to find another way and a beginning apart from that which the fathers had made, so that he came to anathematize all those things which had been said by them and of necessity to say all those things which had been anathematized by them? But he first laid down the [words] of the fathers, as though he wished to convince them, and to say 'I have said the same things as they', and then to accuse me as though I spoke not in the same way as they. But after he found that I said the same as they and that I maintained their own [views], he began to lay down laws and to substitute those terms which they had not said, and to introduce them into the faith, persuading [every one] that he ought to embrace the latter instead of the former. For thus it was said of God the Word, when he said that he / existed before the worlds and was born of the Father and was born in flesh of a woman. But where have the fathers said that God the Word was born in flesh of a woman? Require him to state the deposit of the fathers which they have laid down for all men and to which also, thou hast well said, we ought to adhere in words and in faith. If then thou keepest thy promise in deeds, it is right; for he who has not spoken as the fathers have spoken is guilty. Prove then that the fathers have spoken this word, then condemn me with an anathema in the manner of one who has transgressed the books and the deposit of the fathers, although ten thousand times I have excused myself and said that I imagined not otherwise in mine imagination. Or if not, let not alone whosoever has defiled aught that the fathers have said in the terms which have been fixed by them. For those terms which |148 have been fixed by them ought by all means to be observed, although we have often neglected to explain them; for if any one otherwise makes use of them, such as they are, [he ought to do so,] not as with a view to suppression nor as with a view to change nor as with a view to transformation, but that he may preserve therein with me such an opinion as is correct, I mean, that of the fathers.
What then hast thou to prove concerning this? Did I make wrong use of the word which is in the deposit of the fathers and ought I to beg for an explanation? Prove unto me that God the Word was born / in flesh of a woman and then explain how thou understandest that he was born. For if thou presupposest it and if thou explainest what has been laid down by thee, thou art not accepted by those who accept the [words] of the fathers; they are without diminution and for this reason they admit neither addition nor diminution nor change. For he who explains also establishes those things which have been written and surely does not suppress them. And if I have made wrong use of the words of the fathers----I who would have persuaded [every one] by words not to call the holy virgin the mother of God nor would have called Christ God and thou hast been constrained to come against me----prove unto me first that I said these things before certain men who duly examined us and not before those who inclined unto thy side; for thou hast conquered before the latter and thou hast made use of them as though they had neither reason nor soul; and thou hast not presented mine own letter, wherein I disputed against thee, as before men. lest thou shouldest confuse the words of the fathers; but that thou mightest confess one Lord Jesus Christ consubstantial with the Father, none other but one and the same who is one prosôpon of the two natures: of the divinity and of the humanity, Lord and Christ; and this also hast thou confessed. It was not therefore because I confessed not that Christ himself----who is also God, and none other than God the Word, consubstantial / ----is God, but because I confess that he is also |149 man. If it were that this is so and I had not thus confessed, in teaching I should have added that Christ is God and consubstantial with the Father and at the same time also man consubstantial with us. I should not have cursorily passed over the prosôpon of the union and the ousia of the divinity, as if I were to begin from the common prosôpon of the divinity and of the humanity as if from one ousia of God the Word, which they both were; but I should have referred to him naturally all the things which concern him and which concern his flesh, since he is both of them by ousia.
Why then dost thou falsely charge the fathers with that which they say not? And why again dost thou persuade those who are unwilling to accept anything apart from the deposit of the fathers to accept thine own rather than that of the fathers? But recollect thyself and read and know and see that they have not said this and that we have not transgressed them as ignorant or as wicked men; but thou findest not that those who have written for thee have said that he who was born of the Father was born in flesh of a woman, if they have mentioned at all the birth from a woman. How then sayest thou, O calumniator, that 'we have found that the holy fathers thought thus and that they thus were confident in calling the holy virgin the mother of God. Thus we say that he both / suffered and rose'? First prove unto us that the fathers called her the mother of God or that God the Word was born in flesh or that he was born at all and at the same time both suffered and died and rose, and explain unto us how they say that God suffered and rose. But if it has surely been fabricated by thee, and thou art calumniating [the fathers], how can anyone without doubt admit the rest of thesethings? Forthou hast made them all doubtful, because thou hast not said those things which the fathers have said but hast changed even the very term. For although thou hast supposed the same thing that they make known and there is no single distinction between 'the Lord and Jesus Christ' and 'God the Word', and though thou |150 makest known the same thing by this term or by that, thou oughtest not to have made changes but to have explained and made clear and to have made use of terms which have been laid down by the fathers. But thou couldest not by those terms prove God the Word passible and mortal, and for this reason thou makest use of this term whereby thou canst carry away those who know not what each one of them signifies.
