theological tendencies, without working them into a consistent
system. His doctrines of Original Sin, Predestination, Grace are
by no means harmonized with his position regarding the Church and
the sacraments in which he builds upon the foundation laid in the
West, especially by Optatus. See below, § 83. There is also a no
small remnant of what might be called pre-Augustinian Western
piety, which comes down from Tertullian and of which the following
is an illustration, a passage which is of significance in the
development of the doctrine of purgatory. Cf. Tertullian, _De
Monogamia_, ch. 10. See above, § 39.
§ 109. The time, moreover, which intervenes between a man’s death and the
final resurrection, keeps the soul in a hidden retreat, as each is
deserving of rest or affliction, according to what its lot was when it
lived in the flesh.
§ 110. Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead are benefited by
the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is
offered, or alms given in the Church in their behalf. But these services
are of advantage only to those who during their lives merited that
services of this kind could help them. For there is a manner of life which
is neither so good as not to require these services after death, nor so
bad that these services are of no avail after death. There is, on the
other hand, a kind of life so good as not to require them; and again one
so bad that when they depart this life they render no help. Therefore it
is here that all the merit and demerit is acquired, by which one can
either be relieved or oppressed after death. No one, then, need hope that
after he is dead he shall obtain the merit with God which he had neglected
here. And, accordingly, those services which the Church celebrates for the
commendation of the dead are not opposed to the Apostle’s words: “For we
must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may
receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done,
whether it be good or bad” [Rom. 14:10; II Cor. 5:10]. For that merit that
renders services profitable to a man, each one has acquired while he lives
in the body. For it is not to every one that these services are
profitable. And why are they not profitable to all, except it be because
of the different kinds of lives that men lead in the body? When,
therefore, sacrifices either of the altar or of alms of any sort are
offered on behalf of the dead who have been baptized, they are
thanksgivings for the very good; they are propitiations [_propitiationes_]
for the not very bad; and for the case of the very bad, even though they
do not assist the dead, they are a species of consolation to the living.
And to those to whom they are profitable, their benefit consists either in
full remission of sins, or at least in making the condemnation more
tolerable.
§ 83. Augustine and the Donatist Schism
After the recall of the Donatists by the Emperor Julian, the sect rapidly
increased, though soon numerous divisions appeared in the body. The more
liberal opinions of the Donatist grammarian Tychonius about 370 were
adopted by many of the less fanatical. The connection of the party with
the Circumcellions alienated others. The contest for rigorism led by
Maximianus about 394 occasioned a schism within the Donatist body.
Augustine’s activity in the Donatist troubles began as soon as he was made
bishop of Hippo, as his town was made up largely of Donatists, who
probably constituted more than a half of the population. The books written
by him after 400 have alone survived.
The turning-point in the history of Donatism was the Collatio, or
conference, held at Carthage in 411. Two hundred and seventy-nine
Donatist, and two hundred and eighty-six Catholic, bishops were present.
Augustine was one of those who represented the Catholic position. The
victory was adjudged by the imperial commissioners to the Catholic party.
After this the laws against the sect were enforced relentlessly, and
Donatism rapidly lost its importance. The Vandal invasion in 429 changed
the condition of things for a time. The last traces of Donatism disappear
only with the Moslem invasion in the seventh century.
The importance of the Donatist controversy is that in it were defined the
doctrines of the Church and of the sacraments, definitions which, with
some modifications, controlled the theology of the Church for centuries.
(_a_) Optatus, _De Schismate Donatistarum_, II, 1-3. (MSL, 11:941.)
The unity of the Catholic Church.
Ch. 1. The next thing to do … is to show that there is one Church which
Christ called a dove and a bride. Therefore the Church is one, the
sanctity of which is derived from the sacraments; and it is not valued
according to the pride of persons. Therefore this one dove Christ also
calls his beloved bride. This cannot be among heretics and schismatics.…
You have said, brother Parmenianus, that it is with you alone … among you
in a small part of Africa, in the corner of a small region, but among us
in another part of Africa will it not be? In Spain, in Gaul, in Italy,
where you are not, will it not be?… And through so many innumerable
islands and other provinces, which can scarcely be numbered, will it not
be? Wherein then will be the propriety of the Catholic name, since it is
called Catholic, because it is reasonable(172) and everywhere diffused?
Ch. 2. I have proved that that is the Catholic Church, which spread
throughout the whole world, and now are its ornaments to be recalled; and
it is to be seen where the first five gifts [_i.e._, notes of the Church]
are, which you say are six. Among these the first is the cathedra, and
unless a bishop, who is the angel [the second gift or note according to
the Donatists], sit in it, no other gift can be joined. It is to be seen
who first placed a see and where.… You cannot deny that in the city of
Rome the episcopal cathedra was first placed by Peter, and in it sat
Peter, the head of all the Apostles, wherefore he is called Cephas, so
that in that one cathedra unity is preserved by all, that the other
Apostles might not claim each one for himself a cathedra; so that he is a
schismatic and a sinner who against that one cathedra sets up another.
Ch. 3. Therefore Peter first sat in that single cathedra, which is the
first gift of the Church, to him succeeded Linus … to Damasus, Siricius,
who is our contemporary, with whom the world together with us agree in one
fellowship of communion by the interchange of letters. Recite the origin
of your cathedra, you who would claim for yourself the Holy Church [_cf._
Tertullian, _De Præscriptione_, c. 32].
(_b_) Optatus, _De Schismate Donatistarum_, V, 4. (MSL, 11:1051.)
The validity of sacraments is not dependent on the character of
those who minister them. With this should be compared Augustine,
_Contra litteras Petiliani Donatistæ_, II, 38-91, and the treatise
_De Baptismo contra Donatistas libri septem_, which is little more
than a working out in a thousand variations of this theme.
In celebrating this sacrament of baptism there are three things which you
can neither increase, diminish, nor omit. The first is the Trinity, the
second the believer, and the third the minister.… The first two remain
ever immutable and unmoved. The Trinity is always the same, the faith in
each is one. But the person of him who ministers is clearly not equal to
the first two points, in that it alone is mutable.… For it is not one man
who always and everywhere baptizes. In this work there were formerly
others, and now others still, and again there will be others; those who
minister may be changed, the sacraments cannot be changed. Since therefore
you see that they who baptize are ministers and are not lords, and the
sacraments are holy in themselves, not on account of men, why is it that
you claim so much for yourselves? Why is it that you endeavor to exclude
God from His gifts? Permit God to be over the things which are His. For
that gift cannot be performed by a man because it is divine. If you think
it can be so bestowed, you render void the words of the prophets and the
promises of God, by which it is proved that God washes, not man.
(_c_) Augustine, _De Baptismo contra Donatistas_, IV, 17 (§ 24). (MSL,
43:169.)
Baptism without the Church valid but unprofitable.
Augustine, as opposing the Donatists and agreeing with the
Catholic Church, asserted the validity of baptism when conferred
by one outside the communion of the Church. It was notorious that
Cyprian and the Council of Carthage, A. D. 258 [see ANF, vol. V.,
pp. 565 _ff._; _cf._ Hefele, § 6], had held an opposite opinion.
As Cyprian was the great teacher of North Africa, and in the
highest place in the esteem of all, Augustine was forced to make
“distinctions.” This he did in his theory as to the validity of
baptism as in the following passage. The Sixth Book of the same
treatise is composed of a statement of the bishops at the Council
of Carthage, and Augustine’s answer to each statement.
“Can the power of baptism,” says Cyprian, “be greater than confession,
than martyrdom, that a man should confess Christ before men, and be
baptized in his own blood, and yet,” he says, “neither does this baptism
profit the heretic, even though for confessing Christ he be put to death
outside the Church.” This is most true; for by being put to death outside
the Church, he is proved not to have had that charity of which the Apostle
says: “Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it
profiteth me nothing” [I Cor. 13:3]. But if martyrdom is of no avail for
the reason that charity is lacking, neither does it profit those who, as
Paul says, and Cyprian further sets forth, are living within the Church
without charity, in envy and malice; and yet they can both receive and
transmit true baptism. “Salvation,” he says, “is not without the Church.”
Who denies this? And therefore whatever men have that belongs to the
Church, outside the Church it profits them nothing toward salvation. But
it is one thing not to have, another to have it but to no use. He who has
it not must be baptized that he may have it; he who has to no use must be
corrected, that what he has he may have to some use. Nor is the water in
baptism “adulterous,” because neither is the creature itself, which God
made, evil, nor is the fault to be found in the words of the Gospel in the
mouths of any who are astray; but the fault is theirs in whom there is an
adulterous spirit, even though it may receive the adornment of the
sacrament from a lawful spouse. It therefore can be true that baptism is
“common to us and to the heretics,” since the Gospel can be common to us,
although their error differs from our faith; whether they think otherwise
than the truth about the Father or Son or the Holy Spirit; or, being cut
away from unity, do not gather with Christ, but scatter abroad, because it
is possible that the sacrament of baptism can be common to us if we are
the wheat of the Lord with the covetous within the Church and with robbers
and drunkards and other pestilent persons, of whom it is said, “They shall
not inherit the kingdom of God,” and yet the vices by which they are
separated from the kingdom of God are not shared by us.
(_d_) Augustine, _Ep. 98, ad Bonifatium_. (MSL, 33:363.)
Relation of the sacrament to that of which it is the sign.
Sacraments are effective if no hinderance is placed to their
working.
On Easter Sunday we say, “This day the Lord rose from the dead,” although
so many years have passed since His resurrection.… The event itself being
said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place
long before, it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ
once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is He
not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the
special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so
that when a man is questioned and answers that He is offered as a
sacrifice in that ordinance, does he not declare what is strictly true?
For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of
which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all.
[Augustine’s general definition of a sacrament is that it is a sign of a
sacred thing.] In most cases, moreover, they do, in virtue of this
likeness, bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As
therefore in a certain manner the sacrament of the body of Christ is the
body of Christ, the sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of
Christ, so the sacrament of faith is faith.… Now, believing is nothing
else than having faith; and accordingly, when on behalf of an infant as
yet incapable of exercising faith, the answer is given that he believes,
this answer means that he has faith because of the sacrament of faith, and
in like manner the answer is made that he turns himself toward God because
of the sacrament of conversion, since the answer itself belongs to the
celebration of the sacrament. Thus the Apostle says, in regard to this
sacrament of baptism: “We are buried with Christ by baptism into death.”
He does not say, “We have signified our being buried with Him,” but: “We
have been buried with Him.” He has therefore given to the sacrament
pertaining to so great a transaction no other name than the word
describing the transaction itself.
10. Therefore an infant, although he is not yet a believer in the sense of
having that faith which includes the consenting will of those who exercise
it, nevertheless becomes a believer through the sacrament of that faith.…
The infant, though not yet possessing a faith helped by the understanding,
is not obstructing(173) faith by an antagonism of the understanding, and
therefore receives with profit the sacrament of faith.
(_e_) Augustine, _De Correctione Donatistarum_, §§ 22 _ff._ (MSL, 33:802.)
The argument in favor of using force to compel the Donatists to
return to the Church.
Augustine in the early part of the Donatist controversy was not in
favor of using force. Like the others, _e.g._, Optatus, he denied
that force had been employed by the Church. About 404 the
situation changed, and his opinion did likewise. This work, known
also as Epistle CLXXXV, was written circa 417. Compare Augustine’s
position with the statement of Jerome, “Piety for God is not
cruelty,” _cf._ Hagenbach, _History of Christian Doctrines_, §
135:7. The Donatists had much injured their position by their
treatment of a party which had produced a schism in their own
body, the Maximianists.
§ 22. Who can love us more than Christ who laid down His life for the
sheep? And yet, after calling Peter and the other Apostles by His word
alone, in the case of Paul, formerly Saul, the great builder of His
Church, but previously its cruel persecutor, He not only constrained him
with His voice, but even dashed him to the earth with His power.… Where is
what they [the Donatists] are accustomed to cry: “To believe or not to
believe is a matter that is free”? Toward whom did Christ use violence?
Whom did He compel? Here they have the Apostle Paul. Let them recognize in
his case Christ’s first compelling and afterward teaching; first striking
and afterward consoling. For it is wonderful how he who had been compelled
by bodily punishment entered into the Gospel and afterward labored more in
the Gospel than all they who were called by word only; and the greater
fear compelled him toward love, that perfect love which casts out fear.
