The Letter of Pope Agatho

Agatho, a bishop and servant of the servants of God, to the most devout and serene victors and conquerors, our most beloved sons, lovers of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ: to the emperor Constantine the Great, and to Heraclius and Tiberius, Augusti. [a]

As I weigh the many anxieties of human life, groaning with bitter weeping before the one true God and praying that he would give my wavering soul the comfort of his divine mercy and lift me with his right hand out of the depths of grief and anxiety, I recognize with the deepest gratitude, my most illustrious lords and sons, that your purpose of holding a council has brought me deep and wonderful consolation. For it was a most pious purpose. It came from your most meek tranquility, taught by the divine kindness for the good of the Christian commonwealth that God has entrusted to your keeping. Its aim was that your imperial power and clemency should take care to inquire diligently into the things of God (through whom kings reign, who is himself King of kings and Lord of lords), should seek out the truth of his spotless faith as it has been handed down by the apostles and by the apostolic fathers, and should zealously command that the pure tradition be held in all the churches. Now, so that no one might be ignorant of this pious intention of yours, or suspect that we were compelled by force and did not freely consent to carry out the imperial decrees about the preaching of our gospel faith, which were addressed to our predecessor Donus, a pontiff of apostolic memory, these decrees have been sent through our ministry to all nations and peoples, and have been wholly approved by them. For the Holy Spirit by his grace dictated these decrees to the tongue of the imperial pen out of the treasure of a pure heart. They are the words of an adviser, not of an oppressor; of one who defends himself and does not look with contempt on others; not afflicting, but exhorting; and inviting people in a godly way to the things that are of God. For he who is the Maker and Redeemer of all people, who might have terrified mortals had he come into the world in the majesty of his Godhead, chose instead in his priceless clemency and humility to come down to the condition of us whom he had created, and so to redeem us; and he also expects from us a willing confession of the true faith. [b]

This is what the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, teaches: “Feed the flock of Christ that is among you, not by constraint, but willingly, exhorting it according to God.” So, encouraged by these imperial decrees, O most meek lords of all things, lifted out of the depths of affliction and raised to the hope of consolation, and refreshed somewhat by a better confidence, I have begun to carry out promptly what the sacred letter of your most gentle fortitude commanded some time ago. In obedience to it I am endeavoring to find suitable persons, as far as our impoverished times and the condition of this obedient province allow. I have taken counsel with my fellow servants the bishops, both about the coming synod of this Apostolic See and about our own clergy, who love the Christian empire, and afterward about the religious servants of God, so that I might urge them to follow quickly in the footsteps of your most pious tranquility. Had the great extent of the provinces in which our humble council is situated not cost so much time, we in our servitude could have done long ago, with studious obedience, what has scarcely been done even now. For while a council has been gathering around us from the various provinces, we have been able to choose some persons from this very city of Rome, which is directly subject to your most serene power, or from places near by; but for others we have had to wait, from far distant provinces in which the word of the Christian faith was preached by those whom the predecessors of my littleness sent. And so a good deal of time has passed. I say nothing of my bodily pains, on account of which life, for one who suffers without end, is neither possible nor pleasant. [d]

Therefore, most Christian lords and sons, in keeping with the most pious command of your God-protected clemency, we have taken care to send, with the devotion of a prayerful heart (out of the obedience we owe you, not because we relied on any great learning in those we are sending to you), our fellow servants here present: Abundantius, John, and John, our most reverend brother bishops; Theodore and George, our most beloved sons and presbyters; our most beloved son John, a deacon; and Constantine, a subdeacon of this holy spiritual mother, the Apostolic See. With them go Theodore, the presbyter and legate of the holy church of Ravenna, and the religious servants of God, the monks. For among men placed in the midst of the Gentiles, who earn their daily bread by bodily labor with no small distraction, how could the knowledge of the Scriptures be found in its fullness, unless we preserve in simplicity of heart what has been canonically defined by our holy and apostolic predecessors and by the five venerable councils, and keep without any distortion the faith that has come down to us from the fathers? We always desire and strive to possess that one chief good: that nothing be taken away from what has been canonically defined, and that nothing be changed or added to it, but that these same things be guarded untouched in both words and sense. To these same commissioners we have also given the testimonies of some of the holy fathers whom this apostolic church of Christ receives, together with their books. We have done this so that, once they have obtained from the power of your most kind Christianity the privilege of presenting their reports, they may endeavor to use these, when your imperial Meekness so commands, to give satisfaction as to what this apostolic church of Christ, their spiritual mother and the mother of your God-sprung empire, believes and preaches. They will do it not in words of worldly eloquence, which ordinary men do not have at their command, but in the integrity of the apostolic faith. We were taught that faith from the cradle, and in it we pray that we may serve and obey, even to the end, the Lord of heaven, who enlarges your Christian empire.

