I must now pass to Eutyches who, wandering from the path of primitive
doctrine, has rushed into the opposite error[70] and asserts that so far
from our having to believe in a twofold Person in Christ, we must not
even confess a double Nature; humanity, he maintains, was so assumed
that the union with Godhead involved the disappearance of the human
nature. His error springs from the same source as that of Nestorius. For
just as Nestorius deems there could not be a double Nature unless the
Person were doubled, and therefore, confessing the double Nature in
Christ, has perforce believed the Person to be double, so also Eutyches
deemed that the Nature was not double unless the Person was double, and
since he did not confess a double Person, he thought it a necessary
consequence that the Nature should be regarded as single. Thus
Nestorius, rightly holding Christ's Nature to be double, sacrilegiously
professes the Persons to be two; whereas Eutyches, rightly believing the
Person to be single, impiously believes that the Nature also is single.
And being confuted by the plain evidence of facts, since it is clear
that the Nature of God is different from that of man, he declares his
belief to be: two Natures in Christ before the union and only one after
the union. Now this statement does not express clearly what he means.
However, let us scrutinize his extravagance. It is plain that this union
took place either at the moment of conception or at the moment of
resurrection. But if it happened at the moment of conception, Eutyches
seems to think that even before conception He had human flesh, not taken
from Mary but prepared in some other way, while the Virgin Mary was
brought in to give birth to flesh that was not taken from her; that this
flesh, which already existed, was apart and separate from the substance
of divinity, but that when He was born of the Virgin it was united to
God, so that the Nature seemed to be made one. Or if this be not his
opinion, since he says that there were two Natures before the union and
one after, supposing the union to be established by conception, an
alternative view may be that Christ indeed took a body from Mary but
that before He took it the Natures of Godhead and manhood were
different: but the Nature assumed became one with that of Godhead into
which it passed. But if he thinks that this union was effected not by
conception but by resurrection, we shall have to assume that this too
happened in one of two ways; either Christ was conceived and did
_not_ assume a body from Mary or He _did_ assume flesh from
her, and there were (until indeed He rose) two Natures which became one
after the Resurrection. From these alternatives a dilemma arises which
we will examine as follows: Christ who was born of Mary either did or
did not take human flesh from her. If Eutyches does not admit that He
took it from her, then let him say what manhood He put on to come among
us--that which had fallen through sinful disobedience or another? If it
was the manhood of that man from whom all men descend, what manhood did
divinity invest? For if that flesh in which He was born came not of the
seed of Abraham and of David and finally of Mary, let Eutyches show from
what man's flesh he descended, since, after the first man, all human
flesh is derived from human flesh. But if he shall name any child of man
beside Mary the Virgin as the cause of the conception of the Saviour, he
will both be confounded by his own error, and, himself a dupe, will
stand accused of stamping with falsehood the very Godhead for thus
transferring to others the promise of the sacred oracles made to Abraham
and David[71] that of their seed salvation should arise for all the
world, especially since if human flesh was taken it could not be taken
from any other but Him of whom it was begotten. If, therefore, His human
body was not taken from Mary but from any other, yet that was engendered
through Mary which had been corrupted by disobedience, Eutyches is
confuted by the argument already stated. But if Christ did not put on
that manhood which had endured death in punishment for sin, it will
result that of no man's seed could ever one have been born who should
be, like Him, without punishment for original sin. Therefore flesh like
His was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new-
formed for the purpose. But did this flesh then either so appear to
human eyes that the body was deemed human which was not really human,
because it was not subject to any primal penalty, or was some new true
human flesh formed as a makeshift, not subject to the penalty for
original sin? If it was not a truly human body, the Godhead is plainly
convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body which was not real
and thus deceived those who thought it real. But if flesh had been
formed new and real and not taken from man, to what purpose was the
tremendous tragedy of the conception? Where the value of His long
Passion? I cannot but consider foolish even a human action that is
useless. And to what useful end shall we say this great humiliation of
Divinity was wrought if ruined man has not been saved by the conception
and the Passion of Christ--for they denied that he was taken into
Godhead? Once more then, just as the error of Eutyches took its rise
from the same source as that of Nestorius, so it hastens to the same
goal inasmuch as according to Eutyches also the human race has not been
saved,[72] since man who was sick and needed health and salvation was
not taken into Godhead. Yet this is the conclusion he seems to have
drawn, if he erred so deeply as to believe that Christ's body was not
taken really from man but from a source outside him and prepared for the
purpose in heaven, for He is believed to have ascended with it up into
heaven. Which is the meaning of the text: none hath ascended into heaven
save Him who came down from heaven.
[70] The ecclesiastical _uia media_, with the relegation of opposing
theories to the extremes, which meet in a common fount of falsity, owes
something to Aristotle and to our author. _Vide infra_, p. 118.
[71] The use of this kind of argument by Boethius allays any suspicion
as to the genuineness of _Tr_. iv. which might be caused by the use of
allegorical interpretation therein. Note also that in the _Consolatio_
the framework is allegory, which is also freely applied in the details.
[72] Another _reductio ad absurdum_ or _ad impietatem_, cf. _supra_, p.
98, note b.