§ 23. Why, therefore, should not the Church compel her lost sons to return
if the lost sons compelled others to perish? Although even men whom they
have not compelled but only led astray, their loving mother embraces with
more affection if they are recalled to her bosom through the enforcement
of terrible but salutary laws, and are the objects of far more deep
congratulation than those whom she has never lost. Is it not a part of the
care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not
violently forced away, but led astray by soft words and by coaxings, and
they have begun to be possessed by strangers, to bring them back to the
fold of his master when he has found them, by the terrors or even the
pains of the whip, if they wish to resist; especially since, if they
multiply abundantly among the fugitive slaves and robbers, he has the more
right in that the mark of the master is recognized on them, which is not
outraged in those whom we receive but do not baptize?(174) So indeed is
the error of the sheep to be corrected that the sign of the Redeemer shall
not be marred. For if any one is marked with the royal stamp by a
deserter, who has himself been marked with it, and they receive
forgiveness, and the one returns to his service, and the other begins to
be in the service in which he had not yet been, that mark is not effaced
in either of them, but rather it is recognized in both, and approved with
due honor because it is the king’s. Since they cannot show that that is
bad to which they are compelled,(175) they maintained that they ought not
to be compelled to the good. But we have shown that Paul was compelled by
Christ; therefore the Church in compelling the Donatists is following the
example of her Lord, though in the first instance she waited in hopes of
not having to compel any, that the prediction might be fulfilled
concerning the faith of kings and peoples.
§ 24. For in this sense also we may interpret without absurdity the
apostolic declaration when the blessed Apostle Paul says: “Being ready to
revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled” [II Cor.
10:6]. Whence also the Lord himself bids the guests to be brought first to
His great supper, and afterward compelled; for when His servants answered
Him, “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room,” He
said to them: “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come
in” [Luke 14:22, 23]. In those, therefore, who were first brought in with
gentleness the former obedience is fulfilled, but in those who were
compelled the disobedience is avenged. For what else is the meaning of
“Compel them to come in,” after it had previously been said, “Bring in,”
and the answer was: “Lord, it is done as Thou commandest, and yet there is
room”? Wherefore if by the power which the Church has received by divine
appointment in its due season, through the religious character and faith
of kings, those who are found in the highways and hedges—that is, in
heresies and schisms—are compelled to come in, then let them not find
fault because they are compelled, but consider to what they are so
compelled. The supper of the Lord, the unity, is of the body of Christ,
not only in the sacrament of the altar but also in the bond of peace.
(_f_) Augustine, _Contra epistulam Parmeniani_, II, 13 (29). (MSL, 43:71.)
Indelibility of baptism.
Parmenianus was the Donatist bishop who succeeded Donatus in the
see of Carthage. The letter here answered was written to
Tychonius, a leading Donatist. In it Parmenianus calls the Church
defiled because it contained unworthy members. The answer of
Augustine was written in 400, many years later.
If any one, either a deserter or one who has never served as a soldier,
signs any private person with the military mark, would not he who has
signed be punished as a deserter, when he has been arrested, and so much
the more severely as it could be proved that he had never at all served as
a soldier, and at the same time along with him would not the most impudent
giver of the sign, be punished if he have surrendered him? Or perchance he
takes no military service, but is afraid of the military mark
[_character_] in his body, and he betakes himself to the clemency of the
Emperor, and when he has poured forth prayers and obtained forgiveness, he
then begins to undertake military service, when the man has been liberated
and corrected is that mark [_character_] ever repeated, and not rather is
he not recognized and approved? Would the Christian sacraments by chance
be less enduring than this bodily mark, since we see that apostates do not
lack baptism, and to them it is never given again when they return by
means of penitence, and therefore it is judged not possible to lose it.
(_g_) Augustine, _Contra epistulam Manichæi_, ch. 4 (5). (MSL, 42:175.)
_Cf._ Mirbt, n. 132.
Authority of the Catholic Church.
This work, written in 396 or 397, is important in this connection
as showing the place the Catholic Church took in the mind of
Augustine as an authority and the nature of that authority.
Not to speak of that wisdom which you [the Manichæans] do not believe to
be in the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly
keep me in her bosom. The consent of people and nations keeps me in the
Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope,
enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me,
beginning from the very seat of Peter the Apostle, to whom the Lord after
His resurrection gave it in charge to feed His sheep down to the present
episcopate. And so lastly does the name itself of Catholic, which not
without reason, amid so many heresies, that Church alone has so retained
that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger
asks where the Catholic Church meets no heretic will venture to point to
his own basilica or house. Since then so many and so great are the very
precious ties belonging to the Christian name which rightly keep a man who
is a believer in the Catholic Church … no one shall move me from the faith
which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian
religion.
Let us see what Manichæus teaches us; and in particular let us examine
that treatise which you call the Fundamental Epistle in which almost all
that you believe is contained. For in that unhappy time when we read it,
we were called by you enlightened. The epistle begins: “Manichæus, an
apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are
wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain.” Now, if you
please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. I do not believe that he is an
apostle of Christ. Do not, I beg of you, be enraged and begin to curse.
You know that it is my rule not to believe without consideration anything
offered by you. “Wherefore I ask, who is this Manichæus?” You reply, “An
apostle of Christ.” I do not believe it. Now you are at a loss what to say
or do; for you promised to give me knowledge of the truth, and you force
me to believe something I do not know. Perhaps you will read the Gospel to
me, and from it you will attempt to defend the person of Manichæus. But
should you meet with a person not yet believing the Gospel, what could you
reply to him if he said to you: “I do not believe”? For my part I should
not believe the Gospel except the authority of the Catholic Church moved
me. So then I have assented to them when they say to me, “Believe the
Gospel”; why should I not assent to them saying to me: “Do not believe the
Manichæans”?
§ 84. The Pelagian Controversy
The Pelagian controversy, in which the characteristic teaching of
Augustine found its best expression, may be divided into three periods. In
the first period, beginning about 411, Pelagius and Cælestius, who had
been teaching at Rome unmolested since 400 and had come to Carthage,
probably on account of the barbarian attack upon Rome, are opposed at
Carthage, and six propositions attributed to Cælestius are condemned at a
council there, where he attempted to be ordained. Cælestius leaves for the
East and is ordained at Ephesus, 412, and Pelagius soon after follows him.
In the second period, 415-417, the controversy is in the East as well as
in the West, as Augustine by letters to Jerome gave warning about
Pelagius, and councils are held at Jerusalem and Diospolis, where Pelagius
is acquitted of heresy. This was probably due as much to the general
sympathy of the Eastern theologians with his doctrine as to any alleged
misrepresentation by Pelagius. But in North Africa synods are also held
condemning Pelagius, and their findings are approved by Innocent of Rome.
But Pelagius and Cælestius send confessions of faith to Zosimus (417-418),
Innocent’s successor, who reproves the Africans and acquits Pelagius and
Cælestius as entirely sound. In the third period, 417-431, the attack on
Pelagius is taken up at Rome itself by some of the clergy, and an imperial
edict is obtained against the Pelagians. Zosimus changes his opinion and
approves the findings of a general council called at Carthage in 418, in
which the doctrines of original sin and the need of grace are asserted.
The last act of the controversy in its earlier form, after the deposition
of the leading Pelagians, among them Julian, of Eclanum, their theologian,
is the condemnation of Pelagius at the Council of Ephesus, in 431. _V.
infra_, § 89.
Additional source material: See A. Bruckner, _Quellen zur
Geschichte des pelagianischen Streites_ (in Latin), in Krüger’s
_Quellenschriften_, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1906. The principal
works of Augustine bearing on the Pelagian controversy may be
found in PNF, ser. I, vol. V.
(_a_) Augustine, _Ep. 146, ad Pelagium_. (MSL, 33:596.)
This was probably written before the controversy. As to its use
later, see Augustine, _De gestis Pelagii_, chs. 51 (26) _f._ (PNF)
I thank you very much that you have been so kind as to make me glad by
your letter informing me of your welfare. May the Lord recompense you with
those blessings that you forever be good and may live eternally with Him
who is eternal, my lord greatly beloved and brother greatly longed for.
Although I do not acknowledge that anything in me deserves the eulogies
which the letter of your benevolence contains about me, I cannot, however,
be ungrateful for the good-will therein manifested toward one so
insignificant, while suggesting at the same time that you should rather
pray for me that I may be made by the Lord such as you suppose me already
to be.
(_b_) Augustine. _De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione et de Baptismo
Parvulorum_. (MSL, 44:185, 188.)
Augustine’s testimony as to the character of Pelagius.
This work was written in 412, after the condemnation of Cælestius
at Carthage. It was the first in the series of polemical writings
against the teaching of Pelagius. The first book is especially
important as a statement of Augustine’s position as to the nature
of justifying grace.
It should be recalled that Pelagius was a monk of exemplary life,
and a zealous preacher of morality. It may be said that in him the
older moralistic tendency in theology was embodied in opposition
to the new religious spirit of Augustine. _Cf._ Bruckner, _op.
cit._, n. 4.
III. 1. However, within the last few days I have read some writings of
Pelagius, a holy man, as I hear, who has made no small progress in the
Christian life, and these writings contain very brief expositions of the
Epistles of Paul the Apostle.(176)
III. 3. But we must not omit that this good and praiseworthy man (as they
who know him describe him as being) has not advanced this argument against
the natural transmission of sin in his own person.
(_c_) Pelagius, _Fragments_, in Augustine’s _De Gratia Christi et de
Peccato Originali_. (MSL, 44:364, 379.)
The teaching of Pelagius can be studied not only in his opponent’s
statements but in his own words. These are to be found in his
commentary (see note to previous selection), and also in fragments
found in Augustine’s writings and several minor pieces (see
below).
I. 7. Very ignorant persons think that we do wrong in this matter to
divine grace, because we say that it by no means perfects sanctity in us
without our will: as if God could impose any commands upon His grace and
would not supply also the help of His grace to those to whom He has given
commands, so that men might more easily accomplish through grace what they
are required to do by their free will. And this grace we do not for our
part, as you suppose, allow to consist merely in the law, but also in the
help of God. God helps us by His teaching and revelation when He opens the
eyes of our heart; when He points out to us the future, that we may not be
absorbed in the present; when He discovers to us the snares of the devil;
when He enlightens us with manifold and ineffable gifts of heavenly grace.
Does the man who says this appear to you to be a denier of grace? Does he
not acknowledge both man’s free will and God’s grace?
I. 39. Speaking of the text Rom. 7:23: “But I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
Now what you [_i.e._, Augustine, whom he is addressing] wish us to
understand of the Apostle himself, all Church writers assert that he spoke
in the person of the sinner, and of one still under the law, who by reason
of very long custom of vice was held bound, as it were, by a certain
necessity of sinning, and who, although he desired good with his will in
practice, indeed, was driven into evil. In the person, however, of one man
the Apostle designates the people who sinned still under the ancient law,
and this people, he declares, are to be delivered from this evil of custom
through Christ, who first of all remits all sins in baptism, to those who
believe on Him, and then by an imitation of Himself incites them to
perfect holiness, and by the example of virtues overcomes the evil custom
of sins.
(_d_) Pelagius, _Epistula ad Demetriadem_. (MSL, 33:1100 _ff._)
This epistle, from which selections are given, was written
probably about 412 or 413. As it gives a statement of the teaching
of Pelagius in his own words, it is of especial historical
interest. Demetrias was a virgin, and probably under the spiritual
direction of Pelagius, though little is known of her. Text in
Bruckner, _op. cit._, n. 56.
Ch. 2. As often as I have to speak of the principles of virtue and a holy
life, I am accustomed first of all to call attention to the capacity and
character of human nature, and to show what it is able to accomplish; then
from this to arouse the feelings of the hearer, that he may strive after
different kinds of virtue, that he may permit himself to be roused to acts
which perhaps he had regarded as impossible. For we are quite unable to
travel the way of virtue if hope does not accompany us. For all attempts
to accomplish anything cease if one is in doubt whether he will attain the
goal. This order of exhortation I follow in other minor writings and in
this case also. I believe it must be kept especially in mind where the
good of nature needs to be set forth the more in detail as the life is to
be more perfectly formed, that the spirit may not be more neglectful and
slow in its striving after virtue, as it believes itself to have the less
ability, and when it is ignorant of what is within it, think that it does
not possess it.
Ch. 3. One must be careful to see to it that … one does not think that a
man is not made good because he can do evil and is not compelled to an
immutable necessity of doing good through the might of nature. For if you
diligently consider it and turn your mind to the subtler understanding of
the matter, the better and superior position of man will appear in that
from which his inferior condition was inferred. But just in this freedom
in either direction, in this liberty toward either side, is placed the
glory of our rational nature. Therein, I say, consists the entire honor of
our nature, therein its dignity; from this the very good merit praise,
from this their reward. For there would be for those who always remain
good no virtue if they had not been able to have chosen the evil. For
since God wished to present to the rational creature the gift of voluntary
goodness and the power of the free will, by planting in man the
possibility of turning himself toward either side, He made His special
gift the ability to be what he would be in order that he, being capable of
good and evil, could do either and could turn his will to either of them.