Accordingly, we have given them leave, that is, authority, to give satisfaction plainly before your most tranquil mightiness whenever your clemency commands. One limit has been laid on them: they must not presume to add anything, take anything away, or change anything, but must set forth this tradition of the Apostolic See in all sincerity, as the apostolic pontiffs, our predecessors, taught it. For these delegates we most humbly implore your clemency, ever full of condescension, on the bent knees of the mind: in keeping with the most kind and most august promise of the imperial sacred letter, may your Christlike Tranquility count them worthy of acceptance and deign to give their most humble reports a favorable hearing. So may your most meek piety find the ears of Almighty God open to your prayers; and may you order that they return to their own unharmed, both in their uprightness in our apostolic faith and in the soundness of their bodies. And so may the Majesty on high restore the whole Christian commonwealth to the kind rule of your government, through the most heroic and unconquerable labors of your God-strengthened clemency, and may he subdue hostile nations to your mighty scepter, so that every soul and all nations may be satisfied from this time on, because what you deigned to promise solemnly in your most august letters about the immunity and safety of those who came to the council, you have fulfilled in every respect. It was not their wisdom that gave us the confidence to make bold to send them into your pious presence; rather, our littleness obediently did what your imperial kindness urged us to do by a gracious order.

And now we shall briefly set out for your divinely instructed Piety what the strength of our apostolic faith contains. We have received it through apostolic tradition, through the tradition of the apostolic pontiffs, and through that of the five holy general synods, by which the foundations of Christ’s catholic church have been strengthened and established. This, then, is the standing and the regular tradition of our gospel and apostolic faith. As we confess the holy and inseparable Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to be of one deity, of one nature and substance or essence, so we also profess that it has one natural will, power, operation, lordship, majesty, potency, and glory. Whatever is said of the same Holy Trinity essentially, in the singular number, we understand to refer to the one nature of the three Persons who are of one substance; we have been taught this by canonical reasoning. But when we make confession about one of the same three Persons of that Holy Trinity, the Son of God, or God the Word, and about the mystery of his adorable plan of salvation according to the flesh, we assert that all things are twofold in our one and the same Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, according to the gospel tradition. That is to say, we confess his two natures, the divine and the human, of which and in which he subsists even after the wonderful and inseparable union. And we confess that each of his natures has its own natural property, and that the divine has all things that are divine, without any sin. And we recognize that each of the two natures of the one and the same Word of God, who became incarnate, that is, became man, is in him without confusion, without separation, and without change, the understanding alone discerning a unity, so as to avoid the error of confusion. For we detest equally the blasphemy of division and the blasphemy of mixture. For when we confess two natures, and two natural wills, and two natural operations in our one Lord Jesus Christ, we do not assert that they are contrary or opposed to one another, as those who stray from the path of truth accuse the apostolic tradition of doing. Far be this impiety from the hearts of the faithful! Nor do we say that they are separated, each on its own, in two persons or subsistences. Rather, we say that just as our Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same, has two natures, so also he has two natural wills and operations, the divine and the human. The divine will and operation he has in common with the Father, who is of one substance with him, from all eternity; the human he has received from us, taking it with our nature in time. This is the apostolic and gospel tradition that the spiritual mother of your most happy empire, the apostolic church of Christ, holds.

This is the pure expression of godliness. This is the true and spotless profession of the Christian religion, not invented by human cunning, but taught by the Holy Spirit through the princes of the apostles. This is the firm and blameless teaching of the holy apostles. So long as the soundness of its sincere godliness is preached freely, it will defend the empire of your tranquility in the Christian commonwealth, will make it stable and exultant, and, as we firmly trust, will show it to be full of happiness. Believe your most humble servant, my most Christian lords and sons: I am pouring out these prayers with my tears for its stability and exultation. And though I am unworthy and insignificant, I dare to give this advice out of sincere love, because your God-given victory is our salvation, the happiness of your tranquility is our joy, and the harmlessness of your kindness is the security of our littleness. And therefore I beg you with a contrite heart and rivers of tears, with my mind laid prostrate: deign to stretch out your most clement right hand to the apostolic teaching that the blessed apostle Peter, the fellow worker in your pious labors, has handed down, so that it may not be hidden under a bushel, but may be preached in the whole earth more piercingly than a bugle. For the true confession of it, for which Peter was pronounced blessed by the Lord of all things, was revealed by the Father in heaven; for Peter received from the Redeemer of all himself, by a threefold charge, the duty of feeding the spiritual sheep of the church. Under his protecting shield this apostolic church of his has never turned aside from the path of truth into any error whatever. His authority, as the authority of the prince of all the apostles, the whole catholic church and the ecumenical synods have faithfully embraced and followed in all things. All the venerable fathers have embraced its apostolic teaching, and through it they have shone as the most approved lights of the church of Christ. The holy orthodox teachers have venerated and followed it, while the heretics have attacked it with false charges and disparaging hatred. [l]

