To the Magistrates of Zeugma

I know the strength and steadiness of your faith, and it has filled me with the greatest possible delight. For since we who worship the eternal Trinity form one body, it is only natural that the rest of the members should rejoice together with the members that are sound. So says the divine apostle: “If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” So I rejoice with you in your struggles for the apostolic doctrines, and in your following of the famous Naboth in something even better. Naboth suffered a most unrighteous killing for the sake of his vineyard, because he would not give up the inheritance of his fathers. You are fighting not for vineyards but for divine doctrines. You reject this newfangled and counterfeit heresy because it darkens the brightness of the gospel’s teaching, and you do not let the number of the blessed Trinity be made smaller or larger. For it is made smaller by those who ascribe the suffering of the only Son to the Godhead, and it is made larger by those who dare to bring in a second son. You believe in one only Son, as you do in one Father and in one Holy Spirit. In the only Son made flesh you see the nature he took on, which he took from us and offered on our behalf. To deny this nature is to put our salvation far from us. For if the Godhead of the only Son cannot suffer, as the nature of the Trinity cannot suffer, and we refuse to acknowledge that which is by nature able to suffer, then the preaching of a suffering that never happened is idle and empty. For if what suffers does not exist, how could there be suffering? We declare that the divine nature cannot suffer, a doctrine our opponents confess as well as we. How then could there be suffering, when there is nothing able to suffer? The great mystery of the plan of salvation will turn out to be mere appearance, a seeming instead of the reality. This is the fable started by Valentinus, Bardesanes, Marcion and Mani. But the teaching handed down to the churches from the beginning recognizes, even after the incarnation, one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and confesses that the same one is everlasting God and man made at the end of days: made man not by a change in the Godhead, but by taking on the manhood. For suppose the divine nature had been changed into the human nature: then it did not remain what it was. And if it is not what it was, those who hold these things as the objects of their worship are wrong to call him God. We, on the contrary, recognize the only Son of God to be unchangeable as God, and Son of the true God. For we have learned from the divine Scripture that, being in the form of God, he took the form of the servant. He took on himself the seed of Abraham; he was not changed into Abraham’s seed. And he shared, just as we do, both in flesh and blood and in a soul, immortal and spotless. Keeping these, he offered his sinless body for our sinful bodies, and for our souls his soul, free from every stain. That is why we have the hope of the common resurrection. For the race will surely share with its firstfruits; and as we have shared with Adam in his death, so too we will share in the life of Christ our Savior. The divine apostle has taught us this plainly, for he says, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came by man, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” [a]

I write this not to inform you but to remind you. I have tried to be brief, but I am afraid I have gone beyond the limits of a letter. But I was urged to write by the most reverend and godly presbyter and archimandrite Mecimas. Obeying the law of love, he has made this long journey, told us of your excellency’s zeal, and begged us to fan it into flame with a letter. So I have granted his request and written my letter, and I beg the Lord of all to keep you safe in the faith and to make you stronger than the one who sifts us. [f]