Ch. 8. We defend the advantage of nature not in the sense that we say it
cannot do evil, since we declare that it is capable of good and evil; we
only protect it from reproach. It should not appear as if we were driven
to evil by a disease of nature, we who do neither good nor bad without our
will, and to whom there is always freedom to do one of two things, since
always we are able to do both.… Nothing else makes it difficult for us to
do good than long custom of sinning which has infected us since we were
children, and has gradually corrupted us for many years, so that afterward
it holds us bound to it and delivered over to it, so that it almost seems
as if it had the same force as nature.
If before the Law, as we are told, and long before the appearance of the
Redeemer, various persons can be named who lived just and holy lives, how
much more after His appearance must we believe that we are able to do the
same, we who have been taught through Christ’s grace, and born again to be
better men; and we who by His blood have been reconciled and purified, and
by His example incited to more perfect righteousness, ought to be better
than they who were before the Law, better than they who were under the
law.
(_e_) Marius Mercator, _Commonitorium super nomine Cælestii_, ch. 1. (MSL,
48:67.) _Cf._ Kirch, nn. 737 _ff._
The Council of Carthage and the opinions of Cælestius condemned at
that council, 411.
Marius Mercator, a friend and supporter of Augustine, was one of
the most determined opponents of Pelagianism, as also of
Nestorianism. His dates are not well determined. In 418 he sent
works to Augustine to be examined by the latter, and he seems to
have lived until after the Council of Chalcedon, 451. The work
from which the selection is taken was written, 429, in Greek, and
translated and republished in Latin, 431 or 432. With the
following should be compared Augustine’s _De Gratia Christi et
Peccato Originali_, II, 2_f._, and _Ep._ 175:6; 157:3, 22.
A certain Cælestius, a eunuch from his mother’s womb, a disciple and
auditor of Pelagius, left Rome about twenty years ago and came to
Carthage, the metropolis of all Africa, and there he was accused of the
following heads before Aurelius, bishop of that city, by a complaint from
a certain Paulinus, a deacon of Bishop Ambrose of Milan, of sacred memory,
as the record of the acts stands in which the same complaint is inserted
(a copy of the acts of the council we have in our hands) that he not only
taught this himself, but also sent in different directions throughout the
provinces those who agreed with him to disseminate among the people these
things, that is:
1. Adam was made mortal and would have died whether he had sinned or had
not sinned.
2. The sin of Adam injured himself alone, and not the human race.
3. New-born children are in that state in which Adam was before his fall.
4. Neither by the death and sin of Adam does the whole race die, nor by
the resurrection of Christ does the whole race rise.
5. The Law leads to the kingdom of heaven as well as the Gospel.
6. Even before the coming of the Lord there were men without sin.
(_f_) Pelagius. _Confessio fidei_. (MSL, 45:1716 _f._) Hahn, § 209.
The confession of faith addressed to Innocent of Rome, but
actually laid before Zosimus, in 417, consists of an admirably
orthodox statement of the doctrine of the Trinity and of the
incarnation, an expansion of the Nicene formula with reference to
perversions of the faith by various heretics, and in conclusion a
statement of Pelagius’s own opinions regarding free will, grace,
and sin. It is due to the irony of history that it should have
been found among the works of both Jerome and Augustine, long
passed current as a composition of Augustine, _Sermo CCXXXVI_, and
should have been actually quoted by the Sorbonne, in 1521, in its
articles against Luther. It also appears in the _Libri Carolini_,
III, 1, as an orthodox exposition of the faith. The passages which
bear upon the characteristic Pelagian doctrine are here given.
Fragments of the confessions of other Pelagians, _e.g._,
Cælestius, and Julius of Eclanum, are found in Hahn, §§ 210 and
211. For the proceedings in the East, see Hefele, § 118.
We hold that there is one baptism, which we assert is to be administered
to children in the same words of the sacrament as it is administered to
adults.…
We execrate also the blasphemy of those who say that anything impossible
to do is commanded man by God, and the commands of God can be observed,
not by individuals but by all in common, also those who with the
Manichæans condemn first marriages or with the Cataphrygians condemn
second marriages.… We so confess the will is free that we say that we
always need the aid of God, and they err who with the Manichæans assert
that man cannot avoid sins as well as those who with Jovinan say that man
cannot sin; for both take away the liberty of the will. But we say that
man can both sin and not sin, so that we confess that we always have free
will.
(_g_) Augustine, _Sermo_ 131. (MSL, 38:734.) _Cf._ Kirch, n. 672.
_Causa finita est._
Late in 416 synods were held in Carthage and Mileve condemning
Pelagianism. On January 27, 417, Innocent wrote to the Africans,
approving their councils and condemning Pelagianism, incidentally
stating the supreme authority of the Roman See and requiring that
nothing should ever be definitively settled without consulting the
Apostolic See (text of passage in Denziger. ed. 1911, n. 100).
September 23 of the same year, about the time when Pelagius and
Cælestius were at Rome with Zosimus seeking to rehabilitate
themselves in the West, Augustine delivered a sermon in which he
made the following statement. It is the basis of the famous phrase
_Roma locuta, causa finita est_, a saying which is apocryphal,
however, and not found in the works of Augustine.
What, therefore, is said concerning the Jews, that we see in them [_i.e._,
the Pelagians]. They have the zeal for God; I bear witness, that they have
a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Why is it not according to
knowledge? Because, being ignorant of the justice of God and wishing to
establish their own, they are not subject to the righteousness of God
[Rom. 10:2 _f._]. My brethren, have patience with me.
When you find such, do not conceal them, let there be not false mercy in
you. Most certainly when you find such, do not conceal them. Refute those
contradicting, and those resisting bring to me. For already two councils
about this case have been sent to the Apostolic See, whence also rescripts
have come. The case has been ended; would that the error might some time
end! Therefore let us warn them that they pay attention; let us teach them
that they may be instructed; let us pray that they may be changed.
(_h_) Zosimus, III _Ep. ad Episcopos Africæ de causa Cælestii_ A. D. 417.
(MSL, 45:1721.) _Cf._ Bruckner, _op. cit._, n. 28.
Fragments of his later _Epistula tractoria_ together with other
letters may be found in Bruckner, _op. cit._
Likewise Pelagius sent letters also containing an extended justification
of himself, to which he added a profession of his faith, what he condemned
and what he followed, without any dissimulation, so that all subtilities
of interpretation might be avoided. There was a public recitation of
these. They contained all things like those which Cælestius had previously
presented and expressed in the same sense and drawn up in the same
thoughts. Would that some of you, dearest brethren, could have been
present at the reading of the letters. What was the joy of the holy men
who were present; what was the admiration of each of them! Some of them
could scarcely restrain themselves from tears and weeping, that such men
of absolutely correct faith could have been suspected. Was there a single
place in which the grace of God or his aid was omitted?
(_i_) Council of Carthage, A. D. 418, _Canons_. Bruns, I, 188.
These canons of the Council of Carthage, A. D. 418, were
incorporated in the _Codex Canon Ecclesiæ Africanæ_ adopted at the
Council of Carthage A. D. 419. The numbers given in brackets are
the numbers in that Codex. Interprovincial councils were known in
North Africa as “general councils.”
In the consulate of the most glorious emperors, Honorius for the twelfth
time and Theodosius for the eighth, on the calends of May, at Carthage in
the Secretarium of the Basilica of Faustus, when Bishop Aurelius presided
over the general council, the deacons standing by, it pleased all the
bishops, whose names and subscriptions are indicated, met together in the
holy synod of the church of Carthage:
1 [109]. That whosoever should say that Adam, the first man, was created
mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in the
body—that is, he would have gone forth of the body, not because of the
desert [or merit] of sin, but by natural necessity, let him be anathema.
2 [110]. Likewise that whosoever denies that infants newly from their
mother’s womb should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of
sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which is removed by
the layer of regeneration, whence the conclusion follows that in them the
form of baptism for the remission of sins is to be understood as false and
not true, let him be anathema.
For not otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, “By one man sin
has come into the world,(177) and so it passed upon all men in that all
have sinned,” than as the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always
understood it. For on account of this rule of faith, even infants, who
could have committed no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for
the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of
generation may be cleansed by regeneration.
3 [111]. Likewise, that whoever should say that the grace of God, by which
a man is justified through Jesus Christ our Lord, avails only for the
remission of past sins, and not for assistance against committing sins in
the future, let him be anathema.
4 [112]. Also, whoever shall say that the same grace of God through Jesus
Christ our Lord helps us not to sin only in that by it are revealed to us
and opened to our understanding the commandments, so that we may know what
to seek, what we ought to avoid, and also that we should love to do so,
but that through it we are not helped so that we are able to do what we
know we should do, let him be anathema. For when the Apostle says, “Wisdom
puffeth up, but charity edifieth,” it were truly infamous were we to
believe that we have the grace of Christ for that which puffeth us up, but
have it not for that which edifieth, since each is the gift of God, both
to know what we ought to do, and to love it so as to do it; so that wisdom
cannot puff us up while charity is edifying us. For as it is written of
God, “Who teacheth man knowledge,” so also it is written, “Love is of
God.”
5 [113]. It seemed good that whosoever should say that the grace of
justification is given to us only that we might be able more readily by
grace to perform what we were commanded to do through our free will; as if
when grace was not given, although not easily, yet nevertheless we could
even without grace fulfil the divine commandments, let him be anathema.
For the Lord spake concerning the fruits of the commandments, when he
said, “Without me ye can do nothing,” and not “Without me ye can do it but
with difficulty.”
6 [114]. It seemed also good that as St. John the Apostle says, “If ye
shall say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us”; whosoever thinks that this should be so understood as to mean that
out of humility we ought to say that we have sin, and not because it is
really so, let him be anathema. For the Apostle goes on to add, “But if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all iniquity,” where it is sufficiently clear that this is
said not only in humility but also in truth. For the Apostle might have
said, “If we shall say we have no sins we shall extol ourselves, and
humility is not in us”; but when he says, “we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us,” he sufficiently intimates that he who affirmed that
he had no sin would speak not that which is true but that which is false.
7 [115]. It has seemed good that whosoever should say that when in the
Lord’s Prayer, the saints say, “Forgive us our trespasses,” they say this
not for themselves, because they have no need of this petition, but for
the rest who are sinners of the people; and that therefore none of the
saints can say, “Forgive me my trespasses,” but “Forgive us our
trespasses”; so that the just is understood to seek this for others rather
than for himself, let him be anathema.
8 [116]. Likewise it seemed good, that whosoever asserts that these words
of the Lord’s Prayer when they say, “Forgive us our trespasses,” are said
by the saints out of humility and not in truth, let them be anathema.
The following canon, although it seems to have been enacted for
the case of Apiarius, is nevertheless often cited in the same
connection as the eight against Pelagius, and is therefore given
here for the sake of convenience.
18 [125]. Likewise, it seemed good that presbyters, deacons, or other of
the lower clergy who are to be tried, if they question the decision of
their bishops, the neighboring bishops having been invited by them with
the consent of their bishops shall hear them and determine whatever
separates them. But should they think that an appeal should be carried
from them, let them not carry the appeal except to African councils or to
the primates of their provinces. But whoso shall think of carrying an
appeal across the seas, shall be admitted to communion by no one in
Africa.(178)
§ 85. Semi-Pelagian Controversy
With the condemnation of Pelagianism the doctrine of Augustine in its
logically worked out details was not necessarily approved. The necessity
of baptism for the remission of sins in all cases was approved as well as
the necessity of grace. The doctrine of predestination, an essential
feature in the Augustinian system, was not only not accepted but was
vigorously opposed by many who heartily condemned Pelagianism. The ensuing
discussion, known as the Semi-Pelagian controversy (427-529), was largely
carried on in Gaul, which after the Vandal occupation of North Africa,
became the intellectual centre of the Church in the West. The leading
opponent of Augustine was John Cassian (ob. 435), abbot of a monastery at
Marseilles, hence the term Massilians applied to his party, and his pupil,
Vincent of Lerins, author of _Commonitorium_, written 434. The chief
Augustinians were Hilary and Prosper of Aquitaine. The discussion was not
continuous. About 475 it broke out again when Lucidus was condemned at a
council at Lyons and forced to retract his predestinarian views; and again
about 520. The matter received what is regarded as its solution in the
Council of Orange, 529, confirmed by Boniface II in 531. By the decrees of
this council so much of the Augustinian system as could be combined with
the teaching and practice of the Church as to the sacraments was formally
approved.
