Samuel the Presbyter

Samuel, presbyter of the church at Edessa, is said to have written many things in Syriac against the enemies of the church, especially against the Nestorians, the Eutychians and the Timotheans, all of them new heresies, but differing from one another. For this reason he often speaks of the threefold beast. He refutes them briefly by the judgment of the church and the authority of the Holy Scriptures. To the Nestorians he shows that the Son was God in man, not simply a man born of a virgin. To the Eutychians he shows that he had true human flesh, taken up by God, and not merely a body made of thick air, or shown from heaven. To the Timotheans he shows that the Word was made flesh in such a way that the Word remains Word in substance, and, with human nature remaining human nature, the one person of the Son of God is produced by union, not by mingling. He is said to be still living at Constantinople, for at the beginning of the reign of Anthemius I knew his writings, and knew that he was among the living. [a]