Oriental “Orthodoxy” Refuted

Part One: Heretical Beliefs/Practices

1. They have never anathematized or condemned the Tritheistic teachings of John

Philoponus (in 2007 the Alexandrian WO “church” also decided to drop the anathemas
on this heretic in order to promote further ecumenism between the two Churches)
2. Eusebius of Caesarea the Arian is venerated as a Saint in the Coptic Church
3. Origen of Alexandria has never been officially condemned along with his heretical
innovations which has led to current members of the OO “church” to start promoting his
heresies
4. Stephen Bar Sudhaile while being condemned by Jakob of Serugh and Philoxenus of
Mabbug, was never officially condemned as a whole by the OO’s (even though he
taught Pantheism and Origenism), and his writings have continued to be very popular
amongst Jacobite monks
5. At the Persian Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410 AD, the Filioque was added into
the Creed by the West Syriac OO’s while the East Syriac Nestorians didn’t add the
heretical Filioque.
6. While the Tritheistic teachings of Philoponus were never officially adopted by the OO,
instead the Trinitarian teachings of “Saint” Damian of Alexandria were simultaneously
Modalistic and Tritheistic in a Neoplatonic fashion due to the Christological error of
Severus which was equating Hypostasis with Nature
7. Teaching that the Human nature of Christ was corruptible and fallen (having
passions) in contra to the Orthodox position on Christ’s humanity being incorruptible but
with Christ willing to undergo passions like hunger and sleep as a part of the economy
of salvation
8. The Armenian OO’s believed Christ was incorrupt while the Copts and Jacobites
believe He is corrupt
9. Philoxenus of Mabbug teaching that man is justified by faith and that he can’t lose
salvation even if he sins unlimited amount of times and remains unrepentant, unless the
sins happen to be either blasphemy of the Holy Spirit or devil worship (which is similar
to the later heretical teachings of Protestantism and Sola Fide)
10. Gregory Bar Hebraeus teaching that during the Eucharist Christ takes on another
nature in a new incarnation instead of the usual Transubstantiation teaching of the
Orthodox Church. This would mean that just how the regular incarnation was from two
natures one nature, it would mean during the eucharist it would be from 3 natures one
nature (Christ’s Divine/Human nature and then the natures of Wine and Bread all joining
together to make a “new incarnate nature”)
11. During the Middle Ages instead of baptizing infants the Jacobites instead branded
children on the cheeks with heated iron
12. Some Ethiopian OO’s believe that the Theotokos is also the birthgiver of Christ’s
divinity since Christ is only one nature
13. Jacobites don’t use alcoholic wine in the liturgy, but instead raisin soaked
non-alcoholic wine, since their monks believe that the tasting of any alcohol is sinful
(which is a condemned belief of the Encratites), which they get from the canons of
Rabbula of Edessa
14. Veneration and canonization of Didymus the Blind (who was an Oriegnist)
15. Veneration and canonization of Evagrius of Pontus (who was a radical Origenist)
16. Veneration and canonization of Clement of Alexandria (who was an Origenist [even
though he lived before Origen])
17. The Armenian “Church” has five Patriachates three are in communion with each
other and two are not in communion with each other
18. One patriarchate of Armenians uses only Wine with no water added at all for the
Eucharist
19. While another patriarchate of Armenians uses only water for the Eucharist and they
have no Wine mixed in it
20. Armenians use unleavened bread for the Eucharist
21. Gregory Bar Hebraeus who lived in the 14th Century was the first Ecumenist who
taught that Monophysites, Nestorians, Monothelites/Maronites, and Chalcedonians all
comprise “the one true Church” and that all were salvific
22. Severus of Antioch is recounted by his own side of having destroyed icons and
carvings of the Holy Spirit above baptismal tanks since he considered them idolatrous
23. The Jacobite “church” is semi-iconoclastic and doesn’t use imagery in their worship
spaces since they believe these violate the teachings of Evagrius of Pontus on having
pure prayer which is imageless
24. Cousin marriage is allowed
25. Circumcision is done in the Coptic and Ethiopic “churches” on the 8th day after birth
26. The Judaic practice of avoiding “unclean meats” is done and taught by the Ethiopic
“church”
27. Belief that the major Sees have to be Petrine because of a type of Petrine
supremacy, leading to them believing that the order of Sees should be: Rome,
Alexandria, and then Antioch, instead of the Pentarchy devised at Constantinople I
which is: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem
28. Ethiopic practice of using Debtera’s who are magicians for folk and so-called white
magic
29. The Armenian priesthood being carried down from Father to son genetically instead
of by the laying on of hands by the Bishop making the Armenian priesthood after the
order of the OT Aaronic priesthood and not the NT Melchizedekian priesthood.
30. The Armenian practice of sacrificing animals inside of their temples to gain the favor
of God for blessings
31. Young children being deacons
32. OO denial of Theosis
33. Jakob Baradeaus non-canonically ordaining a parallel hierarchy in areas that
already had bishops
34. Jakob of Serugh believed that the incarnation took place with mixture of the natures
35. Pope Shenouda III and the secretary of the Coptic synod that he set up Bishop
Bishoy both condemned the Energy/Essence distinction of St. Gregory Palamas, and
instead they taught the ADS of the Thomists
36. Pope Shenouda III and Bishop Bishoy taught created grace instead of uncreated
grace
37. The OO believe in a Beatific vision in a similar manner as the RC’s where God can
never be perceived but only created graces can
38. The OO’s having no official belief on the particular judgement leading to a large
majority of them accepting Purgatory and/or the wicked repenting out of hell
39. Coptic Bishops (who were followers of the theology of Shenouda III) teaching that
the “sacred heart” devotion of the RCC’s is “Orthodox” and allowing “Sacred heart”
symbolism to enter into the iconography of their “churches”
40. The Coptic veneration of “St. Philomena” who never existed, but is the creation of
the RCC’s
41. No official canon in the OO “church”, with each of the different “churches” having
their own canons with apocryphal and gnostic writings
42. The acceptance of the Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos amongst a large
amount of their clergy and hierarchs
43. The Armenians having a different Creed than Nicaea which has plenty of additions
44. The Coptic Patriarch Cyril IV (1854–1862), burned a large amount of Icons and
religious imagery because he said only God can be worshipped
45. No presanctified liturgy currently used in any of their “churches”
46. Musical instruments in their liturgies
47. The Ethiopic Judaizing practice of using Arks and Tabernacles in their temples
48. Three different Christological views in the Ethiopic “church”
49. The first is that our Lord was born of the Father from eternity, born of his mother in
time, when he united, absorbed a human nature into his Divinity (the official belief of the
Ethiopic OO’s)
50. The second is that the union of Christ’s humanity and Divinity into one nature
(understood in the usual Monophysite sense) took place when he received the unction
of the Holy Ghost at his baptism; so they count this as a third birth, the birth of our
Lord’s one theandric nature
51. While the third school is that, as son of Mary, Christ was man only; later God infused
into him Divinity, without changing his human nature
52. The Ethiopic OO’s allow people to live in fornication before marriage and it not be
counted sinful, they just can’t participate in the Eucharist or Confession while doing this,
but once they get married they are require to be monogamous and can’t commit
fornication with multiple people any more
53. The Ethiopian OO’s believe the Theotokos dwells in: sacred trees, holy wells, and
high places
54. Certain demons in the Ethipian OO are smoked out with fire and conjured away with
amulets containing holy words and the magic done by the Debteras
55. Out of the 60+ liturgies of the Jakobites there are included several that do not
contain the words of institution
56. Even though they profess to believe in two essences in Christ and even their
heresiarch Severos says to profess this, they have throughout history and even recently
been known for saying that there is only one essence in Christ (leading to radical
Eutychianism) and even the secretary of the synod: Bishop Bishoy has taught this
heresy in order to promote ADS
57. Even though they claim to be at odds with the Nestorians, the Jakobite and
Nestorian “churches” almost officially joined with each other in the 90’s and it was only
due to the disapproval of Pope Shenouda III that this didn’t go through
58. The Jakobite “church” claims to truly be the first amongst equals for the OO, while it
is actually the Copts that take this place since the Jakobites think that they have Petrine
Supremacy since they were actually founded by St. Peter while Alexandria never had
St. Peter in her city but only St. Peter’s disciple St. Mark who founded her See
59. Some Indian Monophysite Bishops and clergy think it’s fine to venerate Hindoo idols
and demons, since they think it’s only a “cultural” thing or that these “aren’t separate
deities but instead just represent different aspects of the one God”
60. Gregory Bar Hebraeus made use of the writings of Al-Ghazzali the Mohammedan
philosopher in his own theological writings
61. The Armenian “church” officially has held to a type of branch theory for a long time
62. There is no condemnation of Freemasonry in their “churches” against this satanic
group as a whole or against any of their members who participate in the demonic
activities of that group
63. The belief that “correct-believing” members shouldn’t separate from heretical
hierarchs (as is seen by Severos refusing to leave the mainstream Church which he
deemed “heretical and Nestorian”)
64. The Coptic “church” participating in the charismatic movement
65. While claiming to not believe in one Ousia or a theandric Ousia in Christ they are left
with this end result since they believe that the Will and Energy are both theandric, but
they claim that these are proper to Essence and not Nature or Person (since Physis =
Hypostasis), so in order to avoid saying there is 3 Wills and Energies in the Trinity there
instead ends up being a single theandric Ousia in Chris making Him consubstantial with
neither God or Man, but is instead a new third thing in between
66. The use and acceptance of contraceptives
67. Because of the particularism of OO theology with Nature = Person, it ends up being
that every man is of a different nature from another man which leads to two huge
problems:
a) When Adam sinned this sin would only end up affecting him and not his descendants
since they are not consubstantial with him, but only themselves (there would thus be no
Original or Ancestral Sin leading to Pelagianism)
b) And Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection would end up being only salvific for
Himself and not for mankind since He wouldn’t have any relation with humanity as a
whole (the traditional view of both Nature and Essence), but would instead just be
consubstantial with Himself thus leaving man unhealed (since what isn’t assumed isn’t
healed).
68. Because of the particularist/personalist theology of the OO and they claim that we
are each of a different nature from each other this means that man as a whole was
created corrupted and mortal, which would explain why they think that Christ also was
of a corruptible nature
69. Since majority of OO’s believe in absolute divine simplicity this further destroys their
Trinitarian and Christological thought in this way: if the Essence of God is identical with
His Will and Energy then for Christology if we speak of a theandric Will or Energy we
once again speak of a theandric Essence, but this will affect the other two Persons of
the Trinity (unless one adopts Tritheism with each Person being absolutely simple)
70. And then finally we would have the problem of majority of the OO “churches” being
radical ecumenists and modernists (which is a fact that the conservative/traditional OO
members will want you to ignore or glance over), and there is no type of official
resistance to what would be seen as heresy from traditional OO eyes