Thus also we understand 'He died'; for God the Word is immortal indeed in his nature and incorruptible and quick and quickening; but, further, because his body by the grace of God, as Paul has said, has tasted death for every man, it is said that he bore death for us.
By / whom [is this said]? By thee or by the fathers? Speak, deceive not the hearers by means of the fathers, by thy statements that thou agreest with their words and their teaching. Read therefore: where have they said that God the Word suffered? But thou sayest that Divine Scripture has said that God the Word suffered; read and dissemble not. But it exists not for thee to read. For what purpose then dost thou calumniate the fathers? Or why dost thou take the faith of the fathers as a means for deceiving and forestalling those who believe simply and without investigating? Makest thou sport of those who read as men who reflect not? Or correctest thou the faith of the fathers, who have not written what they ought to have written? For thou first layest it down and thou sayest that we ought to agree thereto in words and in faith; but thou adherest not at all thereto and hast not even observed the order of the text nor begun whence the fathers began, and in addition to these things thou hast referred [to God the Word] all those things which have been said by them. And thou hast neither feigned to make use of the same terms nor hast thou adhered to their teaching. For |151 'created' and 'made' and 'passible' and 'mortal' and all such things as the fathers repudiate thou hast predicated of the ousia of God the Word, of whom are predicated all those things which belong unto the Father in his own ousia and who exists. For thou maintainest that we should so speak as those men who have not spoken, and then, to be sure, thou explainest / not, even though indeed thou wouldest preclude God the Word from being called passible and mortal, but so as to persuade men to say the things, the saying of which the fathers have refused. Thus we confess one Lord Christ who took his name at birth from the blessed Mary but is indeed man, yea even in the death, yea even in the resurrection, yea even in the ascension, yea even in his coming from Heaven; of all these things thou now strippest him. 'Thus', thou sayest, 'we confess one Christ and Lord', as thou thyself sayest. We shall then confess that which has not been confessed:
Not indeed as though we adore the man with the Word, lest thou shouldest introduce a semblance of separation in that we have said 'with', but we adore him as one and the same, because his body is not alien unto him, with which he also is seated with the Father.
Either he has said it through the blindness of his intellect or he has been compelled by the necessity of God to fall into that whereat he is vexed in others and into [incurring] the same reprimand.
For he has used the [word] 'with' twice, in that he has said |152 ' with him who is seated with the Father'. For the [word] with' is not said of one but [of one] with another, and the one, who is with the other, is seated with the Father; how will he not introduce a semblance of separation? He says 'the body' and 'his own body' and 'seated with him' and causes not the semblance of a separation! By 'one and the same God the Word' he understands also his body; and he understands / the body and again he does not understand the body; and he understands that his body is with him and he does not understand that his body is with him but understands it [to be] alone; and he understands that he is seated with it with the Father and again does not understand that it is seated with the Father, but he understands him [to be] alone. Who could tell his ineffable wisdom? But he has taken it for him, not as though again two sons were sitting but one, owing to the union with his flesh.