This is the living tradition of the apostles of Christ, which his church holds everywhere. It is above all to be loved and cherished, and to be preached with confidence. It reconciles us to God through its truthful confession, and it makes a person acceptable to Christ the Lord. It preserves the Christian empire of your clemency. It gives far-reaching victories to your most pious fortitude from the Lord of heaven; it goes with you into battle and defeats your foes. It protects your God-sprung empire on every side like an impregnable wall; it throws terror into hostile nations and strikes them with the wrath of God; in wars it gives, from heaven, the palms of triumph over the overthrow and subjection of the enemy; and it always keeps your most faithful sovereignty secure and joyful in peace. For this is the rule of the true faith, which this spiritual mother of your most tranquil empire, the apostolic church of Christ, has always held and vigorously defended, in prosperity and in adversity. It will be proved that, by the grace of Almighty God, she has never strayed from the path of apostolic tradition, nor been corrupted by yielding to heretical innovations. From the beginning she received the Christian faith from her founders, the princes of the apostles of Christ, and she remains undefiled to the end, according to the divine promise of the Lord and Savior himself, which he spoke in the holy Gospels to the prince of his disciples: “Peter, Peter, look, Satan has desired to have you, so that he might sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” So let your tranquil Clemency consider that, since it is the Lord and Savior of all, whose faith it is, who promised that Peter’s faith would not fail and urged him to strengthen his brothers, it is known to all how the apostolic pontiffs, the predecessors of my littleness, have always confidently done this very thing. Our littleness also, since I have received this ministry by divine appointment, wishes to be their follower, though unequal to them and the least of all.

For woe to me if I neglect to preach the truth of my Lord, which they sincerely preached. Woe to me if I cover with silence the truth that I am bidden to give to the bankers, that is, to teach to the Christian people and to fill them with it. What shall I say at the coming examination by Christ himself, if I am ashamed (God forbid!) to preach the truth of his words here? What account shall I be able to give for myself, and what for the souls entrusted to me, when he demands a strict reckoning of the office I have received? Who, then, my most clement and most pious lords and sons (I speak trembling and prostrate in spirit), would not be stirred by that wonderful promise made to the faithful: “Whoever confesses me before men, I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven”? And which even of the unbelievers would not be terrified by that most severe threat, in which he declares that he will be full of wrath and says: “Whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven”? That is why blessed Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, also warns: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you any gospel other than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” Since, then, so extreme a punishment hangs over those who corrupt the truth or suppress it by silence, would not anyone flee from any attempt to cut short the truth of the Lord’s faith?

That is why the predecessors of my littleness, of apostolic memory, learned in the Lord’s teaching, have never ceased, ever since the prelates of the church of Constantinople began trying to bring a heretical innovation into the spotless church of Christ, to exhort and warn them with many prayers. They urged them to give up the heretical error of that corrupt dogma, at least by keeping silent, so as not to make from it the beginning of a split in the unity of the church by asserting one will and one operation of the two natures in the one Jesus Christ our Lord. This is what the Arians and the Apollinarians, the Eutychians, the Timotheans, the Acephali, the Theodosians, and the Gaianites taught, and every heretical madness, whether of those who confuse or of those who divide the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Those who confuse the mystery of the holy incarnation say that there is one nature of the deity and humanity of Christ, and so they contend that he has one will, as being one, and one personal operation. But those who divide the inseparable union, on the other hand, do join the two natures that they acknowledge the Savior to possess, yet not in a union recognized as hypostatic; instead they blasphemously join them by agreement, through the inclination of the will, like two subsistences, that is, two someones. The apostolic church of Christ, however, the spiritual mother of your God-founded empire, confesses one Jesus Christ our Lord existing of and in two natures. She holds that his two natures, the divine and the human, exist in him without confusion even after their inseparable union. She acknowledges that each of these natures of Christ is perfect in the properties of its nature, and she confesses that all things belonging to the properties of the natures are twofold, because our Lord Jesus Christ himself, one and the same, is both perfect God and perfect man, of two and in two natures. After his wonderful incarnation his deity cannot be thought of without his humanity, nor his humanity without his deity.