Part Two: Ethiopian “Orthodoxy” Contradicts Coptic “Orthodoxy”

(From An Ethiopian “Orthodox”)

1. We believe that Saint Mary was born without original sin

2. We believe that Saint Mary has NO fallen nature no sin or nature to sin after birth as
well

Jewish Practices
Matt 5:17 - “I did not come to abolish the Law”
1. We have Ark Processions year-round
2. We abstain from all unclean food (Halal, pork, shrimp, crab, etc)
3. We do no enter church if we are unclean (men and women)
4. We wear all white shawls (Netelas) as a symbol of Christ’s Resurrection and spiritual
purity
5. We have a shoeless entry (not just during communion)
6. We abstain from any modern instruments (piano, guitar, etc)
7. We have 81 books in the Bible (Coptics have 74)
8. We go of Halachic Jewish Time (Fasting entry and exits are based of our sun and
star movements (Twilight) and our hours are reversed (12=6, 9=3)
9. We observe Friday evening and Saturday as the Sabbath (in addition to Sunday)
10. Women after giving birth have to wait 40 days or 80 days to enter church. ( Lev 12)

EOTC Belief System

1. We abstain from any fish on fasting days (It is a meat - 1 Cor 15:39)
2. We eat starting at 3pm on fasting days
3. We fast 292 days of the year (including Tsige & Pagume Fast)
4. Women are not allowed to wear pants only ankle length dresses (Deut 22:5)
5. We never imprint (wear) icons of saints on clergical or any other clothes
6. We have a 2 or more priest liturgy system (Coptics have 1)
7. We close curtains during significant moments
8. To be a Deacon you must be a unmarried virgin
9. We have 14 liturgies (Coptics have 3)
10. We celebrate all 33 feasts for Saint Mary and all 18 feasts of Jesus with millions in
attendance year round
11. We have Hymnaries (Mahlet) 4-10 hours short version and 24-48 hours long on
Epiphany and Horologions (Sa’tat)
12. We perform year- round Subae’s (7 days of no food or water)
13. Believers have (Full Body - Holy Water) services year round for healing and
forgiveness of sin
14. We do not eat bread inside church
15. Only men can pour Holy Water
16. The Holy Trinity Icon is always depicted (Coptics use mostly Jesus and the 4
creatures of the Gospel)
17. We have to fast 18 hours to take communion (3 days of no intercourse)
18. We prohibit any use of contraceptives or birth control (Genesis 38:6-11)

Explanation:
While we didn’t establish a church prior to Coptics, Ethiopia was and is historically
known as the First Christian Kingdom and Civilization (Reference: Prophecy Psalms 72:
9-10 along with multiple Church sources shows that one of the three wise man has
been confirmed Ethiopian, Acts 8 shows Christianity teaching existed in Ethiopia and
Aksum Kingdom predates back to BC showing traces of Christianity prior to Armenian
Church). And so while we the EOTC are labeled “oriental” with our sister churches, we
are the only orthodox nation who incorporate 4000 year old Jewish customs
(Judeo-Christianity) and Jewish forms of worship and tradition into our faith. The reason
for this is because we were the only Orthodox country to convert from Christianity’s
former faith so we hold very sacred information or the “original link” that drives our
Christian faith to be more conservative or allows us to have more divine levels of
worship (Ark Processions year round, Hymnaries (Mahlet), (Horologions (Sa’tat), Subae
(7 days of no food or water), Year round Full Body Holy Water Services, all white
clothing, shoeless entry, restraining from unclean meat and 292 days of fasting to name
a few all makes our orthodoxy unique different and special in every way compared to all
other oriental and eastern orthodoxies but most importantly and evidently seen is our
love of Saint Mary. Ethiopia is in fact called the Land of Mary.

Thank you have a nice day.

Blessings in Christ

Sources:

1. EOTC Sunday School Department Immaculate Conception -

https://eotcmk.org/e/the-birth-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary-2/

2. M/r RODAS
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1i7DUmLkR_83.

3. MAHBER KIDUSAN
http://youtube.com/watchv=73ybOkqsM1I

4. Dersane Gabriel Tahsas Ch. 21-22

5. Ethiopia’s 4000 year history

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pd1J_527Cxk

6. Lika Likawnt Ezra - Promised Land Saint Mary

https://www.youtube.com/watch v=V8vBa78tvMI

7. Holy Synod’s published document titled “The Doctrine and Foreign Relations of the
EOTC”

8. No Fish on Fasting Day (EOTC)

https://youtu.be/l1Q2CvMebtQ

9. Fetha Negest

10. Mesafe Kebur

11. Kebra Negest

12. The Didache Ch 6

Part Three: Severus Of Antioch Refuted

Severus of Antioch, the famous Monophysite figure condemned St. Cyril of Alexandria
along with all the Holy Fathers saying: "The formulae used by the Holy Fathers
concerning two Natures united in Christ should be set aside, even if they be Cyril's."
(Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXXXIX, Col. 103D. Saint Anastasios of Sinai preserves this
quote of Severos in his works; quoted in The Non-Chalcedonian Heretics, op. cit. p. 12)

A violent man who led militias and spread horror among his opponents and backed by
Emperor Anastasius who embraced Monophysitism, Severus became the patriarch of
Antioch around the year 512. He wrote some interesting polemics explaining his
rejection of Orthodoxy.

Severus believes that Christ is one composite hypostasis out of two hypostases, not
merely two natures. These hypostases contain their own persons. Surprisingly, we find
the two discordant Christologies i.e. Nesotrianism and Monophysitism are combined
together to give the Severian Christology.[4] V.C. Samuel, the Indian Monophysite
scholar, says: "The Divinity and the Humanity, then, combined into one. The moment
that divinity came to union in God the Son, the Humanity came to union in an
individuated state. As Severus says the two natures which came together in union were
hypostases … in uniting humanity to Himself, does God the Word assume it only as an
abstract reality, without being in a hypostatic or personal condition? If the humanity of
Christ doesn't have the features which make it a person, can it function in anyway in the
incarnation?[5] Saint Maximus the Confessor detected this strange combination and
ascribed the Nestorian understanding of the union of natures to Severus.[6]
[4] Severus himself writes against the claims which state that he uses nature and
hypostasis synonymously in the domain of economy and like the domain of trinity,
distinguishes between Hypostasis and nature, and asserts that as much the Word is
personally distinct in trinity, the human hypostasis is also distinct from the rest of human
race personally: "… Behold, we have plainly demonstrated how, when we make the
statement ‘out of two natures’, we do not understand these natures as substances
according to the general signification that they hold together many hypostases—in such
a way that it be found, according to your wicked humbug, that the holy Trinity was
incarnate of the whole of humanity and of the whole human race; but one hypostasis of
God the Word which by contemplation alone may be separated, and one hypostasis of
flesh rationally ensouled and assembled from the virgin Mother of God, are to be
acknowledged without alteration in composition, and that they indeed remained what
they were, but not in the particularity of (their) subsistence, as we have declared on
many occasions; and they subsisted in the duality of their natures, but by a concurrence
into one entity they formed perfectly one nature and hypostasis of the Word incarnate
and one person." Severus of Antioch, Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. 11.22