And further thou hast said: 'Thou hast raised the semblance of a cleavage when thou givest to imagine one with another'. But [it is] in the union. Of whom? Of Christ? Then the prosôpon of the union is Christ, but thou sayest that he has taken for him that with which he also was seated with the Father. . . . Thou hast put a prosôpon in it itself; why therefore dost thou make [it] void, as if it had been unrighteously said that it also is seated with him with the Father? Or as if by this [word] 'with' thou hadst been forced to understand that he is so, and it were possible that thou understandest or imaginest correctly, in confessing that not two sons were seated but one owing to the union with his flesh. And thou makest void this [word] 'with', that men may not imagine two. But if that which thou hast said be impious for thee, return again to this chapter which thou hast omitted, for it is its aim. For what hast thou written? Hast thou not clearly disproved [thy statement] that we ought not to write 'with'; and hast thou written that 'He is seated / with it with the Father '? For he who says these things says that two sons are seated, but thou disprovest that men ought |153 not to imagine that two sons are seated. And thus in the deposit which has been laid down thou allowest that which signifies two sons, but thou sayest that we ought not to conceive two sons, but two are of necessity conceived, as it is supposed according to thine own opinion. But it is otherwise deposited and to be said, and two sons are not to be conceived. Of what dost thou accuse me, who say that two are united in one Son, whereby I wished to show the inconfusion of the natures in the union, in making use of the qualities of the natures? I seek not to make as it were two sons nor again the dissolution of the union, but I make use of one prosôpon of union as [formed] of the two ousias, as also Divine Scripture signifies. But by one ousia thou signifiest two ousias. But if I were to say the things which thou sayest, it would appear to thee an impiety. But if thou didst have confidence to read the things, thou didst read them for thyself and not for them[selves], things which cannot be examined in that way, if in piety. Thou hast further shunned also an examination by the whole Council, because thou didst judge that these [views] had no accurate defence. And as I was not [there], / what thou saidest well unto them thou saidest for my sake, and what thou saidest wrongly against thyself [was] thus again also for my sake. For if this word 'with' hinders there being one Son and his being seated with his flesh with the Father, there are not two adorations of one Son because he is adored with it, since he who is seated with that which is alien is adored in one adoration; for there is a union in the natures----and thou also confessest [it] with me----but the distinction of the natures is not made void on account of the union. For it was right for me to say many times those words which have been well said; then thou art astonished, when thou hearest that which is mine in thine: that there was indeed no union which proved not a diversity, as [is shown by] the adoration of 'Him who is seated [at the right hand of the Father]'. But thou takest as the starting-point of thy narrative the Maker of the natures and not the prosôpon of union. Either then avoid saying two natures united without confusion; or confess and say these things, and it will not appear an impossibility unto thee to |154 predicate one in the union and another in that which concerns the ousia, not in that which concerns the union of the prosôpon.
But if we decline the hypostatic union as being either incomprehensible or as unseemly, we fall into predicating two sons: for it is necessary to distinguish and to say of man / alone that he is honoured with the name of son, but also of God the Word alone that he possesses the title and the functions of the sonship naturally. It is not right then to distinguish two sons in one Lord Jesus Christ.
I have said unto thee also in the letter that I do not know [the meaning of] the things which have been said by thee. And thou feignest to be repentant; thou hast not dissembled those things which thou wast fairly prepared to say afterwards. And when thou oughtest to have made answer concerning these things and to write and to persuade and to reprimand the calumniators openly, thou hast risen up against thyself and me and hast neglected the fathers and the Holy Scriptures. Why dost thou wish that there should be an hypostatic union, which makes us neither understand that there is [in the union] the ousia of man nor understand [that he is] man in nature but God the Word in nature, that is, God who is not in nature what he is in his nature through the hypostatic union, wherein there are no distinctions and definitions of the various [elements]. For this reason also this union is a union of those things which have been defined by the word ousia ; and if it be void, there is no more a union; but [it is the result] of a union, yet not a union. And if every definition of the natures is made void, how will the union not make void the distinctions of the natures? And if they are conceived neither in nature nor in a union, how hast thou said that he has made / the property of the flesh his own, since thou sayest that [he is] in the one indeed by nature but in the other by union? And it is his to have suffered indeed |155 in nature and to have died, because he has made them his own. How then hast thou sought to establish the hypostatic union? What is this unintelligible hypostatic union? Or how shall we accept it, the unintelligible? Or how hast thou understood it? How is it raised up though incomprehensible? And again, unseemly? Instruct us. But thou art not willing to instruct me. Thou hast supposed to thyself that the judges speak unto thee and persuade thee to instruct us and those who are like us, because we know not; and if not, instruct the whole Council. For neither thou nor the Council are capable of [understanding] the term 'union'. Because I also say 'union', yet thou acceptest not what I say, because I distinguish the union. If I say concerning things which have been united that they are corporeal in ousia and incorporeal in ousia, then [I say that] they are divided from one another: the one indeed as created, but the other as uncreated; the one indeed mortal and the other immortal; and the one eternal with the Father and the other created in the last times, and the one consubstantial with the Father and the other consubstantial with us; for the union makes not void the ousias which have been united in such wise that they are not to be known [apart].
