Severus of Antioch: A collection of letters from numerous Syriac manuscripts (1915). Letters 1-61
A COLLECTION OF LETTERS
OF SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH
I. -------- OF THE SAME A LETTER TO OECUMENIUS THE COUNT , ABOUT PROPERTIES AND OPERATIONS, WHICH IS OF THOSE WRITTEN BEFORE EPISCOPACY. [508-12 AD]
We also have in the God-inspired Scripture supplies of humility, and 508-12. no lack of arguments to bring us down and help us to keep silence. If you, as if you were about to go up to Mt. Sinai, shrink from writing 'to such a man' (referring to me), and think fit to use David's words which he says to those who were urging him to take Saul's daughter in marriage, «Is it a small thing in your eyes that I should be son-in-law to the king?» , while I am a poor man and inglorious, I also, when required to make answer to your question, make use of these words: «I am not a prophet, nor the son of prophets, but I am a shepherd, and a scraper of sycamore fruit» , if it is not too much for me to say even this: for I am not worthy to tell the righteousnesses of God, and to take his covenant in |4 my mouth . However, since the time of the present struggles does not allow silence, I accept an honourable defeat from you, and turn to the question. And in this I defeat you, since I show that you do not practise humility in a philosophic spirit . As to your statement that the holy old men called bold speech fire or warmth, I say this, that we must not use this method of speaking without discrimination, but there are occasions for using it and circumstances to which to apply it. Our Lord in the Gospels in many parables teaches us in the case of spiritual petitions to knock without ceasing and display a praiseworthy audacity. And the saying of the Proverbs also instructs us that 'there is shame which brings sin, and there is shame which brings glory and grace' . Know then, mighty man, (for I now return to make answer) that for us to anathematize those who speak of properties of natures (I mean the Godhead and the manhood of which the one Christ consists) is not permissible. Flesh does not renounce its existence as flesh, even if it has become God's flesh, nor has the Word departed from his nature, even if he has been hypostatically united to flesh which possesses a rational and intelligent soul: but the difference also is |5 preserved, and the propriety in the form of natural characteristics of the natures of which Emmanuel consists, since the flesh was not converted into the nature of the Word, nor was the Word changed into flesh. We mean in the matter of natural characteristics, and not that those which were naturally united are singly and individually separated and divided from one another: this is the assertion of those who cleave our one Lord Jesus Christ into two natures. For, since the union in hypostasis is acknowledged, it follows that those which were united are not separated from one another; but there is one Son, and one nature of God the Word incarnate himself, as the holy Cyril also says in the work against Diodorus: «Let him know therefore that the body which was born at Bethlehem, even if it is not the same as the Word from God and the Father (I mean in natural characteristics), yet nevertheless became his, not anyone else's separate from the Son: and there is recognised to be one Son and Christ and Lord and Word who took flesh» . Those therefore who confess one incarnate nature of God the Word, and do not confuse the elements of which he consists, recognise also the propriety of those that were joined in union (and a property is that which |6 exists in the form of a manifestation of natural differences), and not that we should ascribe the acts of the manhood only to the human nature, and impute again those of the Godhead separately to God the Word, but they recognise the difference only, not admitting a division: for the principle of union does not admit of division. Hear what the holy and wise doctor Cyril says in the second volume of the work against the blasphemies of Nestorius: «For between Godhead and manhood I also allow that there is great distinction and distance. For the things which have been named on the principle of manner of existence are clearly different, and in no point like one another. But, when the mystery in Christ is introduced among us, the principle of union is not oblivious of difference", but rejects division, not by mixing or commingling the natures with one another, but that, after the Word of God has partaken of flesh and blood, he is even so understood and named as one Son» . But, if Emmanuel is one, consisting of Godhead and manhood which have a perfect existence according to their own principle, and the hypostatic union without confusion shows the difference of those which have been