It follows, then, that according to the rule of the holy catholic and apostolic church of Christ, she also confesses and preaches that there are in him two natural wills and two natural operations. For if anyone meant a personal will, then, since in the holy Trinity there are said to be three Persons, it would be necessary to assert three personal wills and three personal operations, which is absurd and truly profane. Since, as the truth of the Christian faith holds, the will belongs to the nature, it must consistently be understood that where the one nature of the holy and inseparable Trinity is spoken of, there is one natural will and one natural operation. But when in truth we confess that in the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and men, there are two natures, the divine and the human, even after his wonderful union, then, just as we canonically confess the two natures of one and the same person, so also we confess his two natural wills and two natural operations. Your clemency is incomparably better able to penetrate the meaning of the sacred Scriptures than our littleness is to set it out in flowing words. But so that the understanding of this truthful confession may become clear to your piety’s mind from the God-inspired teaching of the Old and New Testaments: our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is true and perfect God and true and perfect man, shows in his holy Gospels human things in some places, divine things in others, and in still others both together. He makes this manifestation about himself in order to teach his faithful to believe and preach that he is both true God and true man.

So as man he prays to the Father to take away the cup of suffering, because in him our human nature was complete, sin alone excepted: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will.” And in another passage: “Not my will, but yours be done.” If we want to know the meaning of this testimony as the holy and approved fathers explained it, and truly to understand what “my will” and what “yours” signify, the blessed Ambrose, in his second book to the emperor Gratian, of blessed memory, teaches us the meaning of this passage in these words: “He takes, then, my will; he takes my sorrow. I confidently call it sorrow, since I am speaking of the cross. Mine is the will that he calls his own, because as man he bears my sorrow. He spoke as a man, and therefore he says, ‘Not as I will, but as you will.’ Mine is the sadness, which he took on according to my feelings.” See, most pious of princes, how clearly this holy Father shows here that the words our Lord used in his prayer, “Not my will,” belong to his humanity. Through his humanity he is also said, in the teaching of blessed Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, to have “become obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” That is why we are also taught that he was obedient to his parents. This must be piously understood of his voluntary obedience: not according to his divinity, by which he governs all things, but according to his humanity, by which he freely submitted himself to his parents.

Saint Luke the Evangelist likewise bears witness to the same thing. He tells how this same Lord of ours, Jesus Christ, prayed to his Father according to his humanity, and said: “Father, if it is possible, let the cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Athanasius, the confessor of Christ and archbishop of the church of Alexandria, in his book against Apollinaris the heretic, on the Trinity and the Incarnation, also understands the wills to be two, and explains this passage as follows: “And when he says, ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done,’ and again, ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ he shows that there are two wills: the one human, which is the will of the flesh, and the other divine. For his human will, out of the weakness of the flesh, was fleeing from the passion, but his divine will was ready for it.” What truer explanation could be found? For how is it possible not to acknowledge two wills in him, a human and a divine, when even after the inseparable union there are two natures in him, according to the definitions of the synods? For John too, the Lord’s beloved disciple, who leaned on his breast, shows the same self-restraint in these words: “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.” And again: “This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” Again he presents the Lord disputing with the Jews and saying, among other things: “I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” On the meaning of these divine words blessed Augustine, a most illustrious teacher, writes as follows in his book against Maximinus the Arian: “When the Son says to the Father, ‘Not what I will, but what you will,’ what good does it do you to bring your words into subjection and say, ‘It shows truly that his will was subject to his Father’? As though we would deny that the will of man ought to be subject to the will of God! For anyone who studies this place in the Gospel attentively will quickly see that the Lord said this in his human nature. For in it he says, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.’ Can this possibly be said of the nature of the one Word? But, O man, you who think to make the nature of the Holy Spirit groan, why do you say that the nature of the Word of God, the only Son, cannot be sad? “But to keep anyone from arguing this way, he does not say, ‘I am sad’ (and even if he had said so, it could properly have been understood only of his human nature), but he says, ‘My soul is sad,’ a soul which he has as man. And in this too, when he said, ‘Not what I will,’ he showed that he willed something different from what the Father did, which he could not have done except in his human nature; for he did not bring our weakness into his divine nature, but would transfigure human feeling. For had he not been made man, the only Word could in no way have said to the Father, ‘Not what I will.’ For it could never be possible for that unchangeable nature to will anything different from what the Father willed. If only you would make this distinction, you Arians, you would not be heretics.”