/ Thou sayest unto me 'Thou distinguishest'; but verily thou also [dost likewise]; even in the very words to which thou hast recourse to accuse me, thou sayest as follows: 'Diverse are the natures which have come into a true union; yet from both of them [is formed] one Christ and Son, not as though the diversity of the natures had been removed because of the union.' Dost thou give us to imagine this even concerning the hypostatic union? Or [dost thou not speak] as one who distinguishes, saying that as a result of their diversities the natures which have been united are diverse; and [then] rush headlong into thy profession that thou introducest not a semblance of separation? And what do I mean by 'thou introduces a semblance of separation'? And what do I mean by 'a semblance'? Thou understandest the separation of the natures |156 as expressing the natures and not as a confusion, since there is not in thy mind any semblance of definition of the natures whereby to understand that they were united without confusion, even as the fire was united with the bush and the bush with the fire and they were not confused. Thou therefore showest them without definition and without distinction, whereas I show them defined and distinct from one another. If thou then speakest of the hypostatic union, speak clearly; for I confess to not understanding either then or now; thou needest to instruct me in such wise that I may agree with thee. Or if I accept not thy opinion, say that I accept it not, and if the judges / accept [it] of thee, let them convince me or let them condemn me as one for whom there is no getting rid of his wickedness.
Say therefore [what] the hypostatic union [is]. Dost thou wish to regard a hypostasis as a prosôpon , as we speak of one ousia of the divinity and three hypostases and understand prosôpa by hypostases? Thou callest therefore the prosôpic union hypostatic ; yet the union was not of the prosôpa but of the natures. For 'diverse are the natures which have come into a true union, yet from both of them [is formed] 'one Christ'. Understandest thou the one prosôpon of Christ rather than the hypostasis of the ousia and of the nature, in the same way as thou speakest of the form of his hypostasis |157 and the union of the natures? But I say that; and I praised thee for having said it and having made a distinction of the natures in the doctrine of the divinity and of the humanity and coherence of these in one prosôpon. For hast thou not said 'diversities without confusion' and 'it remained without diversity whereby it would be separated'. But even if thou dost not concede a diversity and that a diversity of natures, thou dost concede a natural separation without knowing it. But it was not a diversity which became a union, since the things which are therein remain without confusion, as the bush in the fire and the fire in the bush. But it appears not that thou sayest this, and thou dost rebuke me as one who accepts not the hypostatic union. But I am not persuaded of any other / hypostatic union with other natures nor of anything else which is right for the union of diverse natures except one prosôpon, by which and in which both the natures are known, while assigning their properties to the prosôpon. It is well to confess and be conformable to the tradition of the Gospels that the bodily frame is the temple of the divinity of God the Word and that the temple has been united by the supreme adherence of the divinity in such wise as to make over to the one the things which are the other's by the appropriation of the nature of the divinity, but not that he made them [both] his own ousia. What other hypostatic union, then, dost thou wish to teach me, which consists in a supreme and divine and ineffable union? I know not unless [it be that] of one prosôpon where the one is the other and the other the one. And for this reason I proclaim eagerly in every place that the things which are said either about the divinity or about the humanity must be taken not of the nature but of the prosôpon, so that there might be no unreality about the human qualities, [as there would be] if both of them were united in the ousia. For not in all things is he to be called in |158 ousia that which was in the ousia, but all those things which indicate the prosôpon of [the ousia\ And it is known that God the Word is said to have become flesh and the Son of man after the likeness and after the prosôpon of flesh and of man whereof he made use to make himself known unto the world. For all the things which are naturally / called flesh are not to be called also God the Word: as that he should come into being when he was not or was [formed] of that which was not or whatever the flesh is said [to have been] before it came into being, when it came into being and after it came into being, in the changes of growth and corruption, and in short consubstantial with ourselves. Because he is consubstantial with ourselves in everything, the things which are said of the ousia are not said of any thing else except only of this ousia, and he is called consubstantial [with us]; for in [the saying of] the things which are said of the prosôpon and of the likeness of the nature is said that which makes him known, as the prosôpon [makes known] the ousia . But that which exists naturally is not said [of God the Word], because the union took not place according to the ousia and the nature but according to the prosôpon. Thus also the flesh is not to be said [to be] all that God the Word is by nature; for it was not without beginning nor was it unmade nor was it incorporeal nor was it invisible nor was it consubstantial with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, although that which is called Son and Lord and God is also to be called flesh in this manner through the union, because the union came into being as touching the prosôpon of the Son of God, and neither the ousia nor the nature, but by means of the natures; and all things which belong to the prosôpon are its, except the ousia of the prosôpon, not according to the nature but according to the prosôpon.