joined in one in dispensatory union, but rejects division, both the elements |7 which naturally belong to the manhood have come to belong to the very Godhead of the Word, and those which belong to the Word himself have come to belong to the very manhood which he hypostatically united to him. On this subject we will again adduce the sacred words of Cyril. In the prosphonetikon to the religious king Theodosius he spoke as follows: «As therefore it came to belong to the humanity to be the Only one, because it had been united to the Word in a dispensatory union, so it came to belong to the Word to be 'the first-born among many brethren' , because of the union with flesh» . Gregory the Theologian also in the letter to Gledonius wrote words which agree with him as follows: «As the natures are mingled, so also are the appellations; and they run into one another on the principle of coalescence» . Do not let the term 'mingle' disturb you: for he used it very clearly and without danger with the intention of denoting the primary union: for, where there is a union of something incorporeal with a body, no danger anywhere arises from mingling. For this is manifestly a quality of fluid bodies, to be confounded together by intertwining, and, so to speak, come out of their nature. We therefore anathematize not |8 those who confess the properties of the natures of which the one Christ consists, but those who separate the properties, and apportion them to each nature apart. When the one Christ has once been divided (and he is divided by the fact that they speak of two natures after the union), with the natures which have been cut asunder into a duality and separated into a distinct diversity go the operations and properties which are the offspring of this division, as the words of Leo's impious letter state in what he said: «For each of the forms effects in partnership with the other that which belongs to itself, the Word doing that which belongs to the Word, and the body performing the things which belong to the body» . Against these things it is well to set the much-honoured words of the holy Cyril which refute impiety. In the Scholion about the coal he speaks as follows: «Nevertheless we may see in the coal as in a figure that God the Word was united to the manhood, but has not cast off being that which he is, but rather changed what had been assumed or united into his glory and operation. For, as fire when it takes hold of wood and is introduced into it, prevails over it, and does |9 not make it cease being wood, but rather changes it into the appearance and force of fire, and performs all its own acts in it, and is already reckoned as one with it, so understand in the case of Christ also. For, since God was ineffably united with manhood, he has preserved it as what we say it is, and he himself also has remained what he was. But, after he has once been united, he is reckoned as one with it, appropriating its qualities to himself, but he himself also carried on the operation of his nature in it» . If then the Word changed the manhood which he had hypostatically united to him, not into his nature, for he remained that which he was, but into his glory and operation, and things which manifestly belong to the flesh have come to belong to the Word himself, how shall we allow that each of the forms performs its own acts? But we must anathematize those who confine the one Christ in two natures and say that each of the natures performs its own acts. Between the things performed and done by the one Christ the difference is great. Some of them are acts befitting the divinity, while others are human. For example, to walk and travel in bodily form upon |10 the earth is without contention human; but to bestow on those who are maimed in the feet and cannot walk upon the ground at all the power of walking like sound persons is God-befitting. Yet the one Word incarnate performed the latter and the former, and the one nature did not perform the one, and the other the other; nor, because the things performed are different, shall we on this account rightly define two natures or forms as operating. Again the Tome of Leo says: «For each of the natures preserves its own property without diminution» , distributing the properties to the two natures severally, as one who divides the one and only Christ into two natures. For the property of the natures of which Emmanuel consists, which is shown in the natural characteristics, continues constant and fixed, as the holy Cyril also says in the second letter to Succensus: «But, while each of them both remains and is perceived in the property which is. by nature, according to the principle which has just been enunciated by us, the ineffable and incomprehensible union has shown us one nature of the Son, yet, as I have said, an incarnate