In this disputation this venerable Father shows that when the Lord says “his own,” he means the will of his humanity; and when he says he came not to do “his own will,” he teaches us not to seek our own wills above all, but to submit our wills to the divine will through obedience. From all this it is evident that he had a human will by which he obeyed his Father, and that, as true God and man, he had in himself this same human will, spotless from all sin. Saint Ambrose also deals with this in his exposition of Saint Luke the Evangelist, as follows. At this point the letter goes on with a chain of quotations from the fathers, which the English editor did not think worth printing in full. After Saint Ambrose, Agatho quotes Saint Leo, then Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, then Saint Augustine. [x]

From these testimonies it is clear that each of the natures that the spiritual Teacher has listed here has its own natural property, and that a will must be assigned to each one. For an angelic nature cannot have a divine or a human will, nor can a human nature have a divine or an angelic will. No nature can have anything, or any motion, that belongs to another nature, but only what is naturally given it by creation. And since this is the truth of the matter, it is perfectly clear that we must confess that in our Lord Jesus Christ there are two natures and substances, the divine and the human, united in his one subsistence or person; and that we must further confess that there are in him two natural wills, the divine and the human. For his divinity, as far as its nature is concerned, could not be said to possess a human will, nor should his humanity be believed to have a divine will by nature. And again, neither of these two substances of Christ is to be confessed as being without a natural will. Rather, his human will was lifted up by the almighty power of his divinity, and his divine will was revealed to men through his humanity. Therefore we must refer to him, as God, the things that are divine, and, as man, the things that are human; and each must be truly recognized through the hypostatic union of our one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, which the most true decree of the Council of Chalcedon sets out. (The letter quotes it here; the English editor leaves the quotation out.) The holy synod that was gathered in Constantinople in the time of the emperor Justinian, of august memory, teaches the same thing in the seventh chapter of its definitions. (Again the quotation is left out.) [y]

Moreover, we must faithfully keep what those venerable synods taught, so that we never take away the difference of the natures on account of the union, but confess one Christ, true and perfect God and also true and perfect man, with the property of each nature kept intact. So if the difference of the natures of our Lord Jesus Christ has in no respect been taken away, we must preserve this same difference in all its properties. For whoever teaches that the difference is in no respect to be taken away declares that it must be preserved in all things. But when the heretics and the followers of heretics say that there is only one will and one operation, how is this difference recognized? Or where is the difference that this holy synod defined preserved? If it is asserted that there is only one will in him (which is absurd), those who assert it must say that this will is either human or divine, or else composed of both, mixed and confused; or else, as all the heretics teach, that Christ has one will and one operation proceeding from his one composite nature, as they hold. And so, beyond any doubt, the difference of nature is destroyed, which the holy synods declared is preserved in every respect, even after the wonderful union. For though they taught that Christ is one, his person and substance one, yet because the union of the natures was made hypostatically, they likewise decreed that we should clearly acknowledge and teach the difference of the natures that were united in him, after the wonderful union. Therefore, if the properties of the natures in our one and the same Lord Jesus Christ were preserved because of the difference of the natures, it is fitting that we should also confess with full faith the difference of his natural wills and operations, so that we may be shown to have followed their teaching in every respect, and may admit no heretical novelty into the church of Christ.

And although there are many works of the other holy fathers, we add to this humble exposition of ours only a few testimonies out of the books that are in Greek, for the sake of fastidiousness. [aa] Here the letter gives a chain of passages from the Greek fathers: Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint John, bishop of Constantinople, and Saint Cyril, bishop of Alexandria. [ab]

From these truthful testimonies it is also shown that these venerable fathers taught two natural wills in the one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, a divine and a human. For when Saint Gregory of Nazianzus says, “The willing of that man who is understood to be the Savior,” he shows that the human will of the Savior was deified through its union with the Word, and is therefore not contrary to God. In the same way he proves that Christ had a human will, though a deified one, and that he had this (as he teaches in what follows) along with his divine will, which was one and the same as the Father’s. If, then, he had a divine will and a deified will, he had two wills. For what is divine by nature has no need of being deified; and what is deified is not truly divine by nature. And when Saint Gregory of Nyssa, a great bishop, says that the true confession of the mystery is that one human will and another, divine, will are to be understood in Christ, what does he bid us understand, when he says one will and another, except that there are plainly two wills? The English editor again summarizes. Agatho next comments on the passage quoted from Saint John, then on the one from Saint Cyril of Alexandria. After this come quotations from Saint Hilary, Saint Athanasius, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Saint Ambrose, Saint Leo, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, on which he then comments in order. Then he goes on: [ac]