(_a_) John Cassian. _Collationes_, XIII. 7 _ff._ (MSL, 49:908.)
John Cassian, born about 360, was by birth and education a man of
the East, and does not appear in the West until 405, when he went
to Rome on some business connected with the exile of Chrysostom,
his friend and patron. In 415 he established two monasteries at
Marseilles, one for men and the other for women. He had himself
been educated as a monk and made a careful study of monasticism in
Egypt and Palestine. Western monasticism is much indebted to him
for his writings. _De Institutis Cœnobiorum_ and the
_Collationes_. In the former, he describes the monastic system of
Palestine and Egypt and the principal vices to which the monastic
life is liable; in the latter, divided into three parts, Cassian
gives reports or what purports to be reports of conversations he
and his friend Germanus had with Egyptian ascetics. These books
were very popular during the Middle Ages and exerted a wide
influence.
Ch. 7. When His [God’s] kindness sees in us even the very smallest spark
of good-will shining forth or which He himself has, as it were, struck out
from the hard flints of our hearts, He fans it and fosters it and nurses
it with His breath, as He “will have all men to be saved and to come unto
the knowledge of the truth” [I Tim. 2:4].… For He is true and lieth not
when He lays down with an oath: “As I live, saith the Lord, I will not the
death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his way and live” [Ezek.
33:11]. For if he willeth not that one of His little ones should perish,
how can we think without grievous blasphemy that He willeth not all men
universally, but only some instead of all be saved. Those then who perish,
perish against His will, as He testifieth against each of them day by day:
“Turn from your evil ways for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” [Ezek.
33:11] … The grace of Christ is then at hand every day, which, while it
“willeth all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,”
calleth all without exception, saying: “Come all unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” [Matt. 11:28]. But if he
calls not all generally but only some, it follows that not all are heavy
laden with either original sin or actual sin, and that this saying is not
a true one: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” [Rom.
3:23]; nor can we believe that “death passed on all men” [Rom. 5:12]. And
so far do all who perish, perish against the will of God, that God cannot
be said to have made death, as the Scripture itself testifieth: “For God
made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living”
[Wisdom 1:13].
Ch. 8. When He sees anything of good-will arisen in us He at once
enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on to salvation, giving
increase to that which He himself implanted or He sees to have arisen by
our own effort.
Ch. 9. … But that it may be still more evident that through the good of
nature, which is bestowed by the kindness of the Creator, sometimes the
beginnings of a good-will arise, yet cannot come to the completion of
virtue unless they are directed by the Lord, the Apostle is a witness,
saying: “For to will is present with me, but to perform what is good I
find not” [Rom. 7:18].
Ch. 11. … If we say that the beginnings of a good-will are always inspired
in us by the grace of God, what shall we say about the faith of Zacchæus,
or of the piety of that thief upon the cross, who by their own desire
brought violence to bear upon the Kingdom of Heaven, and so anticipated
the special leadings of their callings?…
Ch. 12. We should not hold that God made man such that he neither wills
nor is able to do good. Otherwise He has not granted him a free will, if
He has suffered him only to will or be capable of evil, but of himself
neither to will nor be capable of what is good.… It cannot, therefore, be
doubted that there are by nature seeds of goodness implanted in every soul
by the kindness of the Creator; but unless these are quickened by the
assistance of God, they will not be able to attain to an increase of
perfection; for, as the blessed Apostle says: “Neither is he that planteth
anything nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase” [I Cor.
3:7]. But that freedom of will is to some degree in a man’s power is very
clearly taught in the book called _The Pastor_,(179) where two angels are
said to be attached to each one of us, _i.e._ a good and a bad one, while
it lies in a man’s own option to choose which to follow. And, therefore,
the will always remains free in man, and it can either neglect or delight
in the grace of God. For the Apostle would not have commanded, saying,
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” [Phil. 2:12], had he
not known that it could be advanced or neglected by us.… But that they
should not think that they did not need divine aid he adds: “For it is God
who worketh in you both to will and accomplish His good pleasure” [Phil.
2:13]. The mercy of the Lord, therefore, goes before the will of man, for
it is said, “My God will prevent me with His mercy” [Psalm 59:10], and
again, that He may put our desire to the test, our will goes before God
who waits, and for our good delays.
(_b_) Vincent of Lerins, _Commonitorium_, chs. 2, 23, 26, (MSL, 50:659.)
The rule of Catholic verity.
Vincent of Lerins wrote his _Commonitorium_ in 434, three years
after the death of Augustine, who had been commended in 432 to the
clergy of Gaul by Celestine of Rome [_Ep._ 21; Denziger, nn.
128-142; Mansi IV, 454 _ff._]. Vincent attacked Augustine in his
_Commonitorium_, not openly, but, so far as the work has been
preserved, covertly, under the pseudonym of Peregrinus. The work
consists of two books, of which the second is lost with the
exception of what appear to be some concluding chapters, or a
summary taking the place of the book. In the first book he lays
down the general principle as to the tests of Catholic truth. In
doing so he is careful to point out several cases of very great
teachers, renowned for learning, ability, and influence, who,
nevertheless, erred against the test of Catholic truth, and
brought forward opinions which, on account of their novelty, were
false. It is a working out in detail of the principles of the idea
of Tertullian in his _De Prœscriptione_ [_v. supra_, § 27]. The
Augustinian doctrines of predestination and grace could not stand
the test of the appeal to antiquity. After laying down his test of
truth it appears to have been the author’s intention to prove
thereby the doctrine of Augustine false. The so-called “Vincentian
rule” is often quoted without a thought that it was intended,
primarily, as an attack upon Augustine. The _Commonitorium_ may be
found translated in PNF, ser. II, vol. XI.
Ch. 2 [4]. I have often inquired earnestly and attentively of very many
men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and, so to
speak, universal rule I might be able to distinguish the truth of the
Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity, and I have always,
and from nearly all, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or
any one else should wish to detect the frauds of heretics as they arise,
or to avoid their snares, and to continue sound and complete in the faith,
we must, the Lord helping, fortify our faith in two ways: first, by the
authority of the divine Law, and then, by the tradition of the Catholic
Church.
But here some one, perhaps, will ask: Since the canon of Scripture is
complete and sufficient for everything, and more than sufficient, what
need is there to add to it the authority of the Church’s interpretation?
For this reason: because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not
accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words one
way, another in another way; so that almost as many opinions may be drawn
from it as there are men.… Therefore it is very necessary, on account of
so great intricacies, and of such various errors, that the rule of a right
understanding of the prophets and Apostles should be framed in accordance
with the standard of ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.
Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself all possible care should be taken
that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by
all. For that is truly and properly “Catholic” which, as the name implies
and the reason of the thing declares, comprehends all universally. This
will be the case if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent. We
shall follow universality in this way, if we confess that one faith to be
true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if
we in nowise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were
notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent in like
manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions
and determinations of all, or at least almost all, priests and doctors.
Ch. 23 [59]. The Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of
the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them,
never diminishes, never adds; does not cut off what is necessary, does not
add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what
is another’s, but, while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient
doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view—if there be anything
which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and to
polish it; if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to
consolidate and strengthen it; if any already ratified and defined, to
keep and guard it. Finally, what other objects have councils ever aimed at
in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in
simplicity, should in the future be believed intelligently; that what was
before preached coldly, should in the future be preached earnestly; that
what before was practised negligently, should henceforth be practised with
double solicitude?
Passage referring especially to Augustine.
Ch. 26 [69]. But what do they say? “If thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself down”; that is, “If thou wouldest be a son of God, and wouldest
receive the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, cast thyself down; that
is, cast thyself down from the doctrine and tradition of that sublime
Church, which is imagined to be nothing less than the very temple of God.”
And if one should ask one of the heretics who gives this advice: How do
you prove it? What ground have you for saying that I ought to cast away
the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? he has only the
answer ready: “For it is written”; and forthwith he produces a thousand
testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law,
from the Psalms, from the Apostles, from the prophets, by means of which,
interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul is precipitated
from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy. Then with
the accompanying promises, the heretics are wont marvellously to beguile
the incautious. For they dare to teach and promise that in their church,
that is, in the conventicle of their communion, there is a certain great
and special and altogether personal grace of God, so that whosoever
pertain to their number, without any labor, without any effort, without
any industry, even though they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock,(180) have
such a dispensation from God, that borne up of angel hands, that is,
preserved by the protection of angels, it is impossible they should ever
dash their feet against a stone, that is, that they should ever be
offended.
(_c_) Council of Orange, A. D. 529, _Canons_. Bruns II, 176. _Cf._
Denziger, n. 174.
The end of the Semi-Pelagian controversy.
The Council of Orange, A. D. 529, was made up of several bishops
and some lay notables who had gathered for the dedication of a
church at Orange. Cæsarius of Arles had received from Felix IV of
Rome eight statements against the Semi-Pelagian teaching. He added
some more of his own to them, and had them passed as canons by the
company gathered for the dedication. It is noteworthy that the lay
notables signed along with the bishops. Boniface II, to whom the
canons were sent, confirmed them in 532: “We approve your above
written confession as agreeable to the Catholic rule of the
Fathers.” _Cf._ Hefele, § 242. For the sources of the canons, see
Seeberg, _History of Doctrines_, Eng. trans., I, 380, note 3. For
the sake of brevity the scriptural quotations are not given,
merely indicated by references to the Bible.
Canon 1. Whoever says that by the offence of the disobedience of Adam not
the entire man, that is, in body and soul, was changed for the worse, but
that the freedom of his soul remained uninjured, and his body only was
subject to corruption, has been deceived by the error of Pelagius and
opposes Scripture [Ezek. 18:20; Rom. 6:16; II Peter 2:19].
Canon 2. Whoever asserts that the transgression of Adam injured himself
only, and not his offspring, or that death only of the body, which is the
penalty of sin, but not also sin, which is the death of the soul, passed
by one man to the entire human race, wrongs God and contradicts the
Apostle [Rom. 5:12].
Canon 3. Whoever says that the grace of God can be bestowed in reply to
human petition, but not that the grace brings it about so that it is asked
for by us, contradicts Isaiah the prophet and the Apostle [Is. 65:1; Rom.
10:20].
Canon 4. Whoever contends that our will, to be set free from sin, may
anticipate God’s action, and shall not confess that it is brought about by
the infusion of the Holy Spirit and his operation in us, that we wish to
be set free, resists that same Holy Spirit speaking through Solomon: “The
will is prepared by the Lord” [Proverbs 8:35, _cf._ LXX; not so in Vulgate
or Heb.], and the Apostle [Phil. 2:13].
Canon 5. Whoever says the increase, as also the beginning of faith and the
desire of believing, by which we believe in Him who justifies the impious,
and we come to the birth of holy baptism, is not by the free gift of
grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit turning our will
from unbelief to belief, from impiety to piety, but belongs naturally to
us, is declared an adversary of the apostolic preaching [Phil. 1:6; Ephes.
2:8]. For they say that faith by which we believe in God is natural, and
they declare that all those who are strangers to the Church of Christ in
some way are believing.
Canon 6. Whoever says that to us who, without the grace of God, believe,
will, desire, attempt, struggle for, watch, strive for, demand, ask,
knock, mercy is divinely bestowed, and does not rather confess that it is
brought about by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in us
that believe, will, and do all these other things as we ought, and annexes
the help of grace to human humility and obedience, and does not admit that
it is the gift of that same grace that we are obedient and humble, opposes
the Apostle [I Cor. 4:7].
Canon 7. Whoever asserts that by the force of nature we can rightly think
or choose anything good, which pertains to eternal life, or be saved, that
is, assent to the evangelical preaching, without the illumination of the
Holy Spirit, who gives to all grace to assent to and believe the truth, is
deceived by an heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of the Lord
[John 15:5], and of the Apostle [II Cor. 3:5].
Canon 8. Whoever asserts that some by mercy, others by free will, which in
all who have been born since the transgression of the first man is
evidently corrupt, are able to come to the grace of baptism, is proved an
alien from the faith. For he asserts that the free will of all has not
been weakened by the sin of the first man, or he evidently thinks that it
has been so injured that some, however, are able without the revelation of
God to attain, by their own power, to the mystery of eternal salvation.
Because the Lord himself shows how false this is, who declares that not
some, but no one was able to come to Him unless the Father drew him [John
6:4], and said so to Peter [Matt. 16:17] and the Apostle [I Cor. 12:3].