nature» . But God the Word did not permit his flesh in all things to undergo the passions proper to it, in order that its |11 property might be preserved undiminished, as the impious disputer said. For observe what the wise doctor Cyril says, in answer to the objections made by Theodoret, in the defence of the tenth anathema: «When the lowness arising from the exinanition seems hard to you, wonder greatly at the love of the Son toward us. For, what you say is a mean thing, this he did voluntarily for your sake. He wept in human fashion, that he might take away your weeping. He feared by dispensation, inasmuch as he sometimes permitted his flesh to undergo the passions proper to it, that he might make us valiant» . If he sometimes permitted his flesh by dispensation to undergo the passions proper to it, he did not preserve its property undiminished: for in many instances it is seen not to have undergone the things which manifestly belong to its nature; for it was united to the Word, the Maker of nature. The Word therefore who had become incarnate walked upon the sea, and after his death under the wound of the lance caused a stream of salvation to well forth from his side: again, after the Resurrection, he came in while the doors were shut, and appeared to the disciples in the house; whom he also allowed to touch him, showing that his flesh was tangible and solid, and of one essence with us, and was also |12 superior to corruption; and thereby he subverted the theory of phantasy. It belongs therefore to those who part the one Christ into two natures and dissolve the unity to say, «For each of the natures preserves its property unimpaired». But those who believe that, after God the Word had been hypostatically united to flesh that possessed an intelligent soul, he performed all his own acts in it, and changed it not into his nature (far be it!), but into his glory and operation, no longer seek the things that manifestly belong to the flesh without diminution, to which flesh the things that manifestly belong by nature to the Godhead have come to belong by reason of the union. But, if they senselessly divide it from God the Word by speaking of two natures after the union, it then walks in its own ways following its nature, and preserves its properties undiminished on the principle of the impious men. But these things are not so (how could they be?), but indeed very different: for union rejects division, as the holy Cyril said: «For, though it is said that he hungered and thirsted, and slept and grew weary after a journey, and wept and feared, these things did not happen to him just as they do to us in accordance with compulsory ordinances of nature; but he |13 himself voluntarily permitted his flesh to walk according to the laws of nature, for he sometimes allowed it even to undergo its own passions» . For from Cyril's words, as from a sacred anchor, I do not depart. And the same statement is made by Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus also in the sermon on baptism: «For he is purity itself, and did not need purification; but he is purified for you; just as for you he put on a garb of flesh, while he is fleshless: and he would have run no danger at all from putting off baptism; for he himself was a warden of passion to himself» . Accordingly then he was a warden to himself of hungering as well as of being tired after a journey, and of accepting the other human passions, such as do not fall under sin, in order to display the Humanization truly and without phantasy . Of what we have said this is the sum; that we must anathematize those who divide the one Christ: and they divide him by speaking of two natures after the union, and consequently apportioning the operations and properties between the natures. Accordingly good doctrine is contained in the ---- of the serene king: for it anathematizes those who divide the one Son who was |14 hypostatically united to flesh into two natures, and the operations and properties of the same two natures: for thus also says the impious Theodoret: «How does he range under impiety those who divide the properties of the natures of God who is before the ages and of the man who was assumed in the last days?» I have written these things though I am poor in intellect and praise the greatness of your God-loving understanding; and because, as you are wise, I give you an opportunity to attain wiser results. Forgive me that on account of the lack of leisure caused by the present struggles I have been late in writing. Greet your honoured consort, who is a partner and a helper in the affairs of God.
The end of the first letter to Oecumenius the count.
II. -------- OF THE SAME THE SECOND LETTER TO THE SAME OECUMENIUS THE COUNT UPON THE SAME MATTER, AND IT IS AMONG THOSE WRITTEN DURING EPISCOPACY. [513-8.]