There is no lack of most telling passages in others of the venerable fathers, who speak clearly of the two natural operations in Christ. I need not mention Saint Cyril of Jerusalem or Saint John of Constantinople, or those who later waged the laborious battles in defense of the venerable Council of Chalcedon and of the Tome of Saint Leo against the heretics from whose error the assertion of this new dogma has arisen. These are John, bishop of Scythopolis; Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria; Euphraemius and Anastasius the elder, most worthy rulers of the church of Theopolis; and above all that emulator of the true and apostolic faith, the emperor Justinian of pious memory, whose uprightness of faith exalted the Christian state as much as his sincere confession pleased God. His pious memory is held worthy of veneration by all nations, and his uprightness of faith has been spread abroad with praise throughout the whole world by his most august edicts. One of these, the one addressed to Zoilus, patriarch of Alexandria, against the heresy of the Acephali, to satisfy them of the rightness of the apostolic faith, we offer to your most tranquil Christianity, sending it along with this paper of our lowliness by the same bearers. But so that this statement may not be thought burdensome for its length, we have put into this statement of our humility only a few of the testimonies of the holy fathers, especially since we are writing to those on whom the care and ordering of the whole world are recognized to rest, as on a firm foundation. For it is a thing altogether great and beyond compare that your august and most religious clemency, laying aside for a little while the care of the whole Christian state out of love and zeal for true religion, should desire to understand more clearly the teaching of the apostolic preaching. For the truth of the orthodox faith has become clear from the various approved fathers, though the treatment is short. The approved fathers thought it superfluous to speak at length about what was evident and clear to all; for who, even if he is dull of wit, does not perceive what is evident to all? It is impossible, and contrary to the order of nature, that there should be a nature without a natural operation. Not even the heretics dared to say that, although all of them were hunting for human craftiness and cunning questions against the orthodoxy of the faith, and for arguments to suit their depravity. [ad]

How then can something be asserted now that was never said by the holy orthodox fathers, and was not even presumptuously invented by the profane heretics: that anyone of sound mind should declare that the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, whose properties are each recognized as preserved in Christ, have but one operation? For if there is one, let them say whether it is temporal or eternal, divine or human, uncreated or created, the same as the Father’s or different from the Father’s. If, then, it is one, that one and the same operation must be common to the divinity and to the humanity, which is absurd. It would follow that while the Son of God, who is both God and man, was doing human things on earth, the Father too was working with him according to his nature; for whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise. But if, as is the truth, the human acts that Christ did are to be referred to his person alone as the Son, which is not the same as the person of the Father, then in one nature Christ worked one set of works, and in the other another. According to his divinity the Son does the same things that the Father does; and likewise, according to his humanity, the things proper to manhood he did as man, because he is truly both God and man. For this reason we rightly believe that the same person, since he is one, has two natural operations, the divine and the human, the one uncreated and the other created, as true and perfect God and as true and perfect man, one and the same, the mediator between God and men, the Lord Jesus Christ. So from the character of the operations a difference of the natures that are joined in Christ through the hypostatic union is recognized, a difference that gives no offense. We now go on to quote some passages from the accursed writings of the heretics, hateful to God, whose words and sayings we equally abominate, to demonstrate what the inventors of new dogma in our own day have followed, when they teach that in Christ there is but one will and one operation. [af] Then come quotations from Apollinaris, Severus, and Theodosius of Alexandria. [ag]

See, most pious lords and sons: by the testimonies of the holy fathers, as by spiritual rays, the teaching of the catholic and apostolic church has been made bright, and the darkness of heretical blindness, which holds out error for people to imitate, has been exposed. Now the new doctrine must follow someone, and we shall note by whose authority it is supported. Here come quotations from Cyrus of Alexandria, Theodore of Pharan, Sergius of Constantinople, Pyrrhus, Paul his successor, and Peter his successor. [ah]