/ What other hypostatic union, then, dost thou predicate, as if saying that I accept it not, either as incomprehensible or as unseemly, and [that] for this reason I have fallen into speaking of two Christs: the one man who is honoured under the title of Son and then apart [from him] God the Word, who possesses naturally the name and function of sonship? How can he who in the union speaks of one Son, one Christ, |159 one Lord, distinctly speak apart of one Son, God, and one other, and thus of two sons? For again that would not be called a union but each one of the natures [by itself] in its own ousia. For neither is God the Word said to have become flesh in his own ousia but by union with the flesh, nor is the flesh called Son apart from the union with the Son of God. For this reason there is one flesh in them both and one Son in them both. For he whose it is by the union to exist and to be spoken of neither exists nor is spoken of in the definition and the distinction [of each] from one another. As God the Word is by his nature God incorporeal, nevertheless in the union with the flesh he is called flesh, and the flesh which is in its nature bodily frame and in its ousia also bodily frame, is yet God and Son by the union with God the Word the Son of God. There are said to be neither two fleshes nor again two sons: those which are distinct by nature and exist by the union of the natures. Among / men, in fact, many who are sons are [so] called by the distinction and by the division of the natures, those unto every one of whom [sonship] is given only by grace and adoption, as honour is given by the Emperor unto every one of the princes. For that which exists only in its own hypostasis belongs also unto many as by grace. For he exists in his hypostasis and has made it the likeness of his likeness, neither by command nor by honour nor simply by equality of grace, but he has made it his likeness in its natural likeness, in such wise that it is none other than that very [thing] which he has taken for his own prosôpon, so that the one might be the other and the other the one, one and the same in the two ousias , a prosôpon fashioned by the flesh and fashioning the flesh in the likeness of its own sonship in the two natures, and one flesh in the two natures, the one fashioned by the other and the other by the one, the same and the single likeness of the prosôpon.
I know not therefore in what sense thou predicatedst the hypostatic union in such wise that it is incomprehensible or unseemly, in order that I may admit or not admit [it]; and has he for this reason been defined and called solely man by the title or by the honour |160 of a son, and then again apart the Word which is from God, to which belongs naturally sonship and name and title?
But what meanest thou by 'uniquely'? / State clearly the deposit of the faith of the fathers and set down the things which are alike both for me and for every one to say, for thou hast not made clear the meaning which we ought to mean and to state. How sayest thou that the nature of man cannot be understood 'uniquely', especially apart from the ousia of God the Word, which is Son not by nature but by union? But also thou sayest that there are diversities in the natures which have been combined in the union of one Son; but the diversity is not voided through the union of the natures; it is not as though the diversity of the natures were made void because of the union. If then the distinctions of the natures have not been annulled, the nature of the flesh appertains solely to the nature of the humanity. But that which is Son consubstantial with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit uniquely and solely appertains to the divinity; for by the union the flesh is son and God the Word is flesh. And for this reason whoever speaks thus neither predicates two sons nor predicates two fleshes, nor predicates two fleshes in the nature nor yet of the flesh in the one and of the sonship in the other, but makes use of the same in the natural prosôpa of each of them in what is their own, as the fire was in the bush and the bush was fire and the fire bush and each of them was bush and fire and not two bushes nor two fires, since / they were both in the fire and they were both in the bush, not indeed in division but in union. From the two natures there come into being the natural prosôpa. Either then speak not of distinct natures when they remain in the distinctions of the natures and are not made void, or say that they have remained the diversity of the natures, or thou shouldest define them as a distinction of natures in an inseparable union, not indeed as diversities of nature made void by the union. . . |161