I wonder how it is that your God-loving magnificence has picked |15 up again from the beginning the contention that had been put to silence. While confessing Emmanuel to be of two natures, to suppose the elements of which he consists to be generalities covering many hypostases (this is what is meant by the property of a generality) is a thing that is very abominable and inept, and one that confirms the charge falsely disseminated against us by the impious: for we are found to be imagining two natures before the union according to their account; for there would be the whole of humanity and of course the Godhead also, even before the Humanization of the Word. And these matters would need further conversation by word of mouth, not written words in a letter, which are subject to considerations of brevity, and bring danger to the writer, wherever any unusual name or unelaborated phrase is inserted in the document. You know what words that lead to rocks you have used in your recent composition, and, though admitting that you do this as a concession, you have still done it. But to us, who by ordinance from above and mercy have attained to this priestly office, it does not bring honour to take such ill expressions in our mouth and consign them to writing: for it is written, |16 «The lips of a priest will guard knowledge, and they will ask law from his mouth» . Wherefore Paul also, who was taken up to the third heaven, and heard ineffable words , knowing the difficulty of words of this kind, urged the believers to make earnest and constant prayer that speech might be granted him with eloquence . Since then these things are so, and we decline to employ a multitude of words, which as a rule do not escape sin , I will use shortness of speech to your wisdom and knowledge, and ask you a very easy question. Do you call the flesh possessing an intelligent soul, which God the Word voluntarily united to himself hypostatically without any change, a specimen or a generality, that is one soul-possessing hypostasis, or the whole human generality? It is manifest that, if you wish to give a right-minded answer, you will say one soul-possessing body. Accordingly we say that from it and the hypostasis of God the Word the ineffable union was made: for the whole of the Godhead and the whole of humanity in general were not joined in a natural union, but special hypostases. And the holy and wise Cyril plainly witnesses to us in that in |17 the third chapter or anathema he spoke thus: «Whoever divides the one Christ into hypostases after the union, associating them in association of honour or of authority only, and not rather in junction of natural union, let him be anathema» . And again in the Scholia the same says: «Hence we shall learn that the hypostases have remained without confusion» . Accordingly the natural union was not of generalities, but of hypostases of which Emmanuel was composed. And do not think that hypostases in all cases have a distinct person assigned to them, so that we should be thought, like the impious Nestorius, to speak of a union of persons, and to run counter to the God-inspired words of the holy Cyril, who in the second letter to the same Nestorius speaks thus: «But that it should be so will in no way help the right principle of faith, even if some men spread about a union of persons. For the Scripture did not say that God the Word united to himself the person of a man, but that he became flesh» . When hypostases subsist by individual subsistence, as for instance, those of Peter and of Paul, whom the authority of the apostleship united, then there will be a union of persons and a brotherly association, not a natural junction |18 of one hypostasis made up out of two that is free from confusion. For this is what those who adhere to the foul doctrines of Nestorius are convicted of saying with regard to the divine Humanization also. They first make the babe exist by himself separately, so that a distinct person is even assigned to him, and then by attaching God the Word to him impiously introduce a union of persons into the faith. This Gregory the Theologian also rejected by saying in the great letter to Cledonius: «Whoever says that the man was formed, and God afterwards crept in is condemned: for this is not a birth of God, but an escape from birth» . But, when hypostases do not subsist in individual subsistence, as also in the case of the man among us, I mean him who is composed of soul and body, but are without confusion recognised in union and composition, being distinguished by the intellect only and displaying one hypostasis made out of two, such a union none will be so uninstructed as to call one of persons. Though the hypostasis of God the Word existed before, or rather was before all ages and times, being eternally with God both the Father and the Holy Spirit, yet still the flesh possessing an intelligent soul which he united to him did not exist |19 before the union with him, nor was a distinct person assigned to it . And the great Athanasius bears witness, who in the letter to Jovinian the king says: «As soon as there is flesh, there is at once flesh of God the Word; and, as soon as there is soul-possessing and rational flesh , there is at once soul-possessing rational flesh of God the Word : for in him also it acquired