So let your God-founded clemency, with the inner eye of discernment that you have been counted worthy by the grace of God to receive for guiding the Christian people, take heed which of such teachers you think the Christian people should follow, and whose teaching they should embrace in order to be saved. For they condemn everyone, and each of them condemns the other, as the shifting and unstable definitions in their writings assert: sometimes that there is one will and one operation; sometimes that there is neither one operation nor two; sometimes one will and operation; and again two wills and two operations; likewise one will and one operation; and again neither one nor two; and someone else, one and two. Who would not hate such blind errors, and rage against them, and avoid them, if he has any desire to be saved and seeks to offer the Lord a right faith at his coming? Therefore the holy church of God, the mother of your most Christian power, should be delivered and set free with all your might, with the help of God, from the errors of such teachers. And the gospel and apostolic uprightness of the orthodox faith, which has been founded on the firm rock of this church of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, which by his grace and guardianship remains free from all error, that faith, I say, the whole body of rulers and priests, of clergy and people, should confess and preach with us unanimously as the true statement of the apostolic tradition, so as to please God and save their own souls.

We have taken pains to put these things into the treatise of our humility, because we have been afflicted and have groaned without ceasing that such grievous errors should be held by bishops of the church, who are eager to establish their own peculiar views rather than the truth of the faith, and who think that our sincere brotherly warning springs from contempt for them. Indeed, the apostolic predecessors of my humility admonished, begged, rebuked, implored, reproved, and used every kind of exhortation, so that the recent wound might receive a remedy. They were moved to this not by a mind filled with hatred (God is my witness), nor by the pride of boasting, nor by the spirit of contention, nor by an empty desire to find some fault with their teachings, nor by anything akin to the love of arrogance, but by zeal for the uprightness of the truth, for the rule of the confession of the pure gospel, for the salvation of souls, for the stability of the Christian state, and for the safety of those who rule the Roman Empire. Nor did they stop their admonitions after this error had long made itself at home, but they always exhorted and bore witness, and that with brotherly love, not out of malice or stubborn hatred. Far be it from a Christian heart to rejoice at another’s fall, when the Lord of all teaches, “I do not desire the death of a sinner, but that he turn and live”: the Lord who rejoices more over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons, and who came down from heaven to earth to rescue the lost sheep, bending down the power of his majesty. Rather, they longed for them with outstretched spiritual arms, urging them to return and be embraced in the unity of the orthodox faith, and awaiting their conversion to the full uprightness of the orthodox faith. They wanted them not to make themselves strangers to our communion, that is, to the communion of blessed Peter the apostle, whose ministry we, though unworthy, exercise, and whose handed-down faith we preach, but to pray together with us to Christ the Lord, the spotless sacrifice, for the stability of your most strong and serene Empire. [ai]

We believe, most pious lords of all things, that no possible doubt has been left that could keep anyone from recognizing those who have followed the inventors of the new dogma. For the sweetness of spiritual understanding with which the sayings of the fathers are filled has become evident to the eyes of all; and the stench of the heretics, which all the faithful should avoid, has been made notorious. Nor has it gone unknown that the inventors of the new dogma have been shown to be followers of heretics, and not walkers in the footsteps of the holy fathers. So whoever wishes to color any error of his whatever is condemned by the light of truth, as the apostle of the Gentiles says: “For everything that makes manifest is light.” For the truth always remains constant and the same, but falsehood is always changing, and in its wanderings takes up things that contradict one another. That is why the inventors of the new dogma have been shown to teach contradictory things: because they were not willing to be followers of the gospel and apostolic faith. Therefore, since the truth has shone out through the inquiries of your God-inspired piety, and the falsehood that has been exposed has met the contempt it deserved, it remains for the crowned truth to shine out victoriously through the pious favor of your God-crowned clemency. It remains for the error of novelty, together with its inventors and with those who follow their teaching, to receive the punishment due to their presumption, and to be cast out from among the orthodox prelates for the heretical perversity of their innovation, which they have tried to bring into the holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Christ, staining the undivided and spotless body of the church of Christ with the contagion of heretical perversity. For it is not just that the harmful should harm the innocent, nor that the offenses of some should fall on those who have given no offense. Even if mercy is shown in this world to those who are condemned, those who are spared in this way reap no benefit from that sparing in the judgment of God; and those who spare them incur no small danger for their unlawful compassion. [aj]