For if then thou understandest them uniquely and not in the natures but in their mutual distinction, of what am I guilty who confess the indistinguishable union of the two natures in one prosôpon? And I am addressing my words unto thee as unto one who is in doubt concerning these things. But predicatest thou but one nature of the hypostatic union in such wise that after the union the natures preserve not their properties? And thou correctest the things which were formerly said by thee, but especially thou dost surely declare them void as a result of the examination against me, in wishing to say the contrary of the things which I say, because it has befallen thee to will to inquire into the cause of the distinction not as in sincerity but out of opposition as an enemy. For this [union] is as one that suppresses the natures, and I accept it not. / But out of opposition towards me thou hast occupied [thy mind] with definitions, with furious words, as robbers, that thou mightest conceal thy purpose and might not be discovered; and thou sayest this and that and all things, but thou speakest not of the hypostatic union for the making void of the natures but for the [establishing of] a natural union which [results] from the composition in one nature. As the soul and the body [result] in one nature of the man, so also God the Word is united with the humanity, and this thou callest the hypostatic union. But even then, though the natures were to remain, yet there would come to be a union [resulting] in a nature passible and made and created, for the natural union is a second creation. For those things which have not [a thing] in their nature receive it in their nature by the union of nature; but the things which are united in virtue of a natural union are united with the natural passibility of the other and accept not voluntarily mutual sufferings, as the body and the soul, receiving not in their nature their own mutual properties except by the union of nature, participate in one another and give and receive mutual sufferings by the necessity of nature in such wise that he suffers who would not have suffered of himself. For in the union the soul of itself neither hungers nor thirsts nor is pained by a cut or by a burn or by a blow, nor again is |162 the soulless bodily frame sensible of any of these things; but by the natural / union of diverse natures they suffer passively and participate in these mutual sufferings by the necessity of the union.
If thou thus predicatest the hypostatic union of the nature, thou sayest, as the Arians, that it is natural and not voluntary, because he suffered with a natural passibility. He suffered as a result of the natural union, for the sufferings of the soul are the sufferings of the body in the natural composition. For he who is unmade, who is by his nature uncreated, was not composed that he might suffer as though created and made. For men prove not the one nature of the union by the fact that the soul is in the body and the body in the soul, for it produces not the union in every bodily frame wherein there is a soul so as also to be able always to quicken it, but [it is in the body] by such a composition as has been constructed in one nature by the Maker, both subjected and involuntarily subject unto a natural limitation, both limited and unable to escape. And again they are released or bound by the construction in the union of the nature. If therefore the union of God the Word with the humanity was in one nature, although those natures remained without confusion but in a union of the nature, the Maker and that which was made would be constructed by a change either willingly or unwillingly since they have been so styled and it is made and created. And he who can create everything, that is, God, will be the nature of the union, and it is not the hypostasis of the humanity which is known [to be] animal in nature, as even the body / without the soul is not animal in its own hypostasis, but by the construction of the natural union it is its [property] to be animal. If it is so, it is also through God [the property] of man to be animal, but it is not his [property through] his own hypostasis and his nature, but through the hypostatic union which establishes one nature.
For this purpose he declines to say that the man is man and that he is animal in his hypostasis and in his nature, and that |163 God the Word is God the Word in his hypostasis, in order that he may maintain his nature in the union, and that it may not become animal as a result of the union. For he received as a result of the construction of [all] creation by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Spirit to become man, but to become the only-begotten Son he received from the union with God the Word, for it belonged not unto his own nature nor did it lie in the natural and hypostatic union. For that which it was his to become by the natural union was not his to become as a result of anything else than of the natural construction, as to become one animal results neither from the bodily frame nor from the soul nor from them both but from the natural construction. This [union] then is corruptible and passible, but the union of the prosôpa of the natures is neither passible nor corruptible as [having taken place] through a voluntary appropriation; and the union was not his involuntarily by condescension or by exaltation, by command or by subjection unto command. And such a conception as this consists neither in the making void / nor in the being made void nor in the extinction of one nature or of the properties of the two natures, but the several qualities in the natural qualities are distinct in purpose and in will, according to the distinction of the natures in the one equality, while there is the same will and purpose in the union of the natures, so that they may both will or not will the same things.