subsistence» . And the holy Cyril also testifies, addressing the impious Diodorus as follows: «My excellent man, I say that you are shooting forth unlearned words much affected with what is abhorrent. For the holy body was from Mary, but still at the very beginning of its concretion or subsistence in the womb it was made holy, as the body of Christ, and no one can see any time at which it was not his, but rather simple as you say and the same as this flesh of other men» . Following these God-inspired words of the holy fathers, and confessing our Lord Jesus Christ to be of two natures, regard the distinct hypostases themselves of which Emmanuel was composed, and the natural junction of these, and do not go up to generalities and essences , of the whole of the Godhead and humanity in |20 general: for it is manifest that the whole of the Godhead is seen in the Trinity, and humanity in general draws the mind to the whole human race. How therefore is it anything but ridiculous and impious for us to say that the Trinity was united in hypostasis to the race of mankind, when the holy Scriptures say more plainly than a trumpet, «The Word became flesh and dwelt in us» , that is that one of the three hypostases who was rationally and hypostatically united to soul-possessing flesh? But neither do we deny, as we have also written in other letters on different occasions, that we often find men designating hypostases by the name of essence . Hence Gregory the Theologian named hypostatic union union in essence in the letter to Cledonius which we have just mentioned, speaking thus: «Whoever says that he worked by grace as in a prophet, but not that he was united and fashioned together with him in essence, may he be bereft of the excellent operation, or rather may he be full of the contrary» . And the wise Cyril in the second letter to Succensus calls the manhood which was hypostatically united to God the Word essence , saying: «For, if after saying 'one nature |21 of the Word' we had stopped and not added 'incarnate', but set the dispensation as it were outside, they would perhaps in a way have a plausible argument when they pretend to ask, 'Where is the perfection in manhood? or how was the essence after our model made up?' But, since the perfection in manhood and the characteristic of our essence has been introduced by the fact that we said 'incarnate', let them be silent, since they have leaned upon the staff of a reed» . But saying that Emmanuel, is from two essences also, as we confess him to be from two natures, even if one understand the essences as hypostases, we avoid, as a thing that is unscientific, and has not been stated in so many words by any of the God-clad fathers: for in such matters we must avoid novelty, even if it has some religiousness about it, and with the psalmist-prophet be preserved in the tent of caution, and be hidden by grace from on high, even from the contention of tongues .
These things we have written in epistolary style, though we are in the midst of many troubles, and of many tens of thousands of kinds of cares. But it rests with your truth-loving and God-loving soul to inform us by letter if you have given up the doubts, and if what we have written appeared |22 to have been well stated, Know that the religious deacon Anatolius has abandoned this opinion, and, though late, has thanked us.
III. -------- OF THE SAME FROM THE 5 LETTER TO OECUMENIUS, WHICH BEGINS, «When I read the letter addressed to the God-loving Peter the presbyter ». [513-8]
It is not confessing the particularity of the natures from which Emmanuel comes that we avoid, so long as we maintain the unity without confusion (the particularity is that which is expressed in natural characteristics), but distributing and dividing the properties to each of the natures .
IV. -------- OF THE SAME FROM THE LETTER TO SIMUS THE SCRINIARIUS, WHICH BEGINS, «Unless I had some great affection for your illustriousness». [513-8(?).]
[After first citing the passage of Basil which says, «'Unbegotten' is a characteristic of a form of being, not of essence » , he speaks as |23 follows] . But, if we interpret the saying rightly from the clear teachings of the saints and of the other fathers, the meaning becomes plain, and there is nothing contradictory or dime alt in it: for 'being' here expresses the distinct hypostasis of the Father. For the fathers said that the Holy Trinity exists both in one essence , and in the being of each, that is, three hypostases, existing severally, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
V. ---- OF THE HOLY SEVERUS, FROM THE LETTER TO EUSEBIUS THE SCHOLASTIC, WHICH BEGINS, « Since you have raised objection against me through your letter». [513-8 (?)]
But now also we will come to what is required, and, we will again say, that 'essence' signifies a generality, and 'hypostasis' a particularity, but 'being' and 'nature' introduce sometimes a general signification, sometimes a partial or particular one. This is stated on account of the varying use that is found in the holy fathers: for you knew both that 'essence' is sometimes employed in the particular signification of 'hypostasis ', and occasionally also |24 'hypostasis' is found employed in place of 'essence' . For this reason we decline to use such a signification as being unscientific.
