Letters

To John the Œconomus.

Rest and a life free from care are very grateful to me. I have therefore blocked the door of the monastery, and decline intercourse with my friends.

But I have received information that fresh attacks are being made against the Faith of the Gospels, and therefore conclude that there may be danger in my silence. When wrong has been done some mortal prince, not only the guilty authors of the outrage but they also who have been standing by and made no effort to drive off the assailants, are in peril of punishment: What penalty then ought not to be undergone by men who can venture to look lightly on the utterance of blasphemy against our God and Saviour? This is the fear which has impelled me now to write and expose the innovations of which I have been informed.

It is said that a common report in the city represents that after certain presbyters had offered prayer, and concluded it in the wonted manner, while some said “For to You belongs glory and to your Christ and to the Holy Ghost;” and others “Through grace and loving kindness of your Christ, with whom belongs glory to You with your holy Spirit,” the very wise archdeacon prohibited the use of the expression, “the Christ” and said that the “only begotten” ought to be glorified. If this is true it were impossible to exceed the impiety. For he either divides the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons and regards the only begotten Son as lawful and natural, but the Christ as adopted and spurious, and consequently unmeet for being honoured in doxology; or else he is endeavouring to support the heresy which has now burst in on us with the riot of wild revelry. Had a grievous tempest been now oppressing us, any one might have supposed that the blasphemer suited his blasphemy to the necessity of the moment, through fear of the power of the originators of the heresy. But now that He who is blasphemed has rebuked the winds and the sea, and blessed the storm-tossed churches with a calm, while everywhere by land and sea the proclamation of the apostles is preached, what room is there for the blasphemy? While not even they who have lately basely inserted among the doctrines of the Church that flesh and godhead are of one and the same nature have ever forbidden the offering of praise to the Lord Christ. This fact may be easily ascertained from those who have returned thence. A man holding the foremost place in the ecclesiastical rank ought to have known the divine Scripture, and to have learned from it that just as the heralds of the truth rank the only begotten Son with the Father, so accordingly using the title of “the Christ” instead of that of “Son” they number Him sometimes with the Father and sometimes with the Holy Ghost; for the Christ is none other than the only begotten Son of God. So we may quote the divine Paul writing to the Corinthians, but teaching the world, that “There is one God the Father of whom are all things...and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things.” Thus he calls the same person, Christ, Jesus, Lord, and Creator of all things. And writing to the Thessalonians he says “Now God Himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you.” And in his second epistle to the same he puts the Christ before the Father, not to invert the order, but to teach that the order of the names does not indicate a distinction of dignity and nature. His words are “Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work.” And at the end of his Epistle to the Romans after certain exhortations he adds “I beseech you brethren for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the spirit.” Now if he had known the Christ as being any other than the Son he would not have put Him before the Holy Ghost. Writing to the Corinthians, at the very beginning of his letter, he mentions the name of Christ as alone sufficient to influence the faithful. “Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing” and when writing to them a second time he thus concludes “The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.” Here he puts the name of Christ not only before the Spirit, but also before the Father and this in all the churches is the beginning of the Liturgy of the Mystery.

According, then, to this extraordinary regulation the august name of our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, ought to be omitted from the mystic writings. But it is unnecessary to say more on this point. The opening of every one of his letters is distinguished by the divine Apostle with this address. At one time it is “Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle.” At another “Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.” At another “Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.” And suiting his benediction to his exordium he deduces it from the same source and links the title of the Son with God the Father, saying “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And he graces the conclusion of his letters with the blessing “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen.”

Copious additional evidence may be found whereby it may be learned without difficulty that our Lord Jesus Christ is no other person than the Son which completes the Trinity. For the same before the ages was only begotten Son and God the Word, and after the resurrection He was called Jesus and Christ, receiving the names from the facts. Jesus means Saviour; “You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins.”

He is named Christ from being as man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and called our High Priest, Apostle, Prophet and King. Long ago the divine Moses exclaimed “The Lord your God will raise up unto you a prophet, from the midst of you, of your brethren, like me.” And the divine David cries “The Lord has sworn and will not repent, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek.” This prophecy is confirmed by the divine Apostle. And again “seeing then that we have a great High Priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”

That as God, He is king before the ages that prophetic minstrelsy teaches us in the words “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Your kingdom is a right sceptre.”

His majesty as man is also shown us. For having the sovereignty of all things as God and Creator, He assumes this majesty as man, wherefore it is added “You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” And in the second psalm the anointed one himself says “Yet was I set as king by Him upon the holy hill of Sion, I will declare the decree of the Lord. The Lord has said unto me 'You are my Son this day have I begotten You; ask of me and I shall give You the heathen for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.'” This He said as man, for as man He receives what as God He possesses. And at the very beginning of the psalm the gift of prophecy ranks Him with God the Father in the words “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.”