To Quiricus and the Bishops of Iberia, on Receiving Nestorians

Gregory to Quiricus, bishop, and to the other catholic bishops in Iberia. [a]

Since nothing is far away to love, let those who are separated by distance be joined by letter. The bearer of this letter, coming to the church of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, said that he had received letters for us from your fraternity, and had lost them, along with other things, in the city of Jerusalem. In them, as he says, you wished to ask about priests and people who have been led astray in the error of the Nestorian heresy. When they return to the catholic church, which is the mother of all the elect, should they be baptized, or should they be joined to the inmost heart of that same Mother Church by confession of the one true faith alone?

And indeed we have learned from the ancient ordinance of the fathers that any heretics who were baptized in the name of the Trinity, when they return to the holy church, may be called back to the bosom of Mother Church either by anointing with chrism, or by the laying on of hands, or by profession of the faith alone. So the West reconciles Arians to the holy catholic church by the laying on of hands, but the East by anointing with holy chrism. But Monophysites and others are received by a true confession alone. For the holy baptism they received among the heretics acquires in them its power of cleansing at the moment when either the former receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, or the latter are united to the inmost heart of the holy and universal church through their confession of the true faith. Those heretics, however, who are not baptized in the name of the Trinity, such as the Bonosians and the Cataphrygians, are baptized when they come to the holy church. For the Bonosians do not believe in Christ the Lord, and the Cataphrygians, with a perverse understanding, believe a certain bad man, Montanus, to be the Holy Spirit; and there are many others like them. What they received while in their error was not baptism, since it was not in the name of the Holy Trinity. Nor can this be called a repeating of baptism, since, as has been said, it had not been given in the name of the Trinity. But the Nestorians are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, though they are darkened by the error of their heresy, in that, after the manner of Jewish unbelief, they do not believe in the incarnation of the only Son. So when they come to the holy catholic church, they are to be taught, by firmly holding and professing the true faith, to believe in one and the same Son of God and man, our Lord God Jesus Christ: the same existing in divinity before the ages, and the same made man at the end of the ages, because “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1, verse 14). [b]

But we say that the Word was made flesh not by losing what he was, but by taking what he was not. For in the mystery of his incarnation the only Son of the Father increased what was ours, but did not diminish what was his. So the Word and the flesh are one Person, as he himself says: “No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 3, verse 13). He who is the Son of God in heaven was the Son of man who spoke on earth. That is why John says, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding” (First John 5, verse 20). And as to what understanding he has given us, he at once added, “That we may know the true God.” Whom does he mean in this place by the true God but the Father Almighty? But as to what he holds also of the Almighty Son, he added, “And that we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ.” See, he says that the Father is the true God, and that Jesus Christ is his true Son. And what he takes this true Son to be he shows more plainly: “This is the true God, and eternal life.” If, then, the Word were one and the man Jesus Christ another, as Nestorius in his error holds, the one who is true man would not be the true God and eternal life. But the only Son, the Word before the ages, was made man. He is, then, the true God and eternal life. Certainly, when the holy Virgin was about to conceive him, and heard the angel speaking to her, she said, “Here is the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1, verse 38). And when she had conceived him and went to her kinswoman Elizabeth, she at once heard, “How have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” See, the same Virgin is called both the handmaid and the mother of the Lord. For she is the handmaid of the Lord, because the Word before the ages, the only Son, is equal to the Father; but she is his mother, because in her womb, from the Holy Spirit and of her flesh, he was made man. Nor is she the handmaid of one and the mother of another. For when the only Son of God, existing before the ages, was made man from her womb, by a miracle past searching out she became both the handmaid of the man by reason of his divinity and the mother of the Word by reason of his flesh. It was not that the flesh was first conceived in the Virgin’s womb and the divinity came into the flesh afterward. Rather, as soon as the Word came into the womb, at once the Word, keeping the excellence of his own nature, was made flesh. And the only Son of God, through the Virgin’s womb, was born a perfect man, that is, in true flesh and with a rational soul. That is also why he is called anointed above his fellows, as the psalmist says: “God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows” (Psalm 45, verse 7). For he is anointed with oil, that is to say, with the gift of the Holy Spirit. But he was anointed above his fellows because all of us men first exist as sinners, and are afterward made holy through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But he who, existing as God before the ages, was conceived as man through the Holy Spirit in the Virgin’s womb at the end of the ages, was anointed there by the same Spirit, in the very place where he was conceived. Nor was he first conceived and afterward anointed; to be conceived by the Holy Spirit from the flesh of the Virgin was itself to be anointed by the Holy Spirit. This truth, then, about his birth let all who are brought back from the perverse error of Nestorius confess before the holy assembly of your fraternity, anathematizing that same Nestorius with all his followers, and all other heresies. Let them also promise to receive and venerate the venerable synods which the universal church receives. And let your holiness receive them into your assembly without any hesitation, allowing them to keep their own orders. In this way, as you carefully sift the secrets of their hearts, teach them through true knowledge the right things they ought to hold, and in gentleness raise no difficulty or objection with them over their own orders, you may snatch them from the mouth of the ancient enemy; and the reward of eternal glory with Almighty God may increase for you all the more as you gather together many who may glory with you in the Lord without end. Now may the Holy Trinity keep you in its protection while you pray for us, and grant you in its love still more abundant gifts. [c]

In the Colbert manuscript and in Paul’s collection the letter ends: “Given on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, in the fourth indiction.” [e]