[5] Cited by V.C. Samuel "Severus of Antioch", Ekklesiastikos Pharos, of Antioch,

Contra impium Grammaticum, Or. 11.22

[5] Cited by V.C. Samuel "Severus of Antioch", Ekklesiastikos Pharos, vol.58 (1976),
p.290

[6] PG Vol. xci, Col. 41A

These are the main streams of Monophysitism. Because of that, Dioscorus and Severus
are highly regarded as the greatest teachers in Christianity for Monophysites and that's
why the Coptic liturgy mentions their names before all the patriarchs and saints. The
later Monophysite classics contain a mixture of these streams.
We also find Ibn al-Makin repeating Severus' idea of having, "a man Ensan, the
temporal Son al-Ibn al-Zamany, who was united to the eternal Son al-Ibn al-Azaly, the
Word." (Ibid. pp. 145 - 149. also, Ibn al-Makin says somewhere else, explaining the
incarnation: it is the Eternal Son who is ascribed as "the Word", united with the temporal
Marian Son (Ebn Mariam) in an ineffable way, One from two, a reality out of two
realities, born of Mary." Ibn al-Makin op. cit. vol.II p.230).Also Sawiris Ibn al-Muqaffa'
(Severus of Ashmunin), the most famous Coptic historian and scholar from the 10th
century wrote about the idea that Christ is one hypostasis out of two hypostases, and
that the human person who was united to the divine Word became totally one with Him.
While at the same time he switches to radical Eutichianism whereby he questions the
uncreatedness of Christ's "one nature" after unity since Mary is the Mother of God
because she is the Mother of an uncreated person and uncreated nature using the
same argument of Dioscorus and his successor Ibn al-Makin about the incorruptibility
and change of human nature due to the hypostatic unity with divinity. Cf. Al-Durr
Al-Thameen fi Eedah al-Deen. published by Pope Kyrellos VI Sons, Egypt 1992.
Pp.166-177

Part Four: Saint Cyril Quotes

Letter 44 To Eulogius from St Cyril

“SOME ATTACK THE exposition of faith which those from the East have made and ask,
"For what reason did the Bishop of Alexandria endure or even praise those who
say that there are two natures?" Those who hold the same teachings as Nestorius say
that he thinks the same thing too, snatching to their side those who do not understand
precision. But it is necessary to say the following to those who are accusing me,
namely, that it is not necessary to flee and avoid everything which heretics say, for they
confess many of the things which we confess. For example, when the Arians say that
the Father is the creator and Lord ofall, does it follow that we avoid such confessions?
Thus also is the case of Nestorius even if he says there are two natures signifying the
difference of the flesh and the Word of God, for the nature of the Word is one nature
and the nature of his flesh is another, but Nestorius does not any longer confess the
union as we do.
For we, when asserting their union, confess one Christ, one Son, the one and same
Lord, and finally we confess the one incarnate phusis of God... Hence knowing the
difference of the natures is not cutting the one Christ into two.”
(later in that same letter)
“Yet once we confess the union, those things which have been united are no longer
separate from each other, but then there is one Son, and his physis is one as the Word
made flesh. The bishops from the East confess these doctrines, even though they are
somewhat obscure concerning the express sion.6 For since they confess that the only
begotten Word begotten of God the Father was himself also begotten of a woman
according to flesh, that the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, that his person is one, and
that there are not two sons, or two christs, but one, how do they agree with the
teachings of Nestorius?”
"For we know the theologians make some things of the Evangelical and Apostolic
teaching about the Lord common as pertaining to the ONE PERSON, AND OTHER
THINGS THEY DIVIDE AS TO THE TWO NATURES, and attribute the worthy ones to
God on account of the Divinity of Christ, and the lowly ones on account of his humanity
[to his humanity]."
https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/cyrilofalex_letter_to_john_of_antioch.htm

Part Five: Dyophysitism Before Chalcedon

CHRIST "IN", NOT JUST "FROM" TWO NATURES before Chalcedon: Patristic
Dyophysite Language
Introduction

Were there Church Fathers prior to Chalcedon [or even Ephesus] that used the
language of not only “in Two Natures” in reference to Christ, but, more explicitly, “One
Person in Two Natures”? The evidence clearly indicates as much; and that, still further,
the Fathers speak of Christ in this way immediately before the Third Ecumenical
Council, and, indeed, immediately after it; seeing no fundamental contradiction between
the work of the Third Ecumenical Council and their exposition of the Faith. Thus, the
supposedly ‘controversial language’ of the Fourth Ecumenical Council [Chalcedon] was
present among the Fathers decades prior to Chalcedon, and found acceptance. This is
not meant to be exhaustive, but, to demonstrate that the Fathers prior to Chalcedon,
and even Ephesus, taught that Christ is not just “of Two Natures” but He is “in Two
Natures”.
Why a Need for Distinct Language?

In the waning years of the dominance of Arianism in the East, some Orthodox
opponents of the Arian heresy, in the process of combating the heresy began deviating
into the heresy called “Apollinarianism”. This heresy was taught by Apollinaris, the
Orthodox Bishop of Laodicea, who, in an effort to fight heresy himself became an
heretic. In essence, this heresy teaches that Our Lord has no rational, intellectual soul;
it also embraced views that taught that the Natures of Our Lord in the Incarnation were
mutated and changed [thus, several Apollinarian forgeries of Letters of St. Athanasius,
and others, began to employ “One Nature” language].

In reaction to this, we begin to witness the Fathers becoming more explicit in their
definitions. However, this also gives us insight into the minds of the Fathers, and we
witness that concordance with the future Fourth Ecumenical Council.
Around 380, St. Gregory the Theologian was translated to the See of Constantinople,
becoming the Orthodox Bishop of the city in opposition to the powerful Arians.
However, by his teaching and preaching, Orthodoxy gradually grew. Yet, St. Gregory
had to fight not only Arianism, but also the Apollinarian heresy [for example, at the
Second Ecumenical Council in 381, not only was Arianism condemned again, but,
Apollinarianism was subject to the condemnation of an Ecumenical Council].

In St. Gregory’s 38th Oration, “On Theophany”, the Theologian ably explains that Christ
is One Person in Two Natures; explaining the aftermath of Mankind’s Fall and how the
Incarnation of the Son of God happened in order to save fallen Man:
“And having first been chastened by many means because his sins were many, whose
root of evil sprang up through diverse causes and sundry times, by word, by law, by
prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by waters, by fires, by wars, by victories,
by defeats, by signs in heaven, and signs in the air, and in the earth, and in the sea; by
unexpected changes of men, of cities, of nations (the object of which was the
destruction of wickedness) at last he needed a strong remedy, for his diseases were
growing worse; and mutual slaughters, adulteries, perjuries, unnatural crimes, and that
first and last of all evils, idolatry, and the transfer of worship from the Creator to the
creatures. As these required a greater aid, so they also obtained a greater. And that
was that the Word of God Himself, Who is before all words, the Invisible, the
Incomprehensible, the Bodiless, the Beginning of beginning, the Light of Light, the
Source of Life and Immortality, the Image of the Archetype, the Immovable Seal, the
Unchangeable Image, the Father’s Definition and Word, came to His Own Image, and
Took on Him Flesh for the sake of our flesh, and mingled Himself with an Intelligent Soul
for my soul’s sake, purifying like by like; and in all points except sin was made Man;
Conceived by the Virgin, who first in body and soul was purified by the Holy Ghost, for it
was needful both that Child-bearing should be honoured and that Virginity should
receive an higher honour...
...He came forth then as God with that which He had Assumed, One Person in Two
Natures, Flesh and Spirit, of which the Latter Deified the Former. O new commingling;
O strange conjunction; the Self-Existent comes into being, the Uncreated is created,
That which cannot be contained is contained, by the intervention of an Intellectual Soul,
mediating between the Deity and the Corporeity of the Flesh. And He Who gives riches
becomes poor, for He Assumed the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the
Richness of His Godhead. He that is Full empties Himself, for He empties Himself of
His Glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His Fullness. What is the Riches
of His Goodness? What is This Mystery that is around me? I had a share in the Image
and I did not keep it; He Partakes of my flesh that He may both save the Image and
make the Flesh Immortal. He communicates a Second Communion, far more
Marvelous than the first, inasmuch as then He imparted the better nature, but now He
Himself Assumes the worst. This is more godlike than the former action; this is loftier in
the eyes of all men of understanding.” [Oration 38, “On Theophany”, section 13]
It should also be noted that large sections of this Oration, including the above portion,
find themselves repeated, largely verbatim by St. Gregory, in his “Second Oration on
Pascha” [see section 9]. Now, to forestall, a possible objection, St. Gregory in section
37 of the “Second Oration on Pascha” says:
“He was sent, but sent according to His Manhood (for He was of Two Natures), since
He was hungry and thirsty and weary, and was distressed and wept, according to the
Laws of Human Nature.”
The possible objection is that many Monophysite Anti-Chalcedonians will admit that
Christ is “of Two Natures”, but, deny that He is “in Two Natures”. However, St. Gregory
already uses the language of “One Person in Two Natures”. There is no fundamental
contradiction by St. Gregory’s usage of “in Two Natures” and “of Two Natures”. Christ is
both God by Nature from His Father and Man by Nature from His Mother; but, He is also
God in His Divinity and Man in His Humanity. It would be obscene to say that using “in
Two Natures” is Nestorian, since St. Gregory the Theologian uses this, and sees no
conflict with Orthodoxy.
At the same time that St. Gregory the Theologian was expounding Our Lord as One
Person in and of Two Natures, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, was teaching likewise. St.
Ambrose teaches that Christ is One Person in Two Natures, and that These Natures
can be spoken of after, and not just before, the Incarnation.