The canons that follow are less important. The whole concludes
with a brief statement regarding the points at issue, as follows:
And so according to the above sentences of the Holy Scriptures and
definitions of ancient Fathers, by God’s aid, we believe that we ought to
believe and preach:
That by the sin of the first man, free will was so turned aside and
weakened that afterward no one is able to love God as he ought, or believe
in God, or do anything for God, which is good, except the grace of divine
mercy comes first to him [Phil. 1:6, 29; Ephes. 2:8; I Cor. 4:7, 7:25;
James 1:17; John 3:27].…
We also believe this to be according to the Catholic faith, that grace
having been received in baptism, all who have been baptized, can and
ought, by the aid and support of Christ, to perform those things which
belong to the salvation of the soul, if they labor faithfully.
But not only do we not believe that some have been predestinated to evil
by the divine power, but also, if there are any who wish to believe so
evil a thing, we say to them, with all detestation, anathema.
Also this we profitably confess and believe, that in every good we do not
begin and afterward are assisted by the mercy of God, but without any good
desert preceding, He first inspires in us faith and love in Him, so that
we both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism with
His help are able to perform those things which are pleasing to Him.
Whence it is most certainly to be believed that in the case of that thief,
whom the Lord called to the fatherland of paradise, and Cornelius the
Centurion, to whom an angel of the Lord was sent, and Zacchæus, who was
worthy of receiving the Lord himself, their so wonderful faith was not of
nature, but was the gift of the divine bounty.
And because we desire and wish our definition of the ancient Fathers,
written above, to be a medicine not only for the clergy but also for the
laity, it has been decided that the illustrious and noble men, who have
assembled with us at the aforesaid festival, shall subscribe it with their
own hand.
§ 86. The Roman Church as the Centre of the Catholic Roman Element of the
West
In the confusion of the fifth century, when the provinces of the Roman
Empire were being lopped off one by one, Italy invaded, and the larger
political institutions disappearing, the Church was the one institution
that maintained itself. In not a few places among the barbarians the
bishops became the acknowledged heads of the Roman element of the
communities. In meeting the threatened invasion of Italy by Attila, Leo
was the representative of the Roman people, the head of the embassy sent
to induce the Hun to recross the Danube. Under such circumstances the see
of Rome constantly gained in importance politically and ecclesiastically.
As a centre of unity it was far more powerful than a feeble emperor at
Ravenna or puppets set up by barbarians. It was the one and only great
link between the provinces and the representative of the ancient order. It
represented Rome, an efficient and generally gratefully recognized
authority. In the development of the papal idea the first stadium was
completed with the pontificate of Leo the Great (440-461), who, fully
conscious of the inherited Petrine prerogatives, expressed them the most
clearly, persistently, and, on the whole, most successfully of any pontiff
before Gregory the Great. Leo, therefore, stands at the end of a
development marked by the utterances of Victor, Cornelius, Siricius,
Innocent I, Zosimus, Boniface I, and Celestine. For their statements of
the authority of the Roman see, see Denziger, under their names, also
Kirch and Mirbt. The whole may be found combined in one statement in
Schwanne, _Dogmengeschichte_, I, 413 _f._; II, 661-698.
Additional source material: In English there is comparatively
little except the writings of Leo, see especially _Sermones_ 2,
82, 84; _Epistulæ_ 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 105, 167; Jerome,
_Ep._ 146, _ad Evangelum_. Kirch, Mirbt, and Denziger give many
references to original texts and citations.
(_a_) Leo the Great, _Sermo_ 3. (MSL, 55:145 _f._)
On the prerogatives of Peter and his see.
Ch. 2. … From His overruling and eternal providence we have received also
the support of the Apostle’s aid, which assuredly does not cease from its
operation; and the strength of the foundation, on which the whole lofty
building of the Church is reared, is not weakened by the weight of the
temple that rests upon it. For the solidity of that faith which was
praised in the chief of the Apostles is perpetual; and, as that remains
which Peter believed in Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in
Peter. For when, as has been read in the Gospel lesson [_i.e._, for the
day], the Lord has asked the disciples whom they believed Him to be, amid
the various opinions that were held, the blessed Peter replied, saying:
“Thou art the Christ,” etc. [Matt. 16:16-19].
Ch. 3. The dispensation of the truth therefore abides, and the blessed
Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock which he has received, has
not abandoned the helm of the Church which he undertook. For he was
ordained before the rest in such a way that since he is called the rock,
since he is pronounced the foundation, since he is constituted the
doorkeeper of the kingdom of heaven, since he is set up as the judge to
bind and to loose, whose judgments shall retain their validity in heaven,
from all these mystical titles we might know the nature of his association
with Christ. And still to-day he more fully and effectually performs what
is intrusted to him, and carries out every part of his duty and charge in
Him and with Him, through whom he has been glorified. And so if anything
is rightly done or rightly decreed by us, if anything is obtained from the
mercy of God by daily supplications, it is his work and merits whose power
lives in his see and whose authority excels. For this, dearly beloved,
that confession gained, that confession which, inspired in the Apostle’s
heart by God the Father, transcends all the uncertainty of human opinions,
and was endued with the firmness of a rock, which no assaults could shake.
For throughout the Church Peter daily says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God,” and every tongue which confesses the Lord is inspired
by the instruction [_magisterio_] of that voice.
(_b_) Leo the Great, _Ep._ 104, _ad Marcianum Augustum_, A. D. 452. (MSL,
54:993.)
Condemnation of the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon.
This and the two following epistles upon the twenty-eighth canon
of the Council of Chalcedon define the relation of the Roman see
to councils, canons, and patriarchal sees. Apostolic sees may not
be constituted by mere canon; political importance of a place does
not regulate its ecclesiastical position; the see of Rome can
reject the canons of councils even though general; apostolic sees
connected with Peter may not have their authority diminished. For
the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, _v. infra_, § 90, _d_.
Ch. 3. Let the city of Constantinople have, as we desire, its glory, and
may it, under the protection of God’s right hand, long enjoy the rule of
your clemency. Yet the basis of things secular is one, and the basis of
things divine another; and there can be no sure building save on that rock
which the Lord laid as a foundation. He that covets what is not his due,
loses what is his own. Let it be enough for the aforesaid [Anatolius,
bishop of Constantinople] that by the aid of your piety and by my
favorable assent he has obtained the bishopric of so great a city. Let him
not disdain a royal city, which he cannot make an apostolic see; and let
him on no account hope to be able to rise by injury to others. For the
privileges of the churches, determined by the canons of the holy Fathers,
and fixed by the decrees of the Nicene synod, cannot be overthrown by an
unscrupulous act, nor disturbed by an innovation. And in the faithful
execution of this task by the aid of Christ, it is necessary that I show
an unflinching devotion; for it is a charge intrusted to me, and it tends
to condemnation if the rules sanctioned by the Fathers and laid down under
the guidance of God’s spirit at the synod of Nicæa for the government of
the whole Church are violated with my connivance (which God forbid) and if
the wishes of a single brother have more weight with me than the common
word of the Lord’s whole house.
(_c_) Leo the Great, _Ep._ 105, _ad Pulcheriam Augustam_ A. D. 452. (MSL,
54:997.)
Condemnation of all canons contravening those of Nicæa.
§ 3. Let him [Anatolius] know to what sort of man he has succeeded, and,
expelling all the spirit of pride, let him imitate the faith of Flavian,
his modesty and his humility, which raised him up even to a confessor’s
glory. If he will shine with his virtues, he will be praiseworthy and
everywhere he will win an abundance of love, not by seeking human things,
but divine favor. And by this careful course I promise that my heart will
also be bound to him, and the love of this apostolic see which we have
ever bestowed upon the church of Constantinople shall never be violated by
any change. Because, if rulers, lacking self-restraint, fall into errors,
yet the purity of the churches of Christ continues. As for the assents of
bishops which are in contradiction with the regulations of the holy canons
composed at Nicæa, in conjunction with your faithful race we do not
recognize them, and by the authority of the blessed Apostle Peter we
absolutely disannul in comprehensive terms in all cases ecclesiastical,
following those laws which the Holy Ghost set forth by three hundred and
eighteen bishops for the pacific observance of all priests, so that, even
if a much greater number were to pass a different decree from theirs,
whatever was opposed to their constitution would have to be held in no
respect.
(_d_) Leo the Great, _Ep._ 106, _ad Anatolium_ A. D. 452. (MSL, 54:1005.)
The relation of the apostolic sees to Peter.
Your purpose is in no way whatever supported by the written assent of
certain bishops, given, as you allege, sixty years ago,(181) and never
brought to the knowledge of the Apostolic See by your predecessors; under
this project(182) which from its outset was tottering and has already
collapsed, you now wish to place too late and useless props.… The rights
of provincial primates may not be overthrown, nor metropolitan bishops be
defrauded of privileges based on antiquity. The see of Alexandria may not
lose any of that dignity which it merited through St. Mark, the evangelist
and disciple of the blessed Peter, nor may the splendor of so great a
church be obscured by another’s clouds, when Dioscurus fell through his
persistence in impiety. The church of Antioch, too, in which first, at the
preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter, the Christian name arose, must
continue in the position assigned to it by the Fathers, and, being set in
the third place [Can. 6, Nicæa, 325, _v. supra_, § 72], must never be
lowered therefrom. For the see is one thing, and those who preside in it
something different; and an individual’s great honor is his own integrity.
(_e_) Leo the Great, _Ep._ 6, _ad Anastasium_ A. D. 444. (MSL, 54:616.)
_Cf._ Kirch, nn. 814 _ff._
The policy of centralization. The primates are representatives of
the bishop of Rome. Anastasius was bishop of Thessalonica.
Ch. 2. Inasmuch, dear brother, as your request has been made known to us
through our son Nicholas, the priest, that you also, like your
predecessors, might receive from us in your turn authority over Illyricum
for the observance of the rules, we give our consent, and earnestly exhort
that no concealment and no negligence may be allowed in the management of
the churches situated throughout Illyricum, which we commit to you in our
stead, following the precedent of Siricius, of blessed memory, who then,
for the first time acting on a fixed method, intrusted them to your last
predecessor but one, Anysius, of holy memory, who had at the time well
deserved of the Apostolic See, and was approved by after events, that he
might render assistance to the churches situated in that province, whom he
wished to keep up to the discipline.…
Ch. 5. Those of the brethren who have been summoned to a synod should
attend, and not deny themselves to the holy congregation.… But if any more
important question spring up, such as cannot be settled there under your
presidency, brother, send your report and consult us, so that we may write
back under the revelation of the Lord, of whose mercy it is that we can do
aught, because He has breathed favorably upon us; that by our decision we
may vindicate our right of cognizance in accordance with old-established
tradition, and the respect which is due the Apostolic See; for as we wish
you to exercise your authority in our stead, so we reserve to ourselves
points which cannot be decided on the spot and persons who have appealed
to us.(183)
Chapter III. The Church In The Eastern Empire.
At the beginning of the permanent division of the Empire, the church life
of the East was disturbed by a series of closely connected disputes known
as the First Origenistic Controversy (§ 87), in which were comprised a
conflict between a rationalistic tendency, connected with the religious
philosophy of Origen, and a traditionalism that eschewed speculation, a
bitter rivalry between the great sees of Alexandria, the religious and
intellectual capital of the East, and Constantinople, the church of the
new imperial city, and personal disputes. But more serious controversies
were already beginning. While the Church of the West was laying the
foundations of the papal system, the Church of the East was falling more
and more under the dominance of the secular authority; while the West was
developing its anthropology, with its doctrines of Original Sin, Grace,
and Election, the East was entering upon the long discussion of the topic
which had been left by the Arian controversy—granted that the incarnate
Son of God is truly eternal God, in what way are the divine and human
natures related to the one personality of the incarnate God (§ 88)? The
controversies that arose over this topic involved the entire Church of the
East, and found in the general councils of Ephesus, A. D. 431 (§ 89), and
Chalcedon, A. D. 451 (§ 90), partial solutions. In the case of each
council, permanent schisms resulted, and large portions of the Church of
the East broke away from the previous unity (§ 91); and on account of the
intimate connection between the affairs of the Church and the secular
policy of the Empire, a schism was caused between the see of Rome and the
churches in communion with the see of Constantinople.