VI. ---- OF THE HOLY SEVERUS, FROM THE LETTER TO MARON, OF WHICH THE BEGINNING IS, «When Naaman the Syrian». [513-8 (?).]
Enough has, I think, been said about essence and hypostasis. But the name 'nature' is sometimes taken in place of essence', sometimes in place of hypostasis. For even the whole of mankind we call comprehensively 'nature', as it is indeed written: «For all natures of beasts and of birds, and of reptiles and of things that are in the water are subjected and are made subject to human nature» : and again we speak of one nature in reference to a single man, Paul for example or Peter, or maybe James. Where therefore we name all mankind one nature, we use the name 'nature' generically in place of 'essence' ; but, where we say that there is one nature of Paul, the name 'nature' is employed in place of 'individual hypostasis'. So |25 also we call the Holy Trinity one nature, employing the term 'nature' in place of the general designation 'essence' ; as Gregory the Theologian the bishop of Nazianzus also said in the sermon on the Holy Pentecost: «Confess the Trinity to be of one Godhead, my friends; or, if you like, of one nature; and we will ask for you from the Spirit the expression 'God'» . But, when we say 'one incarnate nature of God the Word', as Athanasius the prop of the truth and the apostolic faith said in the books on the Incarnation of the Word , we use 'nature' in place of 'individual designation', denoting the one hypostasis of the Word himself, like that of Peter also or of Paul, or of any other single man. Wherefore also, when we say 'one nature which became incarnate', we do not say it absolutely, but by adding 'one nature of the Word himself clearly denote the one hypostasis. But the very men who blasphemously call the one Christ two natures use the name 'nature' in place of 'individual designation', saying that the Word of God is one nature, and the man as they say from Mary another. For they do not reach such a height of fatuity as to say that they are using the name 'natures' in place |26 of 'general designation', I mean in the same sense as essence : for, if the Holy Trinity is one nature, and all mankind one nature, in the same sense as anything which is shown to be so on this principle, the Holy Trinity will be found (to say a very absurd thing) to have become incarnate in all mankind, that is the human race.
Of the same, from the letter to Maron, which begins, «When Naaman the Syrian».
But the Holy Scriptures instruct us otherwise, teaching us that God the Word one only of the three hypostases became incarnate and humanized. For 'the Word became flesh, and dwelt in us' .
Of the same, from the letter to Maron the reader, which begins, «When Naaman the Syrian».
But, when you hear these things, you will perhaps say that we ought not to have spoken of difference between the natures from which Emmanuel is, lest we ourselves be found to be repeating and using the same expression as these proud men. Accordingly, let us also refrain from confessing the union, |27 because they also profess to speak of a union which consists in an association of honour; and, because they speak of two natures after the union, let us also not say that the union was made from two natures, rejecting even the very mention of natures, like silly children, who tremble at terrifying alarms that are fictitious and invented, as if they were truth, and flee to their mothers' bosoms. If on account of the blasphemies contained in the opinions of those men we yield to them words and names which establish the truth, together with the sound of the words the great mystery of religion goes from us. But, if we be right-minded, we shall both religiously hold to the words and cast out the foul opinions as evil speaking.
Of the same, from the letter to Maron, which begins, «When Naaman the Syrian ».
You see that we must also confess the difference between the natures from which the one Christ is, and avoid the cutting into two, and extol one Son and Christ, and one incarnate nature of God the Word. |28
VII. ---- OF SEVERUS, FROM THE LETTER TO MARON, WHICH BEGINS, «When some time ago I received the letter of your religiousness». [513-8 (?)]
Accordingly it is the same thing to say that God the Word was united to flesh possessing an intellectual soul in nature and in hypostasis and in essence .