In his “Exposition on the Christian Faith” we find:

“A truce, then, to vain wranglings over words, for the Kingdom of God, as it is written,
consisteth not in persuasive words, but in power plainly shown forth. Let us take heed
to the Distinction of the Godhead from the Flesh. In Each there speaks One and the
Same Son of God, for Each Nature is Present in Him; yet while it is the Same Person
Who speaks, He speaks not always in the Same Manner. Behold in Him, now the Glory
of God, now the affections of Man. As God He speaks the things of God, because He is
the Word; as Man He speaks the things of Man, because He speaks in my Nature.”
[Book II, Ch. 9, sec. 77, Exposition on the Christian Faith]
And, a little before, in reference to the Crucifixion of the Lord of Glory:

“When we read, then, that the Lord of Glory was Crucified, let us not suppose that He
was Crucified in His Glory. It is because He Who is God is also Man, God by virtue of
His Divinity, and by Taking upon Him of the Flesh, the Man Christ Jesus, that the Lord of
Glory is said to have been Crucified; for, Possessing Both Natures, that is, the Human
and the Divine, He Endured the Passion in His Humanity, in order that without
distinction He Who Suffered should be called Both the Lord of Glory and Son of Man,
even as it is written: ‘Who Descended from Heaven.’ ” [Book II, Ch. 7, sec. 58]
St. Ambrose speaks of Each Nature being Present in Him after the Incarnation; it is a
continuing reality. The Saviour is not simply “of Two Natures” but, He is also in Them.
We can also distinguish between the Two Natures, thus, in Our Lord’s Operations and
actions, yet, without this, of course, making two Sons.

St. Ambrose goes further and speaks of the full Manhood of Our Lord:
“But how can the Son say here that He was without help, when it has already been said:
‘I have laid help upon One that is mighty”? Distinguish here also the Two Natures
Present. The Flesh hath need of help, the Godhead hath no need. He is free, then,
because the chains of death had no hold upon Him. He was not made prisoner by the
power of darkness, it is He Who exerted power amongst them. He is “without help,”
because He Himself, the Lord, hath by no office of the messenger or ambassador, but
by His Own Might saved His people. How could He, Who raised others to life, require
any help in order to raise His Own Body?” [Book III, Ch. 4, On the Exposition of the
Christian Faith].
St. Ambrose continues about Christ having His Human Nature Present after the
Incarnation, and expounds on the matter in Book I of “On the Decease of Satyrus”:
“He wept for what affected us, not Himself; for the Godhead sheds no tears; but He
Wept in That Nature in Which He was sad; He wept in That in Which He was Crucified,
in That in Which He Died, in That in Which He was Buried. He Wept in That Which the
Prophet this day brought to our minds: ‘Mother Sion shall say, A Man, yea, a Man was
made in her, and the Most High Himself established her.’ He Wept in That Nature in
Which He called Sion ‘Mother’, Born in Judaea, Concevied by the Virgin. But according
to His Divine Nature He could not have a Mother, for He is the Creator of His Mother.
So far as He was made, it was not by Divine but by Human Generation, because He
was made Man, God was Born.
“But you read in another place: ‘Unto us a Child is Born, unto us a Son is given.’ In the
word ‘Child’ is an indication of age, in that of ‘Son’ the Fullness of the Godhead. Made
of His Mother, Born of the Father, yet the Same Person was Both Born and Given, you
must not think of two [Persons] but of One. For One is the Son of God, Both Born of the
Father and Sprung from the Virgin, differing in order, but, in name agreeing in One, as,
too, the lesson just heard teaches for ‘a Man was made in her’; Man indeed in the Body,
the Most High in Power. And though He be God and Man in Diversity of Nature, yet is
He at the same time One in Each Nature. One Property, then, is Peculiar to His Own
Nature, Another He has in Common with us, but in Both is He One, and in Both is He
Perfect.” [Book I, sec. 11-12, “On the Decease of Satyrus”]
St. Ambrose clearly confesses the One Person of the Son of God to be God and Man,
in a Diversity of Nature, yet One in Each Nature. In His Own Divine Nature He has His
Divine Properties, yet, in Another Nature, that of Manhood, the Eternal God share
Commonality with us! This, in truth, is why the Holy Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 1:4 states
we are become partakers in the Divinity. God in His Manhood, in His Human Nature,
Wept and He Endured the Passion, Crucifixion, and Death, and, indeed, the
Resurrection and Ascension; but, preserving the Distinction between the Natures, the
Uncreated Nature did not experience passibility. Yet, as with all the Fathers who speak
on this, St. Ambrose truly believed and taught the Hypostatic Union of the Two Natures;
for how else could St. Ambrose confess the Pure Virgin Lady to be “Mother of God” as
he does in the “Hexaemeron” and “De Virginibus“; indeed, St. Ambrose, while guarding
the integrity of the Divine Impassibility, clearly confesses in “The Sacrament of the
Lord’s Incarnation” that the “Word of God Suffered by the Flesh.”
The Great Doctor of Milan confesses that Christ is in Two Natures. The Union of
Natures is maintained in the One Person of the Son of God, yet, These Natures do not
disappear. St. Ambrose, again, speaks of the Lord Suffering in His Manhood, His
Human Nature:
“For of a truth He Died in That Which He took of the Virgin, not in That Which He had of
the Father, for Christ Died in That Nature in Which He was Crucified.” [Book I, sec. 107,
“On the Holy Spirit”]
Our Lord Jesus Christ is not simply “of Two Natures”, but, He is also “in Two Natures”,
Operating Each Nature, the respective Properties of Each Natures Preserved and
Maintained by the Hypostatic Union; the subject of the Eternal God the Word Preserves
and Maintains Them as such.

