Letter or Address of Theodoret to the Monks of the Euphratensian, the Osrhoene, Syria, Phœnicia, and Cilicia.
When I contemplate the condition of the Church at the present crisis of affairs — the tempest which has recently beset the holy ship, the furious blasts, the beating of the waves, the deep darkness of the night, and, besides all this, the strife of the mariners, the struggle going on between oarsmen, the drunkenness of the pilots, and, lastly, the untimely action of the bad — I bethink me of the laments of Jeremiah and cry with him, my bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart, my heart makes a noise in me, and to put away despondency’s great cloud by the drops from my eyes, I have recourse to founts of tears. Amid a storm so wild it is fitting that the pilots be awake, to battle with the tempest, and take heed for the safety of the ship: the sailors ought to cease from their strife, and strive to undo the danger alike by prayer and skill: the mariners ought to keep the peace, and quarrel neither with one another nor with the pilots, but implore the Lord of the sea to banish the darkness by His rod. No one now is willing to do anything of the kind; and, just as happens in a night-engagement, we cannot recognise one another, we leave our enemies alone, and waste our weapons against our own side; we wound our comrades for foes, while all the while the bystanders laugh at our drunken folly, enjoy our disasters, and are delighted to see us engaged in mutual destruction. The responsibility for all this lies with those who have striven to corrupt the apostolic faith, and have dared to add a monstrous doctrine to the teaching of the Gospels; with them that have accepted the impious Chapters which they have sent forth with anathematisms to the imperial city, and have confirmed them, as they have imagined, by their own signatures. But these Chapters have sprouted without doubt from the sour root of Apollinarius; they are tainted with Arian and Eunomian error; look into them carefully, and you will find that they are not clear of the impiety of Manes and Valentinus.
In his very first chapter he rejects the dispensation which has been made on our behalf, teaching that God the Word did not assume human nature, but was Himself changed into flesh, thus laying down that the incarnation took place not in reality but in semblance and seeming. This is the outcome of the impiety of Marcion, Manes, and Valentinus.
In his second and third chapters, as though quite oblivious of what he had stated in his preface, he brings in the hypostatic union, and a meeting by natural union, and by these terms he represents that a kind of mixture and confusion was effected of the divine nature and of the form of the servant. This comes of the innovation of the Apollinarian heresy.
In his fourth chapter he denies the distinction of the terms of evangelists and apostles, and refuses to allow, as the teaching of the orthodox Fathers has allowed, the terms of divine dignity to be understood of the divine nature, while the terms of humility, spoken in human sense, are applied to the nature assumed; whence the rightminded can easily detect the kinship with impiety. For Arius and Eunomius, asserting the only begotten Son of God to be a creature, and made out of the non-existent, and a servant, have ventured to apply to His godhead what is said in lowly and human sense; establishing by such means the difference of substance and the unlikeness. Besides this, to be brief, he argues that the very impassible and immutable Godhead of the Christ suffered, and was crucified, dead, and buried. This goes beyond even the madness of Arius and Eunomius, for this pitch of impiety has not been reached even by them that dare to call the maker and creator of the universe a creature. Furthermore he blasphemes against the Holy Ghost, denying that It proceeds from the Father, in accordance with the word of the Lord, but maintaining that It has Its origin of the Son. Here we have the fruit of the Apollinarian seed; here we come near the evil husbandry of Macedonius. Such are the offspring of the Egyptian, viler children of a vile father. This growth, which men, entrusted with the healing of souls, ought to make abortive while yet in the womb, or destroy as soon as it is born, as dangerous and deadly to mankind, is cherished by these excellent persons, and promoted with great energy, alike to their own ruin and to that of all who will listen to them. We, on the contrary, earnestly desire to keep our heritage untouched; and the faith which we have received, and in which we have been ourselves baptized, and baptize others, we strive to preserve uninjured and undefiled. We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body, was begotten of the Father before the ages, as touching the Godhead; and in the last days for us men and our salvation (was born) of the Virgin Mary; that the same Lord is of one substance with the Father as touching the Godhead, and of one substance with us as touching the manhood. For there was an union of two natures. Wherefore we acknowledge one Christ, one Son, one Lord; but we do not destroy the union; we believe it to have been made without confusion, in obedience to the word of the Lord to the Jews, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. If on the contrary there had been mixture and confusion, and one nature was made out of both, He ought to have said Destroy me and in three days I shall be raised. But now, to show that there is a distinction between God according to His nature, and the temple, and that both are one Christ, His words are Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up, clearly teaching that it was not God who was undergoing destruction, but the temple. The nature of this latter was susceptible of destruction, while the power of the former raised what was being destroyed. Furthermore it is in obedience to the divine Scriptures that we acknowledge the Christ to be God and man. That our Lord Jesus Christ is God is asserted by the blessed evangelist John In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. And again, That was the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. And the Lord Himself distinctly teaches us, He that has seen me has seen the Father. And I and my Father are one and I am in the Father and the Father in me, and the blessed Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews says Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power and in the epistle to the Philippians Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant. And in the Epistle to the Romans, Whose are the fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came who is over all God blessed forever. Amen. And in the epistle to Titus Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. And Isaiah exclaims Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called, Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, powerful, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the Age to come. And again In chains they shall come over and they shall fall unto you. They shall make supplication unto you saying, surely God is in you and there is none else, there is no God. Verily you are a God that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. The name Emmanuel, however, indicates both God and man, for it is interpreted in the Gospel to mean God with us, that is to say God in man, God in our nature. And the divine Jeremiah too utters the prediction This is our God and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison with him. He has found out all the way of knowledge and has given it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved and afterward did He show Himself upon earth and conversed with men. And countless other passages might be found as well in the holy gospels and in the writings of the apostles as in the predictions of the prophets, setting forth that our Lord Jesus Christ is very God.