To Adelphius, Bishop and Confessor, Against the Arians

We have read what your piety has written to us, and we sincerely approve your devotion to Christ. Above all we glorify God, who has given you such grace that you not only hold right opinions, but also, as far as that is possible, are not ignorant of the schemes of the devil. But we are amazed at the perversity of the heretics. They have fallen into such a pit of ungodliness that they no longer keep even their senses, and their understanding is corrupted on every side. This attempt of theirs is a plot of the devil, and an imitation of the disobedient Jews. For the Jews, when they were refuted on every side, kept inventing excuses to their own harm, if only they could deny the Lord and bring on themselves what had been prophesied against them. In the same way these men, seeing themselves condemned on every side and seeing that their heresy has become hateful to everyone, prove themselves “inventors of evil things,” so that, never ceasing their fight against the truth, they may stay consistent and genuine enemies of Christ. For where has this new mischief of theirs sprung from? How have they even dared to utter this new blasphemy against the Savior? But the ungodly man, it seems, is a worthless thing, and truly “disqualified in regard to the faith.” In the past, while they denied the Godhead of the only Son of God, they at least pretended to acknowledge his coming in the flesh. But now, going from bad to worse little by little, they have fallen away even from this opinion of theirs, and have become godless on every side, so that they neither acknowledge him as God nor believe that he has become man. For if they believed this, they would not have said the things your piety has reported against them. [a]

You, however, beloved and most truly longed for, have done what suited the tradition of the church and your devotion to the Lord, in refuting, warning and rebuking such men. But since, stirred up by their father the devil, “they did not know, nor did they understand,” as it is written, “but they go on in darkness,” let them learn from your piety that this error of theirs belongs to Valentinus and Marcion, and to Manichaeus. Some of these put an appearance in place of the reality, while the others divided what cannot be divided, and denied the truth that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Why then, since they hold with those people, do they not also take up the inheritance of their names? It is only reasonable that, as they hold their error, they should have their names as well, and from now on be called Valentinians, Marcionites and Manichaeans. Perhaps then, put to shame by the bad smell of the names, they may be able to see what a depth of ungodliness they have fallen into. We would be within our rights not to answer them at all, according to the apostle’s advice: “Reject a man who is a heretic after a first and second warning, knowing that such a person is perverted and sins, being self-condemned.” All the more so because the prophet says about such men, “The fool will speak foolishness, and his heart will imagine empty things.” But since, like their leader, they too go about like lions, looking for someone among the simple to devour, we are compelled to write in reply to your piety, so that the brothers, instructed once again by your warning, may reject the empty teaching of those men still more firmly. [c]

We do not worship a creature. Far from it! Such an error belongs to pagans and Arians. But we worship the Lord of creation, the incarnate Word of God. For even if the flesh in itself is a part of the created world, it has become God’s body. And we do not separate the body, being what it is, from the Word and worship it by itself; nor, when we wish to worship the Word, do we set him far apart from the flesh. But knowing, as we said above, that “the Word became flesh,” we recognize him as God even after he has come in the flesh. Who, then, is so senseless as to say to the Lord, “Leave the body, so that I may worship you”? Or who is so ungodly as to join the senseless Jews in saying, because of the body, “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God?” But the leper was not of that kind. He worshiped God in the body and recognized that he was God, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He did not think the Word of God a creature because of the flesh, nor did he despise the flesh he had put on because the Word was the maker of all creation. Rather, he worshiped the Creator of the universe as dwelling in a created temple, and he was cleansed. In the same way the woman with the flow of blood, who believed and only touched the hem of his garment, was healed. The sea with its foaming waves heard the incarnate Word and stopped its storm. And the man born blind was healed by the Word’s fleshly spitting. And what is greater and more startling (for perhaps this even offended those most ungodly men): even when the Lord was hanging on the cross itself (for it was his body, and the Word was in it), the sun was darkened, the earth shook, the rocks were split, the curtain of the temple was torn, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. [e]

These things happened, then, and no one doubted, as the Arians now dare to doubt, whether one should believe the incarnate Word. On the contrary, just from seeing the man, they recognized that he was their maker; and when they heard a human voice, they did not say, because it was human, that the Word was a creature. Instead they trembled, and recognized nothing less than that it was being spoken from a holy temple. How then can the ungodly not be afraid that, “as they refused to have God in their knowledge, they may be handed over to a corrupt mind, to do the things that are not fitting”? For creation does not worship a creature. Nor, on the other hand, did creation refuse to worship her Lord because of his flesh. She saw her maker in the body, and “at the name of Jesus every knee” bowed, yes, and “will bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue will confess,” whether the Arians approve or not, “that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” For the flesh did not lessen the glory of the Word. Far from it! On the contrary, the flesh was glorified by him. Nor was the Son, who was in the form of God, deprived of his Godhead because he took the form of a servant. On the contrary, in this way he has become the Deliverer of all flesh and of all creation. And if God sent his Son, born of a woman, this brings us no shame, but rather glory and great grace. For he has become man so that he might make us divine in himself. He has been born of a woman and begotten of a virgin in order to transfer to himself our birth, which had gone astray, and so that from now on we may become a holy race and “sharers in the divine nature,” as blessed Peter wrote. And “what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” [f]