In the aforementioned work of St. Ambrose, “The Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation”,
the Archbishop of Milan speaks again, saying:
“And yet I had promised to bring my reply on the Divinity of the Father and the Son to an
end in my earlier works, but in this book the treatment of the Mystery of Our Lord’s
Incarnation has been made fuller as it should have been. For, when that which the Lord
says: ‘My Soul is Sorrowful even unto death,’ and later, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let
this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I Will, but as Thou Wilt,’ is referenced
not to the suffering of the Holy Spirit but to His Assumption of a Rational Soul and to the
affection of a Human Nature, it follows that in the assertion of the Lord’s Sacrament we
add also that there was also the Fullness of Human Nature in Christ, and that we
separate the Holy Spirit from a judgment of weakness.” [St. Ambrose, Ch. 7, “The
Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation”]
Of course, in all of this, St. Ambrose, does not deny the Confession that Christ is “of
Two Natures”; like St. Gregory the Theologian, there is no contradiction between the
Orthodox Confession of the Lord as being “in Two Natures” and “of Two Natures”; St.
Ambrose speak of the Union of the Natures in Christ:
“Perchance you will ask how I came to cite, as referring to the Incarnation of Christ, the
place, ‘The Lord created Me,’ seeing that the creation of the universe took place before
the Incarnation of Christ? But consider that the use of Holy Scripture is to speak of
things to come as though already past, and to make imitation of the Union of Two
Natures, Godhead and Manhood, in Christ, lest any should deny either His Godhead or
His Manhood. In Isaiah, for example, you may read: ‘A Child is Born unto us, and a Son
is given unto us;’ so here also [in the Proverbs] the Prophet sets forth first the creation
of the Flesh, and Joined thereto the declaration of the Godhead, that you might know
that Christ is not two, but One, being Both Begotten of the Father before the worlds, and
in the last times created of the Virgin. And thus the meaning is: I, Who Am Begotten
before the world, Am He Who was created of mortal Woman, created for a set purpose.”
[Book III, Ch.9, “Exposition on the Christian Faith”]
Indeed, during the time of Pope St. Celestine, at a Council in Rome in 431, shortly
before the Third Ecumenical Council [Ephesus], mention was made of St. Ambrose’s
famous Hymn for Advent, “Veni Redemptor gentium”, wherein Each Nature of Christ
was mentioned:
“Proceeding from His Own Chamber, The Royal Court of Purity, A Giant of Twin
Substance, With Rejoicing that He Might run the way.”
St. Ambrose, in his “Letter to Irenaeus” speaks of this Diversity of Christ’s Two Natures
in the One Son of God, the “Giant of Salvation”, as mentioned in the Hymn of the
Archbishop of Milan:
“Zerubbabel, therefore of the tribe of Judah, and Jesus the High Priest, thus designated
both by tribe and name seem to represent two persons, though One Only is meant; for
He Who as Almighty is Born from the Almighty, as Redeemer is Born of the Virgin, being
the Same in the Diversity of His Two Divisible Natures, hath fulfilled as the Giant of
Salvation the Verity of the One Son of God.” [Letter 31, sec. 10]
And, once more, the Great Doctor of Milan, expounding on the Mystery, the Sacrament,
of the Lord’s Incarnation says:
“The day will fail me sooner than the names of heretics and the different sects, yet
against all is this General Faith—that Christ is the Son of God, and Eternal from the
Father, and Born of the Virgin Mary. The Holy Prophet David describes him as a “Giant”
for the reason that He, One, is of Double Form and of Twin Nature, a Sharer in Divinity
and Body, Who ‘as a Bridegroom, coming out of His Bride-Chamber, hath rejoiced as a
Giant to run the way.’ The Bridegroom of the Soul according to the Word, a Giant of
Earth, because in going through the duties of our life, although He was always God
Eternal, He Assumed the Sacrament of the Incarnation, not divided, but One, because
He, One, is Both, and One in Both, that is, as regards Both Divinity and Body. For One
is not of the Father, and the Other from the Virgin, but the Same is of the Father in one
way, and from the Virgin in the other.” [Ch. 5, “On the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Incarnation”]
And, thus, many other examples from the work of St. Ambrose in his “On the Sacrament
of the Lord’s Incarnation” can be given demonstrating how the Saint taught that Each
Nature of the One Son of God is still in Christ after the Incarnation.
Finally, though, we give the “Exposition” that St. Ambrose gave on the Orthodox Faith
against heretics, which is given by Blessed Theodoret, whose writings against St Cyril
although condemned, was never condemned in person. Also for my Eastern Orthodox
brethren, Saint Photios the Great explicitly calls him Blessed (makarios) in his
Bibliotheca, Migne PG, 103, CCIII.
Text avaliable online at: http://books.google.com/books?id=cZfYAAAAMAAJ
He writes in his Book II of his “Dialogues”:
“We confess that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, was Begotten
before all ages, without beginning of the Father, and that in these last days the Same
was made Flesh of the Holy Virgin Mary, Assuming the Manhood, in its Perfection, of a
Reasonable Soul and Body, of One Substance with the Father as touching His
Godhead and of One Substance with us as touching His Manhood. For Union of Two
Perfect Natures hath been after an Ineffable Manner. Wherefore we acknowledge One
Christ, One Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ; knowing that being Co-Eternal with His Own
Father as touching His Godhead, by virtue of Which also He is Creator of all, He
deigned, after the assent of the Holy Virgin, when she said to the Angel,...
...‘Behold the Handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word’, to build after
an Ineffable Fashion a Temple out of her for Himself, and to Unite This Temple to
Himself by her Conception, not taking and uniting with Himself a body co-eternal with
His Own Substance, and brought from Heaven, but of the matter of our substance, that
is of the Virgin. God the Word was not turned into Flesh; His Appearance was not
unreal; keeping ever His Own Substance Immutably and Invariably He took the First
Fruits of our Nature, and united them to Himself. God the Word did not take His
beginning from the Virgin, but being Co-Eternal with His Own Father He of Infinite
Kindness deigned to unite to Himself the First Fruits of our Nature, undergoing no
mixture but in Either Substance Appearing One and the Same, as it is written ‘Destroy
This Temple and in Three Days I will Raise It Up.’ For the Divine Christ, as touching my
Substance which He took is destroyed, and the same Christ Raises the destroyed
Temple as touching the Divine Substance in Which also He is Creator of all things.
Never at any time after the Union Which He deigned to make with Himself from the
moment of the Conception did He depart from His Own Temple, nor indeed through His
Ineffable Love for Mankind could depart. “The Same Christ is Both Passible and
Impassible; as touching His Manhood Passible and as touching His Godhead
Impassible. ‘Behold, Behold Me, It is I, I have undergone no change’—and when God
the Word had Raised His Own Temple and in It had wrought out the Resurrection and
Renewal of our Nature, He shewed This Nature to His Disciples and said, ‘Handle Me
and see, for a spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as ye see Me,’ not ‘be’ but ‘have’. So He
says, referring to both the Possessor and the Possessed in order that you may perceive
that what had taken place was not mixture, not change, not variation, but Union. On
this account too He shewed the Prints of the Nails and the Wound of the Spear and ate
before His Disciples to convince them by every means that the Resurrection of our
Nature had been Renewed in Him; and further because in accordance with the Blessed
Substance of His Godhead Unchanged, Impassible, Immortal, He lived in need of
nought, He by confession permitted all that can be felt to be brought to His Own Temple,
and by His Own Power Raised It up, and by means of His Own Temple made Perfect
the Renewal of our Nature.
“Them therefore that assert that Christ was mere man, that God the Word was passible,
or changed into Flesh, or that the Body which He had was consubstantial, or that He
brought it from Heaven, or that it was an unreality; or assert that God the Word being
mortal needed to receive His Resurrection from the Father, or that the Body which He
Assumed was without a Soul, or Manhood without a mind, or that the Two Natures of
the Christ became One Nature by confusion and commixture; them that deny that Our
Lord Jesus Christ was Two Natures Unconfounded, but One Person, as He is One
Christ and One Son, all these the Catholic and Apostolic Church condemns.” [Dialogue
II, “The Unconfounded”]
While St. Ambrose was thus teaching the Faith in the Two Natures of the Incarnate Son
of God, we see the beginnings of the ministry of St. Augustine of Hippo in the late 380s
and early 390s. St. Augustine himself had to defend against the Apollinarian
predecessors of Monophysitism, as did St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, and others.
In his “Letter to Volusianus,” St. Augustine says:
“The fact that He took rest in sleep, and was nourished by food, and experienced all the
feelings of Humanity, is the evidence to men of the reality of That Human Nature Which
He Assumed but did not destroy. Behold, this was the fact; and yet some heretics, by a
perverted admiration and praise of His Power, have refused altogether to acknowledge
the Reality of His Human Nature, in Which is the Guarantee of All That Grace by Which
He Saves those who believe in Him, Containing Deep Treasures of Wisdom and
Knowledge, and Imparting Faith to the minds which He Raises to the Eternal
Contemplation of Unchangeable Truth. What if the Almighty had created the Human
Nature of Christ not by causing Him to be Born of a Mother, but by some other way, and
had presented Him suddenly to the eyes of Mankind? What if the Lord had not passed
through the stages of progress from Infancy to Manhood, and had taken neither food
nor sleep? Would not this have confirmed the erroneous impression above referred to,
and have made it impossible to believe at all that He had taken to Himself True Human
Nature; and, while leaving what was marvellous, would eliminate the element of Mercy
from His Actions? But now He has so Appered as the Mediator between God and men,
that, Uniting Two Natures in One Person, He both Exulted What was Ordinary by What
was Extraordinary, and tempered What was Extraordinary by What was Ordinary in
Himself.” [Letter 137, “To Volusianus”, sec.9]
And, again, St. Augustine confirms the teaching that the Two Natures are United in the
One Person of the Son of God; Christ is One Person in Two Natures, or Two
Substances:
“Let us then love Him, for He is Sweet. Taste and see that the Lord is Sweet. He is to
be feared, but to be loved still more. He is Man and God; the One Christ is Man and
God; as one man is soul and body: but God and Man are not two persons. In Christ
indeed that are Two Substances, God and Man; but One Person, that the Trinity may
remain, and that there be not a quaternity introduced by the addition of the Human
Nature.” [Sermon 80 (130), sec. 3, “On the Gospel of John”]
These Two Natures or Substances, again, are “in Christ”; Christ is not simply “of Two
Natures” but also “in Two Natures”; the very language that Dioscoros and other
Anti-Chalcedonians scorned and attacked as heretical, is used by St. Augustine, St.
Ambrose, and St. Gregory, and, others.

