Gregory’s Letter on Apollinaris

It is plain that Eunomius and Aetius held the same opinions. In several passages of his writings Eunomius boasts, and testifies again and again, that Aetius was his teacher. Gregory, bishop of Nazianzus, speaks of Apollinaris in the following terms in a letter addressed to Nectarius, the head of the church in Constantinople: [a]

“Eunomius, who is a constant source of trouble among us, is not content to be a burden to us himself. He would think himself at fault if he did not try to drag everyone with him to the destruction he is hurrying toward. Such conduct, however, can be put up with to some degree. The most serious disaster the church now has to struggle against comes from the audacity of the Apollinarians. I do not know how Your Holiness could have agreed that they should be as free to hold meetings as we ourselves are. By the grace of God you have been fully instructed in the divine mysteries. You understand not only the defense of the Word of God but also whatever new things the heretics have brought in against the sound faith. Still, it may not be out of place for Your Reverence to hear from my humble self that a book written by Apollinaris has come into my hands, whose teaching surpasses every form of heretical depravity. He affirms that the flesh which the only Son of God took on in the plan of salvation, to remake our nature, was not acquired for this purpose; this fleshly nature, he says, was in the Son from the beginning. He supports this evil supposition by misusing these words of Scripture: ‘No one has gone up into heaven.’ From this text he argues that Christ was the Son of Man before he came down from heaven, and that when he did come down he brought with him his own flesh, which he already had in heaven, existing before the ages and united to him in his very being. He also cites another saying of the apostle: ‘The second man is from heaven.’ He maintains, moreover, that the man who came down from heaven had no mind, but that the Godhead of the only Son supplied the nature of a mind and made up the third part of the human whole. The body and the soul made two parts, as in other men, but there was no mind; the Word of God filled the place of the mind. Nor does the dreadful spectacle end there. For the worst point of the heresy is this: he asserts that God the only Son, the Judge of all, the Giver of life and the Destroyer of death, is himself subject to death; that he suffered in his own Godhead; and that in the resurrection of the body on the third day the Godhead too was raised from the dead with the body, and was raised again from the dead by the Father. It would take too long to recount all the other extravagant doctrines these heretics put forward.”

What I have said is enough, I think, to show the nature of the views held by Apollinaris and Eunomius. If anyone wants more detailed information, I can only refer him to the works written on the subject, either by these men themselves or by others about them. I do not claim to understand or explain these matters easily. It seems to me that the reason these dogmas did not prevail and advance further is to be credited, besides the causes already mentioned, above all to the monks of that time. For all those philosophers in Syria, Cappadocia, and the neighboring provinces were sincerely attached to the Nicene faith. The eastern regions, however, from Cilicia to Phoenicia, were put in danger by the heresy of Apollinaris. The heresy of Eunomius spread from Cilicia and the Taurus mountains as far as the Hellespont and Constantinople. These two heretics found it easy to draw the people among whom they lived, and those of the neighborhood, into their respective parties. But the same fate awaited them that the Arians had met. For the people admired the monks, who showed their virtue by their works, and believed that they held right opinions; and they turned away from those who held other opinions as impious and as teaching false doctrines. In the same way the Egyptians were led by the monks to oppose the Arians.