Since, then, the Word took flesh to deliver all people, to raise all from the dead, and to make redemption for sins, must not those who make light of the flesh appear ungrateful and deserve all hatred? And so must those who, because of the flesh, accuse the Son of God of being a created or made thing. For they as good as cry out to God and say: “Do not send your only Son in the flesh. Do not make him take flesh from a virgin, or he will redeem us from death and sin. We do not want him to come in the body, or he will undergo death on our behalf. We do not want the Word to become flesh, or in it he will become our Mediator to give us access to you, and so we will live in the heavenly dwellings. Let the gates of heaven be shut, so that your Word may not consecrate for us the road there through the curtain, that is, his flesh.” These are their sayings, poured out with the devil’s own daring, by the error they have invented. For those who do not wish to worship the Word made flesh are ungrateful for his becoming man. And those who divide the Word from the flesh do not hold that one redemption from sin has taken place, or one destruction of death. But where in the world will these ungodly men find the flesh the Savior took, apart from him, that they should even dare to say, “We do not worship the Lord with the flesh; we separate the body and worship him alone”? Why, blessed Stephen saw the Lord in the heavens standing at God’s right hand. The angels said to the disciples, “He will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven.” And the Lord himself says, speaking to the Father, “I desire that where I am, they also may be with me.” And surely, if the flesh cannot be separated from the Word, does it not follow that these men must either lay aside their error and from now on worship the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or else, if they do not worship or serve the Word who came in the flesh, be thrown out on every side, and be counted no longer as Christians, but either as pagans or among the Jews? [g]

Such, then, as we have described above, is the madness and daring of those men. But our faith is right. It starts from the teaching of the apostles and the tradition of the fathers, and it is confirmed by both the New Testament and the Old. For the prophets say, “Send out your Word and your truth,” and, “See, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.” What does that mean, if not that God has come in the flesh? And the tradition of the apostles teaches it in the words of blessed Peter, “Since, then, Christ suffered for us in the flesh,” and in what Paul writes: “Waiting for the blessed hope and appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, eager for good works.” How then has he given himself, if he had not worn flesh? For he offered flesh, and gave himself for us, so that by undergoing death in it, “he might destroy the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” That is why we always give thanks in the name of Jesus Christ, and we do not set aside the grace that came to us through him. For the Savior’s coming in the flesh has been the ransom and salvation of all creation. So then, beloved and most longed for, let what I have said remind those who love the Lord. As for those who have copied the conduct of Judas, and deserted the Lord to join Caiaphas, let them be taught better by these things, if perhaps they are willing, if perhaps they are ashamed. And let them know that in worshiping the Lord in the flesh we do not worship a creature, but, as we said above, the Creator who has put on the created body. [h]

But we would like your piety to ask them this. When Israel was ordered to go up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple of the Lord, where the ark was, “and above it the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat,” did they do well, or the opposite? If they did wrong, how is it that those who despised this law were liable to punishment? For it is written that if a man makes light of it and does not go up, he will perish from among the people. But if they did well, and in this proved pleasing to God, are not the Arians, the most abominable and shameful of any heresy, many times over deserving of destruction? For while they approve the people of old for the honor they paid to the temple, they will not worship the Lord who is in the flesh as in a temple. And yet the former temple was built of stones and gold, as a shadow. When the reality came, the type ceased from then on, and, as the Lord said, not one stone was left on another that was not thrown down. And when they saw the temple of stones, they did not suppose that the Lord who spoke in the temple was a creature. Nor did they set the temple aside and withdraw far off to worship. They came to it according to the law, and worshiped the God who gave his oracles from the temple. Since this was so, how can it be anything but right to worship the body of the Lord, all-holy and all-worthy of reverence as it is, announced as it was by the archangel Gabriel, formed by the Holy Spirit, and made the clothing of the Word? It was, after all, a bodily hand that the Word stretched out to raise the woman who was sick with a fever. It was a human voice that he spoke to raise Lazarus from the dead. And again, by stretching out his hands on the cross, he overthrew the prince of the power of the air, who now works in the sons of disobedience, and made the way clear for us into the heavens. [i]

So whoever dishonors the temple dishonors the Lord in the temple, and whoever separates the Word from the body sets aside the grace given to us in him. Let not the most ungodly Arian madmen suppose that, because the body is created, the Word is also a creature; nor let them belittle his body because the Word is not a creature. Their error is something to marvel at, for they confuse and disturb everything at once, and invent pretexts only so as to count the Creator among the creatures. But let them listen. If the Word were a creature, he would not take on the created body to give it life. For what help can creatures get from a creature that itself needs salvation? But since the Word, being Creator, made the creatures himself, therefore at the completion of the ages he also put on the creature, so that he, as Creator, might consecrate it once more and be able to recover it. A creature could never be saved by a creature, any more than the creatures were created by a creature, if the Word were not Creator. So let them not lie against the divine Scriptures, nor cause the simple brothers to stumble. If they are willing, let them in their turn change their minds, and no longer worship the creature instead of God, who made all things. But if they wish to remain in their ungodliness, let them have their fill of it alone, and let them gnash their teeth like their father the devil, because the faith of the catholic church knows that the Word of God is Creator and Maker of all things. And we know that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Now that he has also become man for our salvation, we worship him: not as though he had come in the body making himself equal to it, but as Master taking the form of the servant, and as Maker and Creator coming in a creature, so that by delivering all things in it he might bring the world near to the Father, and make peace for all things, things in heaven and things on the earth. For in this way we also recognize his Godhead, which is the Father’s too, and worship his presence in the flesh, even if the Arian madmen burst themselves apart. Greet all who love the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you are well, and remember us to the Lord, beloved and truly most longed for. If need be, this is to be read to Hieracas the presbyter. [k]