Again, in his “Enchiridion” [composed around 420], St. Augustine confirms that the
Incarnate Son of God has Both Natures; not simply composed “of” Them. St.
Augustine says:
“Wherefore Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is Both God and Man; God before all worlds;
Man in our world; God, because the Word of God (for “the Word was God”); and Man,
because in His One Person the Word was Joined with a Body and a Rational Soul.
Wherefore, so far as He is God, He and the Father Are One; so far as He is Man, the
Father is greater than He. For when He was the Only Son of God, not by Grace, but by
Nature, that He might be also Full of Grace, He became the Son of Man; and He
Himself United Both Natures in His Own Identity, and Both Natures Constitute One
Christ; because, ‘being in the Form of God, He thought it not robbery to be,’ what He
was by Nature, ‘Equal with God’. But He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon
Himself the Form of a Servant, not losing or lessening the Form of God. And,
accordingly, He was both made less and remained Equal, being Both in One, as has
been said: but He was One of These as Word, and the Other as Man. As Word, He is
Equal with the Father; as Man, less than the Father. One Son of God, and at the same
time Son of Man; One Son of Man, and at the same time Son of God; not two Sons of
God, God and Man, but One Son of God: God without beginning; Man with a beginning,
Our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Enchiridion, Chapter 35]
So much for those oriental "orthodox" who want to rally against the tome of Pope St
Leo, since both him and St Augustine make use of the term "Word" for the
Essence/Substance of Divinity and not just the Person of Jesus Christ. And, again, in
the same work:
“Hence, as we confess, ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who of God is God, and as Man was
Born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, having Both Natures, the Divine and the
Human, is the Only Son of God the Father Almighty, from Whom Proceedeth the Holy
Ghost.’ ” [Enchiridion, Ch. 38]
The Unity of Person, the Hypostatic Union, as taught by the Fathers and confirmed by
Chalcedon is again presented by St. Augustine in his “Sermon on the Nativity”:
“Before He was made, He was; and His was the Power, because He was All-Powerful,
to be made and to remain what He was. Abiding with His Father, He made for Himself a
Mother; and when He was made in the Womb of His Mother, He Remained in the Heart
of His Father. How could He have ceased to be God when He began to be Man, when
He gave His Mother the privilege of not losing her Virginity when she gave Birth?
Precisely so, because the Word was made Flesh, the Word did not become Flesh by
ceasing to be; on the contrary, the Flesh, lest it should cease to be, was joined to the
Word, so that, just as man is body and soul, Christ might be God and Man, not in a
confusion of Nature, but in the Unity of a Person.” [Sermon 186, On the Nativity]
And, like St. Ambrose, and others, St. Augustine, not dividing the Hypostatic Union in a
Nestorian fashion, the Doctor of Hippo has no qualms about plainly confessing that the
Incarnate God died in the Flesh:
“What hath God promised thee, O mortal? That thou shalt live for ever. Dost not thou
believe? Believe it, believe it. For greater is what He hath done already, than what He
hath promised. What hath He done? He hath Died for thee. What hath He promised?
That thou shalt live with Him. More incredible is it, that the Immortal should Die, than
that the mortal should live for ever. Already we have what is the more incredible. If God
Died for man, shall not man live with God? Shall not the mortal live for ever, for whom
He, Who Liveth For Ever, Died?” [Exposition on Psalm 148, sec 8]
We have made steady progress from the Apollinarian heresy and into the beginnings,
now, of the Nestorian heresy. Here we find St. John Cassian, a most vocal and
vociferous opponent of Nestorianism and Pelagianism, writing books against Nestorius
in the West. In his “Seven Books Against Nestorius”, St. John Cassian mentions the
well-known connection between the Nestorian and Pelagian heresies; indeed, the Third
Ecumenical Council, in condemning the heresiarch Caelestus and his heresies,
condemned the Eastern leader of Pelagianism.

Indeed, before the outbreak publicly of Nestorianism in Constantinople, we find the

poison of Nestorianism in the mouths of the Pelagians. Thus, in circa 420 AD, when the
Presbyter Leporius repented of the Pelagian heresy, he was made by the Fathers to
also recant the false Christology of Pelagius. St. John Cassian, in Book I of “Against
Nestorius”, records the following Orthodox Confession of the Presbyter Leporius:
”I scarcely know, O my most venerable lords and blessed priests, what first to accuse
myself of, and what first to excuse myself for. Clumsiness and pride and foolish
ignorance together with wrong notions, zeal combined with indiscretion, and (to speak
truly) a weak faith which was gradually failing, all these were admitted by me and
flourished to such an extent that I am ashamed of having yielded to such and so many
sins, while at the same time I am profoundly thankful for having been able to cast them
out of my soul.” And after a little he adds: “If then, not understanding this power of God,
and wise in our conceits and opinions, from fear lest God should seem to act a part that
was beneath Him, we suppose that a man was born in conjunction with God, in such a
way that we ascribe to God alone what belongs to God separately, and attribute to man
alone what belongs to man separately, we clearly add a fourth Person to the Trinity and
out of the One God the Son begin to make not one but two Christs; from which may Our
Lord and God Jesus Christ Himself preserve us. Therefore we confess that Our Lord
and God Jesus Christ the only Son of God, Who for His Own Sake was Begotten of the
Father before all worlds, when in time He was for our sakes made Man of the Holy
Ghost and the Ever-Virgin Mary, was God at His Birth; and while we confess the Two
Substances of the Flesh and the Word, we always acknowledge with pious belief and
faith One and the Same Person to be Indivisibly God and Man; and we say that from the
time when He took upon Him Flesh all that belonged to God was given to Man, as all
that belonged to Man was joined to God...
...And in this sense "the Word was made Flesh:" not that He began by any conversion
or change to be what He was not, but that by the Divine Economy the Word of the
Father never left the Father, and yet vouchsafed to become Truly Man, and the Only
Begotten was Incarnate through that Hidden Mystery Which He Alone understands (for
it is ours to believe: His to understand). And thus God `the Word’ Himself receiving
everything that belongs to man, is made Man, and the Manhood which is Assumed,
Receiving everything that belongs to God cannot but be God; but whereas He is said to
be Incarnate and Unmixed, we must not hold that there is any diminution of His
Substance: for God knows how to Communicate Himself without suffering any
corruption, and yet truly to Communicate Himself. He knows how to receive into Himself
without Himself being increased thereby, just as He knows how to impart Himself in
such a way as Himself to suffer no loss. We should not then in our feeble minds make
guesses, in accordance with visible proofs and experiments, from the case of creatures
which are equal, and which mutually enter into each other, nor think that God and man
are mixed together, and that out of such a fusion of flesh and the Word (i.e., the
Godhead and Manhood) some sort of body is produced....
...God forbid that we should imagine that the two natures being in a way moulded
together should become one substance. For a mixture of this sort is destructive of both
parts. For God, Who contains and is not Himself contained, Who enters into things and
is not Himself entered into, Who fills things and is not Himself filled, Who is everywhere
at once in His Completeness and is Diffused everywhere, Communicates Himself
Graciously to Human Nature by the Infusion of His Power.” And after a little: “Therefore
the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is Truly Born for us of the Holy Ghost and
the Ever-Virgin Mary. And so in the Two Natures the Word and Flesh become One, so
that while Each Substance continues Naturally Perfect in Itself, what is Divine imparteth
without suffering any loss, to the Humanity, and what is human participates in the
Divine; nor is there one person God, and another person man, but the Same Person is
God Who is also Man: and again the Man Who is also God is called and indeed is
Jesus Christ the Only Son of God; and so we must always take care and believe so as
not to deny that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Very God (Whom we confess
as Existing Ever with the Father and Equal to the Father before all worlds) became from
the moment when He took Flesh the God-Man....
...Nor may we imagine that gradually as time went on He became God, and that He was
in one condition before the resurrection and in another after it, but that He was always
of the Same Fulness and Power.” And again a little later on: “But because the Word of
God vouchsafed to come down upon Manhood by Assuming Manhood, and Manhood
was taken up into the Word by being Assumed by God, God the Word in His
Completeness became Complete Man. For it was not God the Father who was made
man, nor the Holy Ghost, but the Only Begotten of the Father; and so we must hold that
there is One Person of the Flesh and the Word: so as faithfully and without any doubt to
believe that One and the Same Son of God, Who can never be divided, Existing in Two
Natures (Who was also spoken of as a “Giant” ) in the days of His Flesh truly took upon
Him all that belongs to man, and ever truly had as His Own what belongs to God: since
even though He was Crucified in weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God.”” [St.
John Cassian, Book I, Ch. 5, “Seven Books Against Nestorius]
Now, how was this Confession of Christ as One Person, Existing in Two Natures,
received? St. John Cassian says the following:
“This Confession of his therefore, which was the Faith of all Catholics was approved of
by all the Bishops of Africa, whence he wrote, and by all those of Gaul, to whom he
wrote. Nor has there ever been anyone who quarreled with this Faith, without being
guilty of unbelief: for to deny what is right and proved is to confess what is wrong. The
agreement of all ought then to be in itself already sufficient to confute heresy: for the
authority of all shows undoubted truth, and a perfect reason results where no one
disputes it: so that if a man endeavours to hold opinions contrary to these, we should in
the first instance rather condemn his perverseness than listen to his assertions, for one
who impugns the judgment of all announces beforehand his own condemnation, and a
man who disturbs what has been determined by all, is not even given an hearing. For
when the truth has once for all been established by all men, whatever arises contrary to
it is by this very fact to be recognized at once as falsehood, because it differs from the
truth. And thus it is agreed that this alone is sufficient to condemn a man;...
...viz., that he differs from the judgment of truth. But still as an explanation of a system
does no harm to the system, and truth always shines brighter when thoroughly
ventilated, and as it is better that those who are wrong should be set right by discussion
rather than condemned by severe censures, we should cure, as far as we can with the
Divine Assistance, this old heresy appearing in the persons of new heretics, that when
through God’s Mercy they have recovered their health, their cure may bear testimony to
our Holy Faith instead of their condemnation proving an instance of just severity. Only
make the Truth indeed be present at our discussion and discourse concerning it, and
assist our human weakness with that goodness with which God vouchsafed to come to
men, as for this purpose above all He willed to be Born on Earth among men; viz., that
there might be no more room for falsehood.” [St. John Cassian, Book I, Ch. 6, “Seven
Books Against Nestorius”]
Thus, St. John Cassian, and so many other Orthodox Westerners at the time [and
today], considered the matter with Nestorius to be closed from the very start. The
defeat of Pelagianism was synonymously held by them [and us] to be equal to the
defeat of Nestorianism. But, one need not wonder at this; for Julian of Eclanum and
some 18 deposed Bishops in Italy, refusing to anathematize Pelagianism, being exiled
from Italy, found ready refuge with one of the fathers of the Nestorian pestilence,
Theodore of Mopsuestia; he found himself in agreement with their false Soteriology and
they with his false Christology. Thus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, with the advice of the
anathematized heretic Julian of Eclanum, composed a libellous book of heresies and
lies against St. Jerome; written under a pseudonym, but well-known to many soon
enough. And what wonder if, Diodore of Tarsus, once so well-respected, fell in his own
ways, and though ostensibly excommunicated by the Orthodox West for his
intransigence in Antioch, by the Mysterious Judgments of God, was found out for his
part in this heresy (Diodore was later posthumously Anathematized in Capitula 18 of the
649 Lateran Synod).

