Severus - Letter II

OF THE SAME THE SECOND LETTER TO THE SAME OECUMENIUS THE COUNT UPON THE SAME MATTER, AND IT IS AMONG THOSE WRITTEN DURING EPISCOPACY. [513-8.] 

I wonder how it is that your God-loving magnificence has picked up again from the beginning the contention that had been put to silence. While confessing Emmanuel to be of two natures, to suppose the elements of which he consists to be generalities covering many hypostases (this is what is meant by the property of a generality) is a thing that is very abominable and inept, and one that confirms the charge falsely disseminated against us by the impious: for we are found to be imagining two natures before the union according to their account; for there would be the whole of humanity and of course the Godhead also, even before the Humanization of the Word. And these matters would need further conversation by word of mouth, not written words in a letter, which are subject to considerations of brevity, and bring danger to the writer, wherever any unusual name or unelaborated phrase is inserted in the document.

You know what words that lead to rocks you have used in your recent composition, and, though admitting that you do this as a concession, you have still done it. But to us, who by ordinance from above and mercy have attained to this priestly office, it does not bring honour to take such ill expressions in our mouth and consign them to writing: for it is written, «The lips of a priest will guard knowledge, and they will ask law from his mouth». Wherefore Paul also, who was taken up to the third heaven, and heard ineffable words, knowing the difficulty of words of this kind, urged the believers to make earnest and constant prayer that speech might be granted him with eloquence. Since then these things are so, and we decline to employ a multitude of words, which as a rule do not escape sin,

I will use shortness of speech to your wisdom and knowledge, and ask you a very easy question. Do you call the flesh possessing an intelligent soul, which God the Word voluntarily united to himself hypostatically without any change, a specimen or a generality, that is one soul-possessing hypostasis, or the whole human generality? It is manifest that, if you wish to give a right-minded answer, you will say one soul-possessing body. Accordingly we say that from it and the hypostasis of God the Word the ineffable union was made: for the whole of the Godhead and the whole of humanity in general were not joined in a natural union, but special hypostases. And the holy and wise Cyril plainly witnesses to us in that in the third chapter or anathema he spoke thus: «Whoever divides the one Christ into hypostases after the union, associating them in association of honour or of authority only, and not rather in junction of natural union, let him be anathema».

And again in the Scholia the same says: «Hence we shall learn that the hypostases have remained without confusion». Accordingly the natural union was not of generalities, but of hypostases of which Emmanuel was composed. And do not think that hypostases in all cases have a distinct person assigned to them, so that we should be thought, like the impious Nestorius, to speak of a union of persons, and to run counter to the God-inspired words of the holy Cyril, who in the second letter to the same Nestorius speaks thus: «But that it should be so will in no way help the right principle of faith, even if some men spread about a union of persons. For the Scripture did not say that God the Word united to himself the person of a man, but that he became flesh». When hypostases subsist by individual subsistence, as for instance, those of Peter and of Paul, whom the authority of the apostleship united, then there will be a union of persons and a brotherly association, not a natural junction of one hypostasis made up out of two that is free from confusion.

For this is what those who adhere to the foul doctrines of Nestorius are convicted of saying with regard to the divine Humanization also. They first make the babe exist by himself separately, so that a distinct person is even assigned to him, and then by attaching God the Word to him impiously introduce a union of persons into the faith. This Gregory the Theologia also rejected by saying in the great letter to Cledonius: «Whoever says that the man was formed, and God afterwards crept in is condemned: for this is not a birth of God, but an escape from birth». But, when hypostases do not subsist in individual subsistence, as also in the case of the man among us, I mean him who is composed of soul and body, but are without confusion recognised in union and composition, being distinguished by the intellect only and displaying one hypostasis made out of two, such a union none will be so uninstructed as to call one of persons.

Though the hypostasis of God the Word existed before, or rather was before all ages and times, being eternally with God both the Father and the Holy Spirit, yet still the flesh possessing an intelligent soul which he united to him did not exist before the union with him, nor was a distinct person assigned to it. And the great Athanasius bears witness, who in the letter to Jovinian the king says: «As soon as there is flesh, there is at once flesh of God the Word; and, as soon as there is soul-possessing and rational flesh, there is at once soul-possessing rational flesh of God the Word: for in him also it acquired subsistence». And the holy Cyril also testifies, addressing the impious Diodorus as follows: «My excellent man, I say that you are shooting forth unlearned words much affected with what is abhorrent. For the holy body was from Mary, but still at the very beginning of its concretion or subsistence in the womb it was made holy, as the body of Christ, and no one can see any time at which it was not his, but rather simple as you say and the same as this flesh of other men».

Following these God-inspired words of the holy fathers, and confessing our Lord Jesus Christ to be of two natures, regard the distinct hypostases themselves of which Emmanuel was composed, and the natural junction of these, and do not go up to generalities and essences, of the whole of the Godhead and humanity in general: for it is manifest that the whole of the Godhead is seen in the Trinity, and humanity in general draws the mind to the whole human race. How therefore is it anything but ridiculous and impious for us to say that the Trinity was united in hypostasis to the race of mankind, when the holy Scriptures say more plainly than a trumpet, «The Word became flesh and dwelt in us», that is that one of the three hypostases who was rationally and hypostatically united to soul-possessing flesh? But neither do we deny, as we have also written in other letters on different occasions, that we often find men designating hypostases by the name of essence. Hence Gregory the Theologian named hypostatic union union in essence in the letter to Cledonius which we have just mentioned, speaking thus: «Whoever says that he worked by grace as in a prophet, but not that he was united and fashioned together with him in essence, may he be bereft of the excellent operation, or rather may he be full of the contrary».

And the wise Cyril in the second letter to Succensus calls the manhood which was hypostatically united to God the Word essence, saying: «For, if after saying 'one nature of the Word' we had stopped and not added 'incarnate', but set the dispensation as it were outside, they would perhaps in a way have a plausible argument when they pretend to ask, 'Where is the perfection in manhood? or how was the essence after our model made up?'

But, since the perfection in manhood and the characteristic of our essence has been introduced by the fact that we said 'incarnate', let them be silent, since they have leaned upon the staff of a reed». But saying that Emmanuel, is from two essences also, as we confess him to be from two natures, even if one understand the essences as hypostases, we avoid, as a thing that is unscientific, and has not been stated in so many words by any of the God-clad fathers: for in such matters we must avoid novelty, even if it has some religiousness about it, and with the psalmist-prophet be preserved in the tent of caution, and be hidden by grace from on high, even from the contention of tongues.

These things we have written in epistolary style, though we are in the midst of many troubles, and of many tens of thousands of kinds of cares. But it rests with your truth-loving and God-loving soul to inform us by letter if you have given up the doubts, and if what we have written appeared to have been well stated, Know that the religious deacon Anatolius has abandoned this opinion, and, though late, has thanked us.