§ 87. The First Origenistic Controversy and the Triumph of Traditionalism
In the East the leading theologians of the fourth century were educated
under the influence of Origenism; among these were Basil of Cæsarea,
Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. In the West the feeling
regarding Origen was not so favorable, but the Western theologians, Jerome
and Rufinus, who were then living in Palestine, shared in the general
admiration of Origen. But a series of brief controversies broke out in
which the standing of Origen as an orthodox theologian was seriously
attacked, as well as the whole tendency for which he stood. The result was
a wide-spread condemnation of the spiritualizing teaching of the great
Alexandrian, and the rise of what might be called an anthropomorphic
traditionalism. The first of the three controversies took place in
Palestine, 395-399, and was occasioned by Epiphanius of Salamis, a zealous
opponent of heresy. He denounced Origen and induced Jerome to abandon
Origen; and Rufinus was soon in bitter enmity with Jerome. The second
controversy took place in Egypt about the same time, when a group of monks
in the Scetic desert, who were violently opposed to Origenism, compelled
Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria and an admirer of Origen, to abandon that
theologian and to side with them against the monks of the Nitrian desert,
who were Origenists, and to condemn Origen at a council at Alexandria,
399. The third controversy involved John Chrysostom, bishop of
Constantinople, who had protected four Nitrian monks who had fled to his
protection. Theophilus seized the opportunity and, with the assistance for
a time of Epiphanius, ultimately brought about the downfall of Chrysostom,
who died deposed and in exile, 404. No controversies of the ancient Church
are less attractive than the Origenistic, in which so much personal
rancor, selfish ambition, mean intrigue, and so little profound thought
were involved. The literature, therefore, is scanty.
Additional source material: Jerome, _Ep._ 86-99 (PNF); Rufinus and
Jerome, controversial writings bearing on Origenism in PNF, ser.
II. vol. III, pp. 417-541; Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, VI, 2-21;
Sozomen, _Hist. Ec._, VIII, 2-28.
(_a_) Basil, _De Spiritu Sancto_, 27. (MSG, 32:187.)
The force of unwritten tradition.
The following is the most important and authoritative statement of
the force of unwritten tradition in the Eastern Church. It is
referred to by John of Damascus in his defence of images (_De Fide
Orthod._, IV, 16), _cf._ § 109. It is placed in the present
section as illustrating the principle of traditionalism which, in
a fanatical form, brought about the Origenistic controversies.
Of the beliefs and public teachings preserved in the Church, some we have
from written tradition, others we have received as delivered to us “in a
mystery” by the tradition of the Apostles; and both of these have in
relation to true piety the same binding force. And these no one will
gainsay, at least no one who is versed even moderately in the institutions
of the Church. For were we to reject such customs as are unwritten as
having no great force, we should unintentionally injure the gospels in
their very vitals; or, rather, reduce our public definition to a mere name
and nothing more. For example, to take the first and most general
instance, who is there who has taught us in writing to sign with the cross
those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? What writing
has taught us to turn to the East in our prayers? Which of the saints has
left us in writing the words at the invocation and at the displaying of
the bread in the eucharist and the cup of blessing? For we are not, as is
well known, content with what the Apostle or the Gospel has recorded; but,
both before and after, we say other words as having great importance for
the mystery, and these we derive from unwritten teaching. Moreover, we
bless the water of baptism and the oil of chrism, and, besides this, him
who is baptized. From what writings? Is it not from the silent and
mystical tradition? What written word teaches the anointing of oil itself?
And whence is it that a man is baptized three times? And as to other
customs of baptism, from what Scripture comes the renunciation of Satan
and his angels? Does not this come from the unpublished and secret
teaching which our fathers guarded in silence, averse from curious
meddling and inquisitive investigation, having learned the lesson that the
reverence of the mysteries is best preserved in silence? How was it proper
to parade in public the teaching of those things which it was not
permitted the uninitiated to look at?
(_b_) Jerome, _Preface to the Vulgate Translation of the New Testament_.
(MSL, 29:557.)
Jerome’s free critical attitude in his work in his earlier life.
This preface is addressed to Bishop Damasus of Rome and is dated
383.
You urge me to make a new work out of an old and, as it were, to sit in
judgment on the copies of the Scriptures already scattered throughout the
whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ among themselves, I am to decide
which of them agree with the Greek original. A pious labor, but a perilous
presumption; to judge others, myself to be judged of all; to change the
language of the aged, and to carry back the world already grown gray, back
to the beginnings of its infancy! Is there a man, learned or unlearned,
who will not, when he takes the volume into his hands and perceives that
what he reads differs from the flavor which once he tasted, break out
immediately into violent language and call me a forger and a profane
person for having the audacity to add anything to the ancient books or to
change or correct anything? I am consoled in two ways in bearing this
odium: in the first place, that you, the supreme bishop, command it to be
done; and secondly, even on the testimony of those reviling us, what
varies cannot be true. For if we put faith in the Latin texts, let them
tell us which; for there are almost as many texts as copies. But if the
truth is to be sought from many, why should we not go back to the original
Greek and correct the mistakes introduced by inaccurate translators, and
the blundering alterations of confident and ignorant men, and further, all
that has been added or altered by sleepy copyists? I am not discussing the
Old Testament, which was turned into Greek by the Seventy Elders, and has
reached us by a descent of three steps. I do not ask what Aquila and
Symmachus think, or why Theodotion takes a middle course between the
ancients and the moderns. I am willing to let that be a true translation
which had apostolic approval [_i.e._, the LXX]. I am now speaking of the
New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception
of the work of the Apostle Matthew, who first published the gospel of
Christ in Judea and in Hebrew. This [_i.e._, the New Testament], as it is
in our language, is certainly marked by discrepancies, and the stream
flows in different channels; it must be sought in one fountainhead. I pass
over those manuscripts bearing the names of Lucian and Hesychius, which a
few contentious persons perversely support. It was not permitted these
writers to amend anything in the Old Testament after the labor of the
Seventy; and it was useless to make corrections in the New, for
translations of the Scriptures already made in the language of many
nations show that they are additions and false. Therefore this short
preface promises only the four gospels, of which the order is Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts and
only of the ancient manuscripts. And that they might not depart far from
the Latin customarily read, I have used my pen with some restraint, so
that having corrected only the passages which seemed to change the
meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as it was.
(_c_) Jerome, _Ep._ 7, _ad Pammachium_. (MSL, 23:376.)
The principal errors of Origen according to Jerome.
This is the most important work of Jerome in the controversy known
as the Origenistic controversy. Jerome attacks in this work John,
bishop of Jerusalem, and writes as a result of the work of
Epiphanius in Palestine three years before. The following were
addressed to John to reject, as a test of that bishop’s orthodoxy.
See above, § 43.
First, in the book περὶ ἀρχῶν it is said [I, 1:8]: “For as it is unfitting
to say that the Son can see the Father, so it is not meet to think that
the Holy Spirit can see the Son.”
Secondly, that souls are bound in this body as in a prison; and that
before man was made in paradise they dwelt among rational creatures in the
heavens. Wherefore, afterward, to console itself, the soul says in the
Psalms, “Before I was humbled I went wrong,” and “Return, my soul, unto
thy rest,” and “Lead my soul out of prison,” and similarly elsewhere.
Thirdly, that he says that both the devil and the demons will some time or
other repent and ultimately reign with the saints.
Fourthly, that he interprets the coats of skins, with which Adam and Eve
were clothed after their fall and ejection from paradise, to be human
bodies, and no doubt they were previously in paradise without flesh,
sinews, or bones.
Fifthly, he most openly denies the resurrection of the flesh, the bodily
structure, and the distinction of sexes by which we men are distinguished
from women, both in his explanation of the first psalm and in many other
treatises.
Sixthly, he so allegorizes paradise as to destroy the truth of history,
understanding angels instead of trees, heavenly virtues instead of rivers;
and he overthrows all that is contained in the history of paradise by his
tropological interpretation.
Seventhly, he thinks that the waters which in the Scriptures are said to
be above the heavens are holy and supernal powers; while those which are
upon the earth and beneath the earth are, on the contrary, demoniacal
powers.
Eighthly, that the image and likeness of God, in which man was created,
was lost and was no longer in man after he was expelled from paradise.
(_d_) Anastasius, _Ep. ad Simplicianum_, in Jerome, _Ep._ 95 (MSL,
22:772.)
Condemnation of Origen by Anastasius, bishop of Rome, A. D. 400
To his lord and brother, Simplicianus, Anastasius.
It is felt right that a shepherd have great care and watchfulness over his
flock. In like manner, also, the careful watchman from his lofty tower
keeps a lookout day and night on behalf of the city. In the hour of
tempest and peril the prudent shipmaster suffers great distress of mind
lest by the tempest and the violent waves his vessel be dashed upon the
rocks. With similar feelings that reverend and honorable man Theophilus,
our brother and fellow-bishop, ceases not to watch over the things which
make for salvation, that God’s people in the different churches may not by
reading Origen run into awful blasphemies.
Having been informed, then, by the letter of the aforesaid, we inform your
holiness that just as we are set in the city of Rome, in which the prince
of the Apostles, the glorious Peter, founded the Church and then by his
faith strengthened it; to the end that no man contrary to the commandment
read these books which we have mentioned and the same we have condemned;
and with earnest prayers we have urged that the precepts of the
Evangelists which God and Christ have inspired the Evangelists to teach
ought not to be forsaken; but that is to be remembered which the venerable
Apostle Paul preached by way of warning: “If any one preach a gospel unto
you other than that which was preached unto you, let him be anathema”
[Gal. 1:8]. Holding fast, therefore, this precept, we have intimated that
everything written in days past by Origen that is contrary to our faith is
even by us rejected and condemned.
We have written these things to your holiness by the hand of the presbyter
Eusebius, who, being a man filled with a glowing faith and having the love
of the Lord, has shown me some blasphemous chapters at which we shuddered
and which we condemned, but if any other things have been put forth by
Origen, you should know that with their author they are alike condemned by
me. The Lord have you in safe-keeping, my lord and brother deservedly held
in honor.
(_e_) Rufinus, _Preface to Translation of Origen’s __“__De Principiis__”_.
(MSL, 22:733 and also MSG, 11:111.)
In this preface Rufinus refers, without mentioning names, to
Jerome. Inasmuch as it was perfectly clear to whom the allusion
was made, as the translator and admirer of Origen, Jerome felt
himself personally attacked and retorted furiously upon Rufinus.
I know that a great many of the brethren, incited by their desire for a
knowledge of the Scriptures, have requested various men versed in Greek
letters to make Origen a Roman and give him to Latin ears. Among these was
our brother and associate [_i.e._, Jerome], who was so requested by Bishop
Damasus, when he translated the two homilies on the Song of Songs from
Greek into Latin, prefixed to the work a preface so full of beauty and so
magnificent that he awoke in every one the desire of reading Origen and of
eagerly examining his works, and he said that to the soul of that man the
words might well be applied, “The King has brought me into his chamber”
[Cant. 2:4], and he declared that Origen in his other books surpassed all
other men, but in this had surpassed himself. What he promised in his
preface is, indeed, that he would give to Roman ears not only these books
on the Song of Songs, but many others of Origen. But, as I perceive, he is
so pleased with his own style that he pursues an object bringing him more
glory, viz., to be the father of a book rather than a translator. I am
therefore following out a task begun by him and commended by him.… In
translation, I follow as far as possible the method of my predecessors,
and especially of him whom I have already mentioned, who, after he had
translated into Latin above seventy of the books of Origen, which he
called Homilies, and also a certain number of the tomes written on the
Apostle [the Epistles of St. Paul], since a number of offensive passages
are to be found in the Greek, eliminated and purged, in his translation,
all of them, so that the Latin reader will find nothing in these which jar
on our faith. Him, therefore, we follow, not indeed with the power of his
eloquence, but as far as we can in his rules and methods: that is, taking
care not to promulgate those things which in the books of Origen are found
to be discrepant and contradictory one to the other. The cause of these
variations I have set forth fully in the apology which Pamphilus wrote for
the books of Origen, to which is appended a short treatise showing how
proofs which, as I judge, are quite clear in his books have in many cases
been falsified by heretical and evil-disposed persons.
(_f_) Augustine, _Ep._ 73, Ch. 8. (MSL, 33:249.)
The attempt of Augustine to bring about a reconciliation between
Rufinus and Jerome. Jerome had written some affectionate words to
Augustine to which he alludes in the beginning of the following
passage:
When, by these words, now not only yours but also mine, I am gladdened and
refreshed, and when I am comforted not a little by the desire of both of
us for mutual fellowship, which has been suspended and is not satisfied,
suddenly I am pierced through by the darts of keenest sorrow when I
consider that between you [_i.e._, Rufinus and Jerome] (to whom God
granted in fullest measure and for a long time that which both of us have
longed for, that in closest and most intimate fellowship you tasted
together the honey of Holy Scriptures) such a blight of bitterness has
broken out, when, where, and in whom it was not to be feared, since it has
befallen you at the very time when, unencumbered, having cast away secular
burdens, you were following the Lord, were living together in that land in
which the Lord walked with human feet, when He said, “Peace I leave with
you, My peace I give unto you”; being, moreover, men of mature age, whose
life was devoted to the study of the word of God. Truly, “man’s life on
earth is a period of trial” [Job 7:1]. Alas, that I cannot meet you both
together, perchance that in agitation, grief, and fear I might cast myself
at your feet, weep till I could weep no more, and appeal as I love you,
first to each of you for his own sake, and then for the sake of those,
especially the weak, “for whom Christ died” [I Cor. 8:11], who to their
great peril look on you as on the stage of time, imploring you not to
scatter abroad, in writing, those things about each other which when
reconciled, you, who are now unwilling to be reconciled, could not then
destroy, and which when reconciled you would not dare to read lest you
should quarrel anew.
