Read a work by a certain Eusebius,[684] a bishop of the orthodox
faith, in ten books, written against a monk named Andrew, and called
forth by his behaviour. He wrote a letter to Eusebius, which he calls
a pastoral letter, imploring him to read it. Eusebius, having done
so, first reprimands Andrew for his ignorance and temerity, showing
that he had made many mistakes in spelling and could not write a
line without making a blunder, but that notwithstanding he had had
the audacity to write, forgetting his profession and the repose of a
monastic life. He then refutes Andrew’s heretical opinions at length,
for he was one of the sect called _Aphthartodocetae_,[685] from the
impious doctrine that they held. He first points out that Andrew must
explain why he used the word φθορά (corruption) in only one sense,
thinking that it referred to sin only, whereas our Holy Fathers, in
their usage of words, have traditionally applied it to different
things. Secondly, he reproves him because he ventured to declare,
like Julian, that the body of the Lord was immortal, impassible,
and incorruptible from the union (of the two natures), although
in this very letter he asserts that he has undertaken to oppose
Severus and Julian, since they deny that there are two natures or
two substances, two properties or two energies, in Christ. Thirdly,
because he insisted that the body of Adam before the fall was neither
formed entirely mortal nor corruptible by nature, from which,
according to him, it would follow that Christ had assumed from the
very union an incorruptible and impassible body; whereas, in reality,
he ought to have thought and said that the body of Adam was by nature
mortal and passible, but by divine grace was kept immortal and
impassible, until his transgression deprived him of that protection.
Such is the unanimous opinion of the Holy Fathers. Fourthly, because
he called the present world incorruptible and indestructible, whereas
he ought to hold that it is corruptible and changeable. In his first
reply the bishop exhorted Andrew to retract his opinion on many other
points, at the same time convicting him of obscurity and of blasphemy
in his language.
Andrew, after he had received this exhortation to mend his ways,
went from bad to worse, and wrote another work in which he again set
forth at greater length the views he had previously expressed and,
as he imagines, establishes their truth. As we have said, the pious
Eusebius wrote ten books to combat these propositions, in which he
shows that Andrew, not content with the definition of faith marked
out by the holy synods, has audaciously drawn up an exposition
of faith of his own; that he has wrenched many passages from the
Fathers, and falsified and violently pressed them into the support
of his views; that he contradicts both the New and Old Testament
and our Holy Fathers in asserting that the world is incorruptible
and indestructible; that he says that change, transformation, flux,
can easily be misrepresented, just like the sufferings which have
their origin in vice, and that our Lord Jesus Christ assumed a
body that was unchangeable, impassible, incorruptible, and without
flux. Again, he censures him because he asserts that the world is
eternal, incorruptible, and ungenerated, and does not admit the
transformation of the elements which contributes to its eternity,
since he teaches that it is one of the passions which can easily
be misrepresented; that the body of Adam was formed incorruptible,
immortal, and impassible by nature, and not only this, but that the
clay of which it was formed is incorruptible. Eusebius also censures
him for taking the word “corruption” in only one sense, whereby he
shows that God is not the author of corruption or death or any
vicious passion, but not even of sinful thoughts, although He is the
author of corruptible and mortal substances, for these do not belong
to existing things and have no subsistence in themselves. He also
rebukes him for saying that the Lord’s body from the very union is
impassible, incorruptible, and unchangeable, and in order to prove
this, as he imagines, he shows that he has to rely upon his other
nonsensical ideas about the world and Adam. In the same work Eusebius
shows in what and how many meanings the words φθορά and καταφθορά
and διαφθορά are used in the Scriptures: of physical affections that
are by no means reprehensible, and of those that result from labour,
fatigue, and old age, old age being the corruption of youth, as
labour and fatigue of bodily tone; of bodily humiliation in ascetic
and spiritual struggles, for the apostle says, “Although our outer
man be corrupted, our inner body is renewed”;[686] of the affliction
and wasting away of the body by blows and punishment; of the injury,
partial or entire, in the case of animals, seeds, and plants; even of
death itself, and, besides this, of the dissolution and flux of the
bodies which take place in the grave; lastly, of vicious affections
or sins. Since then the words for “corruption” could be used in so
many ways, Eusebius is justified in stating that Andrew is wrong in
attaching only one meaning to these words.
He confirms his arguments by passages from the Old and New Testament,
from certain select Fathers, Athanasius and the three Gregories
(Thaumaturgus, Theologus, and of Nyssa), Basil of Caesarea, John
Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Proclus of Constantinople,[687]
Methodius[688] the holy martyr, and Quadratus,[689] from some of
whose writings Andrew had wrenched and falsified passages and by
explaining them either with deliberate malice or through ignorance,
so as to support his own view, imagined that he was confirming his
own mistaken opinions. But he pays the penalty of all that has
been mentioned to Eusebius, for his tampering with the letter, his
wickedness, and folly, and for putting together certain passages
from heretical writings and venturing to ascribe them to our Holy
Fathers.
From Andrew’s foolish utterances Eusebius also shows that he
is of opinion that our Lord Jesus Christ, not being changed by
resurrection from corruption to incorruption, is equally impassible
in his manhood and divinity; that he dared to call those blasphemers
who thought and said that our Lord Jesus Christ lived on earth
with a mortal and passible body, while he himself is not ashamed,
after His victory over sufferings and the abolition of death and
corruption, monstrously to assert that the body of the Lord is
passible, forgetting that, while insulting the orthodox by calling
them _Phthartolatrae_[690] he himself is clearly convicted of being
_Pathetolatrae_.[691] He then again adds some passages from the
Fathers, and shows that the Lord’s body was passible, mortal, and
consequently corruptible until His glorious resurrection, and that
then by itself it became immortal and impassible. He also shows
that Andrew talks idly in calling the orthodox _Phthartolatrae_,
a name which is fitting and suitable for Arius, Aëtius, Eunomius,
Apollinarius, and Nestorius, but not for orthodox Christians.
Eusebius also lays down the doctrine that our Lord and God, since
He, as the architect of nature, assumed our natural and by no means
reprehensible “passions” (which are not properly called “passions”
but might more fitly be called “works of nature”), was incapable of
taking upon Him “passions” properly so called, originating from vice;
that He ate and drank with His disciples after the Resurrection not
in the same manner as He ate and drank before the Resurrection; in
the latter case He acted according to the law of nature, refreshing
and controlling the perishable flesh by food and drink, in the former
He performed the act supernaturally by way of dispensation, to
inspire the disciples, and through them all the faithful, with the
belief that the body that suffered and was crucified rose again from
the dead, the same and not a different body, although it had been
transformed and had become incorruptible and impassible. Having laid
down these doctrines in a manner acceptable to God, Eusebius finishes
his tenth book. The style is clear, simple, pure, and characterized
by distinctness where it is required.