The books that St. John Cassian wrote against Nestorius were, of course, done so at
the urging and request of St. Leo the Great, though, while St. Leo was but Archdeacon
in Rome.
As with St. John Cassian, we also find St. Vincent of Lerins writing against Nestorianism
and Pelagianism, and other heresies. Thus did he compose his famous “Commonitory.”
How does this great Saint of the Church of Gaul, speaking for the Orthodox West on
this matter, proclaim the Dogmatic Truth in the immediate aftermath of the Third
Ecumenical Council, which he and all our Orthodox Western saints accepted? He
plainly confirms and preaches Christ as One Person in and of Two Substances /
Natures. The Holy Monk of Lerins thus says:
“For, denying that there are Two Substances in Christ, One Divine, the Other Human,
One from the Father, the Other from His Mother, he [Apollinaris] holds that the Very
Nature of the Word was divided, as though one part of it remained in God, the other was
converted into flesh: so that whereas the truth says that of Two Substances there is One
Christ, he affirms, contrary to the truth, that of the One Divinity of Christ there are
become two substances. This, then, is the doctrine of Apollinaris.” [Commonitory, sec.
34]
Apollinaris, who sought to teach the mutation of the Divine Nature into “two substances”
is thus condemned. But, St. Vincent upheld that Christ is in Two Substances and of
Two Substances, yet One Christ. For the Human Substance of Christ and in Christ is
not from a mutated Divine Substance, for such is impossible; but, the Son of God
Assumed His Manhood, the Human Substance, from His Mother, and Abides in It still.
Explaining further, St. Vincent says explicitly that Christ is in Two Natures:
“In these ways then do these rabid dogs, Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Photinus, bark
against the Catholic Faith; Photinus, by denying the Trinity; Apollinaris, by teaching that
the Nature of the Word is mutable, and refusing to acknowledge that there are Two
Substances in Christ, denying moreover either that Christ had a soul at all, or, at all
events, that He had a Rational Soul, and asserting that the Word of God supplied the
place of the Rational Soul; Nestorius, by affirming that there were always or at any rate
that once there were two Christs. But the Catholic Church, holding the Right Faith both
concerning God and concerning Our Saviour, is guilty of blasphemy neither in the
Mystery of the Trinity, nor in that of the Incarnation of Christ. For she worships both One
Godhead in the Plenitude of the Trinity, and the Equality of the Trinity in One and the
Same Majesty, and she confesses One Christ Jesus, not two; the Same Both God and
Man, the One as Truly as the Other. One Person, indeed, she believes in Him, but Two
Substances; Two Substances but One Person: Two Substances, because the Word of
God is not mutable, so as to be convertible into Flesh; One Person, lest by
acknowledging two sons she should seem to worship not a Trinity, but a “quaternity”.
“In God there is One Substance, but Three Persons; in Christ Two Substances, but One
Person. In the Trinity, Another and Another Person, not another and another Substance
(distinct Persons, not distinct Substances); in the Saviour Another and Another
Substance, not another and another Person (distinct Substances, not distinct Persons).
How in the Trinity Another and Another Person (distinct Persons) not another and
another Substance (distinct substances)? Because there is One Person of the Father,
Another of the Son, Another of the Holy Ghost; but yet there is not another and another
nature (distinct natures), but One and the Same Nature. How in the Saviour Another
and Another Substance, not another and another Person (Two Distinct Substances, not
two distinct Persons)? Because there is One Substance of the Godhead, Another of the
Manhood. But yet the Godhead and the Manhood are not another and another Person
(two distinct Persons), but One and the Same Christ, One and the Same Son of God,
and One and the Same Person of One and the Same Christ and Son of God, in like
manner as in Man the Flesh is one thing and the Soul another, but One and the Same
Man, Both Soul and Flesh....
...In Peter and Paul the soul is one thing, the flesh another; yet there are not two
Peters,—one soul, the other flesh, or two Pauls, one soul, the other flesh,—but one and
the same Peter, and one and the same Paul, consisting each of two diverse natures,
soul and body. Thus, then, in One and the Same Christ there are Two Substances, One
Divine, the Other Human: One of (ex) God the Father, the Other of (ex) the Virgin
Mother; One Co-Eternal with and Co-Equal with the Father, the Other Temporal and
Inferior to the Father; One Consubstantial with His Mother, but One and the Same
Christ in Both Substances. There is not, therefore, One Christ God, the other man, not
one uncreated and the other created; not one impassible, the other passible; not one
equal to the Father, the other inferior to the Father; not one of His Father (ex), the other
of His Mother (ex), but One and the Same Christ, God and Man, the Same Uncreated
and Created, the Same Unchangeable and Incapable of Suffering, the Same
Acquainted by experience with both change and suffering, the Same Equal to the
Father and Inferior to the Father, the Same Begotten of the Father before time, the
Same Born of His Mother in time, Perfect God, Perfect Man. In God Supreme Divinity, in
Man Perfect Humanity....
...Perfect Humanity, I say, forasmuch as It hath both Soul and Flesh; the Flesh, Very
Flesh; our Flesh, His Mother’s Flesh; the Soul, Intellectual, endowed with Mind and
Reason. There is then in Christ the Word, the Soul, the Flesh; but the Whole is One
Christ, One Son of God, and One Our Saviour and Redeemer: One, not by I know not
what corruptible confusion of Godhead and Manhood, but by a certain and entire
Singular Unity of Person. For the Conjunction hath not converted and changed the one
nature into the other, (which is the characteristic error of the Arians), but rather hath in
such wise Compacted Both into One, that while there always remains in Christ the
Singularity of One and the Self-Same Person, there abides Eternally withal the
Characteristic Property of Each Nature; whence it follows, that neither doth God ever
begin to be body, nor doth the body ever cease to be body....
...The which may be illustrated in human nature; for not only in the present life, but in
the future also, each individual man will consist of soul and body; nor will his body ever
be converted into soul, or his soul into body; but while each individual man will live for
ever, the distinction between the two substances will continue in each individual man for
ever. So likewise in Christ each Substance will for ever retain Its Own Characteristic
Property, yet without prejudice to the Unity of Person.” [Commonitory, sections 36-37]
And, then, to show further that in Christ there is One Person in Two Natures, St. Vincent
says:

“Blessed, I say, be the Church, which believes that in Christ that are Two True and
Perfect Substances but One Person, so that neither doth the Distinction of Natures
divide the Unity of Person, nor the Unity of Person confound the Distinction of
Substances.” [Commonitory, sec. 41]
 Notice him saying "There is then in Christ the Word, the Soul, the Flesh". Thus by
"Word" he can only be meaning Divinity. One may now think he is saying there is
actually 3, not merely 2, natures in Christ. To understand this better i shall now lastly
quote from St John of Damascus: Now, when we say that men have one nature, it must
be understood that we do not say this with the body and soul in mind, because it is
impossible to say that the soul and the body as compared to each other have one
nature. Nevertheless, when we take a number of human hypostases, all of these are
found to admit of the same basis of their nature. All are made up of a soul and a body,
all share the nature of the soul and possess the substance of the body, and all have a
common species. Thus, we say that several different persons have one nature, because
each person has two natures and is complete in these two natures, that is to say, the
natures of the soul and of the body....
...In the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, however, it is impossible to have a common
species for there never was, nor is, nor ever will be another Christ of divinity and
humanity, in divinity and humanity, the same being perfect God and perfect man. Hence,
in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, one cannot speak of one nature made up of divinity
and humanity as one can in the case of the individual made up of soul and body. In this
last case we have an individual, but Christ is not an individual, because He does not
have a predicative species of Christness....
It is precisely for this reason that we say that it was of two perfect natures, the divine
and the human, that the union was made. It was not made by mixing, or mingling, or
blending, or compounding . . . neither was it apparent nor relative, nor by dignity or
harmony of will or equality in honor or identity of name or complaisance . . . Rather, it
was by composition – hypostatically, that is to say – without change or mingling or
alteration or division or separation. And we confess one Person of the Son of God
incarnate in two natures that remain perfect, and we declare that the Person of His
divinity and His humanity is the same and confess that the two natures are preserved
intact in Him after the union. We do not set each nature apart by itself, but hold them to
be united to each other in one composite Person. For we say that the union is
substantial; that is to say, true and not imaginary. We do not, however, define the
substantial union as meaning that the two natures go to make up one compound nature,
but as meaning that they are truly united to each other into one composite Person of th
Son of God, each with its essential difference maintained intact. Thus, that which was
created remained created, and that which was uncreated, uncreated; the mortal
remained mortal and the immortal, immortal; the circumscribed remained circumscribed
and the uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed; the visible remained visible and the invisible,
invisible.(Two Natures in One Person, III.3.)
Furthermore in his Book "An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book III)" Chapter 16 In
reply to those who say If man has two natures and two energies, Christ must be held to
have three natures and as many energies." he says the following:
Each individual man, since he is composed of two natures, soul and body, and since
these natures are unchangeable in him, could appropriately be spoken of as two
natures: for he preserves even after their union the natural properties of either. For the
body is not immortal, but corruptible; neither is the soul mortal, but immortal: and the
body is not invisible nor the soul visible to bodily eyes: but the soul is rational and
intellectual, and incorporeal, while the body is dense and visible, and irrational. But
things that are opposed to one another in essence have not one nature, and, therefore,
soul and body cannot have one essence.
And again: if man is a rational and mortal animal, and every definition is explanatory of
the underlying natures, and the rational is not the same as the mortal according to the
plan of nature, man then certainly cannot have one nature, according to the rule of his
own definition.
But if man should at any time be said to have one nature, the word nature is here used
instead of species, as when we say that man does not differ from man in any difference
of nature. But since all men are fashioned in the same way, and are composed of soul
and body, and each has two distinct natures, they are all brought under one definition.
And this is not unreasonable, for the holy Athanasius spoke of all created things as
having one nature forasmuch as they were all produced, expressing himself thus in his
Oration against those who blasphemed the Holy Spirit: That the Holy Spirit is above all
creation, and different from the nature of things produced and peculiar to divinity, we
may again perceive. For whatever is seen to be common to many things, and not more
in one and less in another, is called essence. Since, then, every man is composed of
soul and body, accordingly we speak of man as having one nature. But we cannot
speak of our Lord's subsistence as one nature: for each nature preserves, even after
the union, its natural properties, nor can we find a class of Christs. For no other Christ
was born both of divinity and of humanity to be at once God and man."
And again: man's unity in species is not the same thing as the unity of soul and body in
essence. For man's unity in species makes clear the absolute similarity between all
men, while the unity of soul and body in essence is an insult to their very existence, and
reduces them to nothingness: for either the one must change into the essence of the
other, or from different things something different must be produced, and so both would
be changed, or if they keep to their own proper limits there must be two natures. For, as
regards the nature of essence the corporeal is not the same as the incorporeal.
Therefore, although holding that man has one nature, not because the essential quality
of his soul and that of his body are the same, but because the individuals included
under the species are exactly the same, it is not necessary for us to maintain that Christ
also has one nature, for in this case there is no species embracing many subsistences.
Moreover, every compound is said to be composed of what immediately composes it.
For we do not say that a house is composed of earth and water, but of bricks and
timber. Otherwise, it would be necessary to speak of man as composed of at least five
things, viz., the four elements and soul. And so also, in the case of our Lord Jesus
Christ we do not look at the parts of the parts, but at those divisions of which He is
immediately composed, viz., divinity and humanity.
And further, if by saying that man has two natures we are obliged to hold that Christ has
three, you, too, by saying that man is composed of two natures must hold that Christ is
composed of three natures: and it is just the same with the energies. For energy must
correspond with nature: and Gregory the Theologian bears witness that man is said to
have and has two natures, saying, God and man are two natures, since, indeed, soul
and body also are two natures. And in his discourse Concerning Baptism he says,
Since we consist of two parts, soul and body, the visible and the invisible nature, the
purification is likewise twofold, that is, by water and Spirit.

Final Part: Victory Of The Council Of Chalcedon!

The Council convened in Chalcedon in 451 was a victory for the principles and values.
The Roman delegate managed the Council, giving everyone a chance to speak,
including Dioscorus. Paschanius, the head of the Roman delegation, said that we will
not do what he did to his opponents. The Council of Chalcedon brought back the dignity
and reputation of Christian Ecumenical Councils when Christ and Christian Kerygma
were declared to be above all considerations and every individual. While Dioscorus
was backed by the power of Theodosius the Emperor, the most exalted official senate
was backed by Roman law and tradition.
During the Council, the dignified Roman law preserved justice and every document,
testimony and piece of evidence were carefully tested, unlike the earlier Robber Synod
which didn't even provide a public notary. Every document needed to be examined in
the light of the creed of Nicaea and the great Holy Fathers, including the two canonical
letters of St. Cyril of Alexandria, which were carefully examined regardless of the title of
its author. The Tome of Pope Leo, which had been translated into Greek, was provided
to all the bishops for ten days to check its consistency with the teachings of the Church.
Unlike the actions of Dioscorus, who deposed Theodoret and a number of other bishops
in their absence, the Council of Chalcedon summoned Theodoret and read carefully his
writings. In the light of their consistency and Theodoret's public condemnation of
Nestorius, he was given his complete chance and deserved to be restored. The
Alexandrian relatives of Cyril along with lay people who who had been persecuted by
Dioscorus, expected that he would have been brave enough to attend the Council,
however he did not. So they were given the opportunity to express the truth without any
fear of their bishop's violence. Those Alexandrians were the essence of bravery, as they
continued the Apostolic Throne of Alexandria under the persecution of Monophysites
who killed St. Proterius, the first Orthodox bishop of Alexandria after the deposed
Dioscorus.
All of the Egyptians bishops accepted the validity of the Tome, and four of them officially
approved it. The rest begged the Council’s senate to save them from the violence and
humiliation they might face at the hands of Dioscorus' followers in Egypt if they
approved it publicly. They were aware of the fate of the Orthodox hero Proterius and the
brave men of Alexandria. Theodoret proved that he had an even better knowledge of
Cyril's writings than them and he managed to confute them publicly with the extracts
from Cyril's works. Monophysites knew how much they had deviated from the truth and
how much Cyril did not belong to them.
The leader of the group who assassinated Proterius, Timothy "the Cat" was elected in
457 to be the patriarch of Monophysites. Timothy condemned Saint Cyril on account of
the agreements: "Cyril [...] having excellently articulated the wise proclamation of
Orthodoxy, showed himself to be fickle and is to be censured for teaching contrary
doctrine: after previously proposing that we should speak of one nature of God the
Word, he destroyed the dogma that he had formulated and is caught professing two
Natures of Christ."[8] Even Severus of Antioch, the famous Monophysite figure
condemned St. Cyril of Alexandria along with all the Holy Fathers saying: "The formulae
used by the Holy Fathers concerning two Natures united in Christ should be set aside,
even if they be Cyril's."[9]
[8] Timothy Ailouros, "Epistles to Kalonymos," Patrologia Graeca, Vol LXXXVI, Col. 276;
quoted in The Non Chalcedonian Heretics, Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies,
California 1996, p. 13

[9] Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXXXIX, Col. 103D. Saint Anastasios of Sinai preserves this
quote of Severos in his works; quoted in The Non-Chalcedonian Heretics, op. cit. p. 12