(_g_) Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, VI, 15. (MSG, 67:708.)
The fall of Chrysostom.
Epiphanius had gone to Constantinople on the suggestion of
Theophilus, and there, in his zeal, had violated the canons of
ordination as generally received. In this case he had ordained
priests in the diocese of Chrysostom and without his permission.
Other troubles had arisen. On being called to account for his
conduct by Chrysostom, Epiphanius hastily left the city, and died
on the voyage back to his diocese, Salamis, in Cyprus.
When Epiphanius had gone John was informed by some person that the Empress
Eudoxia had set Epiphanius against him. Being of a fiery temperament and
of ready utterance, he soon after pronounced to the public an invective
against women in general. The people readily took this as uttered
indirectly against the Empress, and so the speech, laid hold of by
evil-disposed persons, was brought to the knowledge of those in authority.
At length the Empress, having been informed of it, immediately complained
to her husband of the insult offered her, saying that the insult offered
her was an insult to him. He therefore gave orders that Theophilus should
speedily convoke a synod against John; Severianus also co-operated in
promoting this, for he still retained his grudge [_i.e._, against
Chrysostom. See DCB, art. “Severianus, bishop of Gabala.”]. No great
length of time, accordingly, intervened before Theophilus arrived, having
stirred up many bishops from different cities; but this, also, the summons
of the Emperor had commanded. Especially did they assemble who had one
cause or another of complaint against John, and there were present besides
those whom John had deposed, for John had deposed many bishops in Asia
when he went to Ephesus for the ordination of Heraclides. Accordingly they
all, by previous agreement, assembled at Chalcedon in Bithynia.… Now none
of the clergy [_i.e._, of Constantinople] would go forth to meet
Theophilus or pay him the customary honors because he was openly known as
John’s enemy. But the Alexandrian sailors—for it happened that at that
time the grain-transport ships were there—on meeting him, greeted him with
joyful acclamations. He excused himself from entering the church, and took
up his abode at one of the imperial mansions called “The Placidian.” Then,
in consequence of this, many accusations began to be poured forth against
John, and no longer was there any mention of the books of Origen, but all
were intent on pressing a variety of absurd accusations. When these
preliminary matters were settled the bishops were convened in one of the
suburbs of Chalcedon, which is called “The Oak,” and immediately cited
John to answer charges which were brought against him.… And since John,
taking exception to those who cited him, on the ground that they were his
enemies, demanded a general council, without delay they repeated their
citation four times; and as he persisted in his refusal to answer, always
giving the same reply, they condemned him, and deposed him without giving
any other cause for his deposition than that he refused to obey when
summoned. This, being announced toward evening, incited the people to a
very great sedition, insomuch that they kept watch all night and would by
no means suffer him to be removed from the church, but cried out that the
charges against him ought to be determined by a larger assembly. A decree
of the Emperor, however, commanded that he should be immediately expelled
and sent into exile. When John knew this he voluntarily surrendered
himself about noon, unknown to the populace, on the third day after his
condemnation; for he dreaded any insurrectionary movement on his account,
and he was accordingly led away.
(_h_) Theophilus of Alexandria, _Ep. ad Hieronymum_, in Jerome, _Ep._ 113.
(MSL, 22:932.)
Theophilus on the fall of Chrysostom.
To the well-beloved and most loving brother Jerome, Theophilus sends
greeting in the Lord.
At the outset the verdict of truth satisfies but few; but the Lord,
speaking by the prophet, says, “My judgment goeth forth as the light,” and
they who are surrounded with a horror of darkness do not with clear mind
perceive the nature of things, and they are covered with eternal shame and
know by their outcome that their efforts have been in vain. Wherefore we
also have always desired that John [Chrysostom], who for a time ruled the
church of Constantinople, might please God, and we have been unwilling to
accept as facts the cause of his ruin in which he behaved himself rashly.
But not to speak of his other misdeed, he has by taking the Origenists
into his confidences,(184) by advancing many of them to the priesthood,
and by this crime saddening with no slight grief that man of God,
Epiphanius, of blessed memory, who has shone throughout all the world a
bright star among bishops, deserved to hear the words, “Babylon is fallen,
is fallen.”
§ 88. The Christological Problem and the Theological Tendencies
The Arian controversy in bringing about the affirmation of the true deity
of the Son, or Logos, left the Church with the problem of the unity of the
divine and human natures in the personality of Jesus. It seemed to not a
few that to combine perfect deity with perfect humanity would result in
two personalities. Holding fast, therefore, to the reality of the human
nature, a solution was attempted by Apollinarius, or Apollinaris, by
making the divine Logos take the place of the human logos or reason.
Mankind consisted of three parts: a body, an animal soul, and a rational
spirit. The Logos was thus united to humanity by substituting the divine
for the human logos. But this did violence to the integrity of the human
nature of Christ. This attempt on the part of Apollinaris was rejected at
Constantinople, but also by the Church generally. The human natures must
be complete if human nature was deified by the assumption of man in the
incarnation. On this basis two tendencies showed themselves quite early:
the human nature might be lost in the divinity, or the human and the
divine natures might be kept distinct and parallel or in such a way that
certain acts might be assigned to the divine and certain to the human
nature. The former line of thought, adopted by the Cappadocians, tended
toward the position assumed by Cyril of Alexandria and in a more extreme
form by the Monophysites. The latter line of thought tended toward what
was regarded as the position of Nestorius. In this position there was such
a sharp cleavage between the divine and the human natures as apparently to
create a double personality in the incarnate Son. This divergence of
theological statement gave rise to the christological controversies which
continued in various forms through several centuries in the East, and have
reappeared in various disguises in the course of the Church’s theological
development.
Additional source material: There are several exegetical works of
Cyril of Alexandria available in English, see Bardenhewer, § 77,
also a German translation of three treatises bearing on
christology in the Kempten _Bibliothek der Kirchenväter_, 1879.
For the general point of view of the Cappadocians and the relation
of the incarnation to redemption, see Gregory of Nyssa, _The Great
Catechism_ (PNF, ser. II, vol. V), _v. infra_, § 89 and references
in Seeberg, § 23.
(_a_) Apollinaris, _Fragments_. Ed. H. Lietzmann.
His Christology.
The following fragments of the teaching of Apollinaris are from H.
Lietzmann, _Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule. Texte und
Untersuchungen_, 1904. Many fragments are to be found in the
_Dialogues_ which Theodoret wrote against Eutychianism, which he
traced to the teaching of Apollinaris. The first condemnation of
Apollinaris was at Rome, 377, see Hefele, § 91; Theodoret, _Hist.
Ec._, V, 10, gives the letter of Damasus issued in the name of the
synod.
P. 224 [81]. If God had been joined with a man, one complete being with
another complete being, there would be two sons of God, one Son of God by
nature, another through adoption.
P. 247 [150]. They who assume a twofold spirit in Christ pull a stone out
with their finger. For if each is independent and impelled by its own
natural will, it is impossible that in one and the same subject the two
can be together, who will what is opposed to each other; for each works
what is willed by it according to its own proper and personal motives.
P. 248 [152]. They who speak of one Christ, and assert that there are two
independent spiritual natures in Him, do not know Him as the Logos made
flesh, who has remained in His natural unity, for they represent Him as
divided into two unlike natures and modes of operation.
P. 239 [129]. If a man has soul and body, and both remain distinguished in
unity, how much more has Christ, who joins His divine being with a body,
both as a permanent possession without any commingling one with the other?
P. 209 [21, 22]. The Logos became flesh, but the flesh was not without a
soul, for it is said that it strives against the spirit and opposes the
law of the understanding. [In this Apollinaris takes up the trichotomy of
human nature, a view which he did not apparently hold at the beginning of
his teaching.]
P. 240 [137]. John [John 2:19] spoke of the destroyed temple, that is, of
the body of Him who would raise it up again. The body is altogether one
with Him. But if the body of the Lord has become one with the Lord, then
the characteristics of the body are proved to be characteristics of Him on
account of the body.
(_b_) Apollinaris, _Letter to the Emperor Jovian_. Lietzmann, 250 _ff._
We confess the Son of God who was begotten eternally before all times, but
in the last times was for our salvation born of Mary according to the
flesh; … and we confess that the same is the Son of God and God according
to the spirit, Son of man according to the flesh; we do not speak of two
natures in the one Son, of which one is to be worshipped and one is not to
be worshipped, but of only one nature of the Logos of God, which has
become flesh and with His flesh is worshipped with one worship; and we
confess not two sons, one who is truly God’s Son to be worshipped and
another the man—who is of Mary and is not to be worshipped, who by the
power of grace had become the Son of God, as is also the case with men,
but one Son of God who at the same time was born of Mary according to the
flesh in the last days, as the angel answered the Theotokos Mary who
asked, “How shall this be?”—“The Holy Ghost will come upon thee.” He,
accordingly, who was born of the Virgin Mary was Son of God by nature and
truly God … only according to the flesh from Mary was He man, but at the
same time, according to the spirit, Son of God; and God has in His own
flesh suffered our sorrows.
(_c_) Gregory of Nazianzus, _Ep. I ad Cledonium_. (MSG, 37:181.)
In this epistle Gregory attacks Apollinaris, basing his argument
on the notion of salvation by incarnation, which formed the
foundation of the most characteristic piety of the East, had been
used as a major premise by Athanasius in opposition to Arianism,
and runs back to Irenæus and the Asia Minor school; see above, §
33.
If any one trusted in a man without a human mind, he is himself really
bereft of mind and quite unworthy of salvation. For what has not been
assumed has not been healed; but what has been united to God is saved. If
only half of Adam fell, then that which is assumed and saved may be half
also; but if the whole, it must be united to the whole of Him that was
begotten and be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our
complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and
the semblance of humanity. For if His manhood is without soul [ἄψυχος],
even the Arians admit this, that they may attribute His passion to the
godhead, as that which gives motion to the body is also that which
suffers. But if He had a soul and yet is without a mind, how is He a man,
for man is not a mindless [ἄνουν] animal? And this would necessarily
involve that His form was human, and also His tabernacle, but His soul was
that of a horse, or an ox, or some other creature without mind. This,
then, would be what is saved, and I have been deceived in the Truth, and
have been boasting an honor when it was another who was honored. But if
His manhood is intellectual and not without mind, let them cease to be
thus really mindless.
But, says some one, the godhead was sufficient in place of the human
intellect. What, then, is this to me? For godhead with flesh alone is not
man, nor with soul alone, nor with both apart from mind, which is the most
essential part of man. Keep, then, the whole man, and mingle godhead
therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. But, as he asserts
[_i.e._, Apollinaris], He could not contain two perfect natures. Not if
you only regard Him in a bodily fashion. For a bushel measure will not
hold two bushels, nor will the space of one body hold two or more bodies.
But if you will look at what is mental and incorporeal, remember that I
myself can contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy Spirit; and
before me this world, by which I mean the system of things visible and
invisible, contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For such is the nature
of intellectual existences that they can mingle with one another and with
bodies, incorporeally and invisibly.…
Further, let us see what is their account of the assumption of the
manhood, or the assumption of the flesh, as they call it. If it was in
order that God, otherwise incomprehensible, might be comprehended, and
might converse with men through His flesh as through a veil, their mask is
a pretty one, a hypocritical fable; for it was open to Him to converse
with us in many other ways, as in the burning bush [Ex. 3:2] and in the
appearance of a man [Gen. 18:5]. But if it was that He might destroy the
condemnation of sin by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh
for the sake of the condemned flesh and soul for the sake of the soul, so
also He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam but
was first to be affected, as physicians say, of the illness. For that
which received the commandment was that which failed to observe the
commandment, and that which failed to observe the commandment was that
also which dared to transgress, and that which transgressed was that which
stood most in need of salvation, and that which needed salvation was that
which also was assumed. Therefore mind was taken upon Him.
(_d_) Council of Constantinople, A. D. 382, _Epistula Synodica_. Hefele, §
98.
