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CPG 3669
Actual Author or Source Apollinaris
Source of Attribution to Julius I Apollinarian forgery
Text Greek: Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule: Texte und Untersuchungen, 256-262
Syriac: Flemming-Lietzmann, 39-41
Latin: ACO 2.2.1, 2.4.1 (sections 1-7)
Other Translations
Source of Information Thompson, Correspondence of Julius I, xxxv-xxxviii, 177-178

1. I am amazed to have learned about certain people confessing that the Lord is God incarnate but falling into the heresy wickedly introduced by the Samosateans. For they, serving Paul of Samosata, say that there is one who is from heaven—him they confess to be God—and there is another, a man, who is from earth. They say the one is uncreated and the other is created, the one is from eternity and the other is from yesterday, the one is Lord and the other is servant. They are godless if they worship the one whom they say is servant and creature and they are godless if they do not worship the one who redeemed us by his own blood.

2. But those who confess that God from heaven has become incarnate from the Virgin and is one with the flesh cause unnecessary confusion by carrying the godless words of the Samosateans. For also these people say, as I hear, that there are two natures, even though John clearly shows that the Lord is one when he says, “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Paul does the same when he says, “There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things” (1 Cor 8:6). For if the one born of the holy Virgin was named “one” and it is he “through whom all things” have been made, then there is one nature. According to the incarnation the body did not have its own nature nor the deity its own nature, for one person does not have two divisions. But just as man has one nature, so also does Christ because he was made in the likeness of men (Phil 2:7).

3. But if they do not recognize what is one according to a union, they are able to divide the one into many and to say there are many natures. For the body has many forms from its bones and tendons and veins and flesh and skin and from its nails and hair and from its blood and spirit. All these things have division from each other but there is one nature. Therefore also his true deity is one with his body and is not divided into two natures.

4. For neither could the whole Son of Man be said to have come down from heaven (Jn 3:13) nor the Son of God be said to have been born of a woman (Gal 4:4) if he displays a division of two natures. Rather, the one who has come from heaven would be called the Son of God and not the Son of Man and the one born of a woman would be called the Son of Man and not the Son of God. And this follows the Samosatean heresy.

5. But the divine Scriptures teach us to think about one Lord concerning the coming down from heaven and his being born on earth [of a woman]. So let those who think this but are not in agreement depart from those who think everything the opposite so that although they understand it well in their minds will not express it poorly in words.

6. For it is necessary that those who say there are two natures worship the one but do not worship the other and that they are baptized into the divine one but are not baptized into the human one. But if we are baptized into the Lord’s death, we are confessing the one nature of the impassible deity and the passible flesh, so that in this way our baptism is completed in God and in the Lord’s death.

7. For we also do not fear the minions who divide the Lord into two persons when, as we worship the union taught in the Gospels and the Apostles, they slander us as saying the flesh is from heaven because we do recognize that the Holy Scriptures say that the Son of Man is from heaven. For it is also not the case, when we say that the Son of God is from a woman, that we can be slandered as saying that the Word is from the earth and not from heaven. But we do say both of these: both the whole person is from heaven on account of his deity and the whole person is of a woman on account of his flesh, because we do not know a division of the one person or separate the earthly from the heavenly or the heavenly from the earthly. For such a division is godless.

8. Therefore let those who say there are two natures stop giving an excuse to those who make a division. For the body is not by itself a nature [because of the one Christ], since it neither gives life by itself nor can it be divided from the life-giving [Word]. The Word also is not by itself divided into its own nature which it has apart from its incarnation because the Lord redeemed the world in the flesh and not without it. The created body was also not alive without the uncreated deity such that someone could separate the created nature. Indeed, the uncreated Word also did not redeem apart from the body such that someone could separate the nature of the uncreated.

9. But if each is one according to the union and the meeting and the synthesis in human form, one name is also applied to the synthesis: “uncreated” from the deity and “created” from the body, “impassible” from the deity and “passible” from the body. And just as when we listened to Paul we heard that Christ suffered indivisibly (Acts 26:23) and yet we did not consider the deity to be passible, so also he is said to be created and servant indivisibly and yet this does not make the deity created and servant. And furthermore, the uncreated does not makes the flesh uncreated nor is being uncreated said divisibly on the basis of the deity alone. Let them who think these things in this way remain in peace by avoiding outrageous inquiries, and let us stop dividing the doctrine for the sake of words.

10. Let it be brought together and confessed in harmony: The body is from the Virgin and the deity is from heaven. The body has been formed in the womb and the deity is uncreated, eternal, [and in the synthesis both the body remains body and the deity remains deity,] so that, as the Word is thrust upon the body, its deity remains undivided. If it is the custom of Scripture to speak of the whole person as God and the whole person as man, let us also follow these divine words and not separate the inseparable. When it is said that the body has been formed from the womb, let us not divide the deity from the body as if because of a euphemism. When his uncreated deity is glorified, let us not separate the body from the deity as if because of a confession of his substance. For in accordance with their one life, each one shares its name with the other without being changed—neither the bodiless becomes body nor the body bodiless.

11. Therefore how is it not painful that those who beautifully confess or think these things in this way (just as they received them) are in disagreement with each other because of words? For there are those use the name of the body for the Word, like John who says that “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), and there are others who take the name of the deity for the [whole] servant, like Paul who says, “The final Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).

12. Christ confesses that he worships the Father according to the flesh when he says, “We worship what we know” (Jn 4:22) and his deity is not absent. He is worshipped according to his deity and his body is not absent from the worship of the deity. Let us not remove the body when we worship, for it is not possible for him to have suffered apart from the body, and his deity is not separated from it for it has been made one. For it was necessary that death be conquered by God and it has been conquered.

13. Advise those who are needlessly torn apart concerning these things and guard the confession according to the doctrine without being torn apart because of the words. For it is godless for those who are not in agreement in doctrine to pretend to be in agreement through words, and it is unnecessary and foolish for those who are in agreement in doctrine to be torn apart by words. Since we are in agreement that Christ was God incarnate and from heaven and earth, in form a servant and in power God, let us remain in harmony and stop being torn apart needlessly and falling into the word-wars of the heretics. But let us rather be zealous for the singleness of the church. May the Lord keep you well.

Translated by AMJ

Last updated: 8-31-2012

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