But we believe that Almighty God has reserved the setting right of these things for the happy days of your gentleness, so that, filling on earth the place and the zeal of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has deigned to crown your rule, you may judge a just judgment for his gospel and apostolic truth. For though he is the Redeemer and Savior of the human race, he has suffered injury and borne it even until now, and he has inspired the empire of your fortitude, so that you might be worthy to take up the cause of his faith (as equity demanded, and as the decision of the holy fathers and of the five general synods decreed), and so that through his guardianship you might avenge, on those who spurn his faith, the injury done to your Redeemer and colleague in reigning. In this you will be fulfilling magnanimously, with imperial clemency, the prophetic saying with which David, the king and prophet, spoke to God: “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” Because he was praised for so God-pleasing a zeal, he was counted fit to hear that blessed word spoken by the Creator of all: “I have found David, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.” And to him it was also promised in the Psalms: “I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him. My hand will help him, and my arm will comfort him.” And so the most pious majesty of your Christian clemency may work for the cause of Christ with burning zeal, for the sake of the reward. And may he make all the acts of your most powerful empire happy and prosperous, he who has stored up his promise in the holy Gospels, saying: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.” For all who have come to know the sacred edicts have been offering countless thanksgivings and unceasing praises to the defender of your most powerful dominion, filled with admiration at the greatness of your clemency, because you have so kindly made known the generous intention of your august magnanimity. For truly, as most pious and most just princes, you have deigned to treat divine things with the fear of God, having promised every immunity to those sent to you from our littleness. [ak] And we are confident that what your pious clemency has promised, you have the power to carry out, so that what your religious love for mankind has vowed and promised to God, even beyond your Christian power, may nevertheless be fulfilled by the help of his almighty power.

So let praise from all Christian nations, and eternal remembrance, and frequent prayer be poured out before the Lord Christ, whose cause this is, for your safety, your triumphs, and your complete victory, so that the nations of the Gentiles, struck by the terror of the Majesty on high, may bow their necks most humbly beneath the scepter of your most powerful rule, and that the power of your most pious kingdom may continue until the unending joy of the eternal kingdom succeeds this temporal reign. Nor could anything be found more likely to commend the clemency of your unconquerable fortitude to the divine Majesty than that those who stray from the rule of truth should be driven back, and that the integrity of our gospel and apostolic faith should be set forth and preached everywhere.

Moreover, most pious and God-instructed sons and lords, the archbishop of the church of Constantinople may choose to hold and to preach with us this most blameless rule of apostolic teaching, drawn from the sacred Scriptures, the venerable synods, and the spiritual fathers, according to their gospel understanding, through which the form of the truth has been set forth by us with the help of the Spirit. If he does, great peace will follow for those who love the name of God, no scandal of dissension will remain, and what is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, when through the grace of the Holy Spirit the people had come to acknowledge the Christian faith, will come to pass: all of us will be of one heart and one mind. But if (God forbid!) he prefers to embrace the novelty brought in lately by others, and entangles himself in teachings foreign to the rule of orthodox truth and of our apostolic faith, teachings that these men, despite the exhortations and warnings of our predecessors in the Apostolic See, have put off renouncing down to this day, though they are harmful to souls, then he himself should know what kind of answer he will have to give for such contempt at the divine examination of Christ, before the judge of all, who is in heaven. To him, when he comes to judgment, we ourselves are also about to give an account of the ministry of preaching the truth that has been entrusted to us, or of tolerating things contrary to the Christian religion. And may we (as I humbly pray) keep without confusion and freely, with simplicity and purity, whole and undefiled, the apostolic and gospel rule of the right faith as we have received it from the beginning. And may your most august serenity, for the affection and reverence you bear the catholic and apostolic right faith, receive the perfect reward of your pious labors from our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who rules your Christian empire with you, and whose true confession you desire to keep undefiled. For nothing at all that could serve the peace of the churches has been neglected or left out by your God-crowned clemency, provided always that the integrity of the true faith was maintained; since God, the Judge of all, who orders the outcome of all matters as he judges best, searches out the intent of the heart and will accept a zeal for godliness. Therefore I urge you, most pious and clement Emperor, and together with my littleness every Christian man urges you on bended knee with all humility: to all the God-pleasing good things and admirable imperial benefits that the condescension of heaven has deigned to grant the human race through your God-accepted care, add this as well. For the full restoration of perfect godliness, order that an acceptable sacrifice be offered to Christ the Lord, your fellow ruler, by granting complete freedom from punishment, and free leave to speak, to everyone who wishes to speak and to argue in defense of the faith he believes and holds. Then it will be most plainly recognized by all that no one wishing to speak for the truth of the catholic and apostolic faith has been prohibited or driven back by any terror, any force, any threat, or any ill will; and all may unanimously glorify your imperial majesty for the whole length of their lives for so great and so priceless a good, and may pour out unceasing prayers to Christ the Lord that your most strong empire may be kept untouched and exalted. The subscription: May the grace from above keep your empire, most pious lords, and put the neck of all the nations beneath its feet. [am]