Condemnation of Apollinarianism.
At the Council of Constantinople held the year after that which is
known as the Second General Council, and attended by nearly the
same bishops, there was an express condemnation of Apollinaris and
his doctrine, for though Apollinaris had been condemned in 381,
the point of doctrine was not stated. The synodical letter of the
council of 382 is preserved only in part in Theodoret, _Hist.
Ec._, V, 9, who concludes his account with these words:
Similarly they openly condemn the innovation of Apollinarius [so Theodoret
writes the name] in the phrase, “And we preserve the doctrine of the
incarnation of the Lord, holding the tradition that the dispensation of
the flesh is neither soulless, nor mindless, nor imperfect.”
(_e_) Theodore of Mopsuestia, _Creed_. Hahn, § 215.
The position of the Nestorians.
The following extracts are from the creed which was presented at
the Council of Ephesus, 431, and was written by Theodore of
Mopsuestia, the greatest theologian of the party which stood with
Nestorius. Although it does not state the whole doctrine of
Theodore, yet its historical position is so important that its
characteristic passages belong in the present connection.
Bibliographical and critical notes in Hahn, _loc. cit._
Concerning the dispensation which the Lord God accomplished for our
salvation in the dispensation according to the Lord Christ, it is
necessary for us to know that the Lord God the Logos assumed a complete
man, who was of the seed of Abraham and David, according to the statement
of the divine Scriptures, and was according to nature whatsoever they were
of whose seed He was, a perfect man according to nature, consisting of
reasonable soul and human flesh, and the man who was as to nature as we
are, formed by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin,
born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem us all from the
bondage of the law [Gal. 4:4] who receive the adoption of sonship which
was long before ordained, that man He joined to himself in an ineffable
manner.…
And we do not say that there are two Sons or two Lords, because there is
one God [Son?] according to substance, God the Word, the only begotten Son
of the Father, and He who has been joined with Him is a participator in
His deity and shares in the name and honor of the Son; and the Lord
according to essence is God the Word, with whom that which is joined
shares in honor. And therefore we say neither two Sons nor two Lords,
because one is He who has an inseparable conjunction with Himself of Him
who according to essence is Lord and Son, who, having been assumed for our
salvation, is with Him received as well in the name as in the honor of
both Son and Lord, not as each one of us individually is a son of God
(wherefore also we are called many sons of God, according to the blessed
Paul), but He alone in an unique manner having this, namely, in that He
was joined to God the Word, participating in the Sonship and dignity,
takes away every thought of two Sons or two Lords, and offers indeed to us
in conjunction with the God the Word, to have all faith in Him and all
understanding and contemplation, on account of which things also He
receives from every creature the worship and sacrifice of God. Therefore
we say that there is one Lord, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all
things were made, understanding principally God the Word, who according to
substance is Son of God and Lord, equally regarding that which was
assumed, Jesus of Nazareth, who God anointed with the Spirit and power, as
in conjunction with God the Lord, and participating in sonship and
dignity, who also is called the second Adam, according to the blessed
Apostle Paul, as being of the same nature as Adam.
(_f_) Theodore of Mopsuestia, _Fragments_. Swete, _Theodori epis. Mops. in
epistulas b. Pauli commentarii_, Cambridge, 1880, 1882.
In the appendix to the second volume of this work by Theodore
there are many fragments of Theodore’s principal dogmatic work,
_On the Incarnation_, directed against Eunomius. The work as a
whole has not been preserved. In the same appendix there are also
other important fragments. The references are to this edition.
P. 299. If we distinguish the two natures, we speak of one complete nature
of God the Word and a complete person (πρόσωπον). But we name complete
also the nature of the man and also the person. If we think on the
conjunction (συνάφεια) then we speak of one person.
P. 312. In the moment in which He [Jesus] was formed [in the womb of the
Virgin] He received the destination of being a temple of God. For we
should not believe that God was born of the Virgin unless we are willing
to assume that one and the same is that which is born and what is in that
which is born, the temple, and God the Logos in the temple.… If God had
become flesh, how could He who was born be named God from God [_cf._
Nicene Creed], and of one being with the Father? for the flesh does not
admit of such a designation.
P. 314. The Logos was always in Jesus, also by His birth and when He was
in the womb, at the first moment of his beginning; to His development He
gave the rule and measure, and led Him from step to step to perfection.
P. 310. If it is asked, did Mary bear a man, or is she the bearer of God
[Theotokos], we can say that both statements are true. One is true
according to the nature of the case; the other only relatively. She bore a
man according to nature, for He was a man who was in the womb of Mary.…
She is Theotokos, since God was in the man who was born; not enclosed in
Him according to nature, but was in Him according to the relation of His
will.
(_g_) Nestorius, _Fragments_. Loofs, _Nestoriana_.
The fragments of Nestorius have been collected by Loofs,
_Nestoriana_, Halle, 1905; to this work the references are made.
It now appears that what was condemned as Nestorianism was a
perversion of his teaching and that Nestorius was himself in
harmony with the definition which was put forth at Chalcedon, a
council which he survived and regarded as a vindication of his
position after the wrong done him at Ephesus by Cyril; _cf._
Bethune-Baker, _Nestorius and His Teaching_, Cambridge, 1908.
P. 252. Is Paul a liar when he speaks of the godhead of Christ and says:
“Without father, without mother, without genealogy”? My good friend, Mary
has not born the godhead, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh.… A
creature has not born the Creator, but she bore a man, the organ of
divinity; the Holy Ghost did not create God the Word, but with that which
was born of the Virgin He prepared for God the Word, a temple, in which He
should dwell.
P. 177. Whenever the Holy Scriptures make mention of the works of
salvation prepared by the Lord, they speak of the birth and suffering, not
of the divinity but of the humanity of Christ; therefore, according to a
more exact expression the holy Virgin is named the bearer of Christ
[Christotokos].
P. 167. If any one will bring forward the designation, “Theotokos,”
because the humanity that was born was conjoined with the Word, not
because of her who bore, so we say that, although the name is not
appropriate to her who bore, for the actual mother must be of the same
substance as her child, yet it can be endured in consideration of the fact
that the temple, which is inseparably united with God the Word, comes of
her.
P. 196. Each nature must retain its peculiar attributes, and so we must,
in regard to the union, wonderful and exalted far above all understanding,
think of one honor and confess one Son.… With the one name Christ we
designate at the same time two natures.… The essential characteristics in
the nature of the divinity and in the humanity are from all eternity
distinguished.
P. 275. God the Word is also named Christ because He has always
conjunction with Christ. And it is impossible for God the Word to do
anything without the humanity, for all is planned upon an intimate
conjunction, not on the deification of the humanity.
(_h_) Gregory of Nyssa, _Contra Eunomium_, V, 5. (MSG, 45:705.)
The Christology of the Cappadocians.
The Cappadocians use language which was afterward condemned when
given its extreme Alexandrian interpretation. Hefele, § 127, may
be consulted with profit.
The flesh is not identical with the godhead before this is transformed
into the godhead, so that necessarily some things are appropriate to God
the Word, other things to the form of a servant. If, then, he [Eunomius]
does not reproach himself with a duality of Words, on account of such
confusion, why are we slanderously charged with dividing the faith into
two Christs, we who say that He who was highly exalted after His passion,
was made Lord and Christ by His union with Him who is verily Lord and
Christ, knowing by what we have learned that the divine nature is always
one and the same mode of existence, while the flesh in itself is that
which reason and sense apprehend concerning it, but when mixed with the
divine it no longer remains in its own limitations and properties, but is
taken up to that which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our
contemplation, however, of the respective properties of the flesh and of
the godhead remains free from confusion, so long as each of these is
considered in itself, as, for example, “The Word was before the ages, but
flesh came into being in the last times.”… It is not the human nature that
raises up Lazarus, nor is it the power that cannot suffer that weeps for
him when he lies in the grave; the tear proceeds from the man, the life
from the true Life.… So much as this is clear … that the blows belong to
the servant in whom the Lord was, the honors to the Lord, whom the servant
compassed about, so that by reason of contact and the union of natures the
proper attributes of each belong to both, as the Lord receives the stripes
of the servant, while the servant is glorified with the honor of the Lord.
The godhead “empties” itself that it may come within the capacity of the
human nature, and the human nature is renewed by becoming divine through
its commixture with the divine.… As fire that lies in wood, hidden often
below the surface, and is unobserved by the senses of those who see or
even touch it, is manifest, however, when it blazes up, so too, at His
death (which He brought about at His will, who separated His soul from His
body, who said to His own Father “Into Thy hands I commend My spirit”
[Luke 23:46], “who,” as He says, “had power to lay it down and had power
to take it again”), He who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that
which is shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His
life in His bodily nature, by the dispensation of His death, kindled and
inflamed it once more by the power of His own godhead, warming into life
that which had been made dead, having infused with the infinity of His
divine power those humble first-fruits of our nature; made it also to be
that which He himself was, the servile form to be the Lord, and the man
born of Mary to be Christ, and Him, who was crucified through weakness, to
be life and power, and making all such things as are piously conceived to
be in God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed; so that
these attributes no longer seem to be in either nature, being, by
commixture with the divine, made anew in conformity with the nature that
overwhelms it; participates in the power of the godhead, as if one were to
say that a mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea,
for the reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue
in the infinity of that which overwhelms it.
§ 89. The Nestorian Controversy; the Council of Ephesus A. D. 431.
The Council of Ephesus was called to settle the dispute which had arisen
between Cyril and the Alexandrians and Nestorius, archbishop of
Constantinople, and the Antiochians. Several councils had been held
previously, and much acrimonious debate. Both parties desired a council to
adjust the dispute. The Emperor Theodosius II, in an edict of November 19,
430, called a council to be held on the following Whitsunday at Ephesus.
The council was opened by Cyril and Memnon, bishop of Ephesus, June 22, a
few days after the date assigned. This opening of the synod was opposed by
the imperial commissioner and the party of Nestorius, because many of the
Antiochians had not yet arrived. Cyril and Memnon, who had undertaken to
bring about the condemnation and deposition of Nestorius, forced through
their programme. On June 26 or 27 the Antiochians arrived, and, under the
presidency of John of Antioch, and with the approval of the imperial
commissioner, they held a council attended by about fifty bishops, while
two hundred attended the rival council under Cyril. This smaller council
deposed Cyril and Memnon. Both synods appealed to the Emperor and were
confirmed by him. But shortly after Cyril and Memnon were restored. The
Antiochians now violently attacked the successful Alexandrians but, having
abandoned Nestorius, patched up a union with the Alexandrians, by which
Cyril subscribed in 433 to a creed drawn up by the Antiochians, probably
by Theodoret of Cyrus. Accordingly, the council of Cyril was now
recognized by the Antiochians, as well as by the imperial authority, and
became known as the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431.
Additional source material: Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, VII, 29-34;
Theodoret, _Epistulæ_ in PNF, ser. II, vol. III, and his counter
propositions to the Anathemas of Cyril, _ibid._, pp. 27-31;
Percival, _The Seven Ecumenical Councils_ (PNF).
(_a_) Cyril of Alexandria, _Anathematisms_. Hahn, § 219.
Condemnation of the position of Nestorius.
Cyril held a council at Alexandria in 430, in which he set forth
the teaching of Nestorius, as he understood it, in the form of
anathemas against any who held the opinions which he set forth in
order. Nestorius immediately replied by corresponding
anathematisms. They may be found translated PNF, ser. II, vol.
XIV, p. 206, where they are placed alongside of Cyril’s. In the
meantime, Celestine of Rome had called upon Nestorius to retract,
though as a matter of fact the Nestorian or Antiochian position
was more in harmony with the position held in Rome, _e.g._,
compare Anath. IV with the language of Nestorius and Leo, see
_Tome_ of Leo in § 90. A Greek text of these Anathematisms of
Cyril may be found also in Denziger, n. 113, as they were
described in the Fifth General Council as part of the acts of the
Council of Ephesus A. D. 431; the Latin version (the Greek is
lost) of the Anathematisms of Nestorius, as given by Marius
Mercator are in Kirch, nn. 724-736.
I. If any one shall not confess that the Emmanuel is in truth God, and
that therefore the holy Virgin is Theotokos, inasmuch as according to the
flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh; let him be anathema.
II. If any one shall not confess that the Word of God the Father is united
according to hypostasis to flesh, and that with the flesh of His own He is
one Christ, the same manifestly God and man at the same time; let him be
anathema.
III. If any one after the union divide the hypostases in the one Christ,
joining them by a connection only, which is according to worthiness, or
even authority and power, and not rather by a coming together, which is
made by a union according to nature; let him be anathema.