[Rough draft translation]
Vigilius, Bishop of Thapsus (+500)
First Book, Sections VI-X
VI. But wherefore these [men], or by what manner, in Both Natures they refuse the name of Property, I do not know whether they are so far covered with a veil of perfidy, that they do not see, they do not understand, in Christ one thing of the Divinity, and another of His Humanity to Unite, although Both be Common. For He said to His Own Disciples: "If ye love Me, ye would rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is Greater than I." (John 14:28) And again: "It is expedient for you that I go; for if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you." (John 16:7) And certainly the Word of God, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God, He Ever was with the Father and in the Father, even when He was in us, with us. For neither when He Mercifully Dwelt in the Terrestial, did He recede from the Heavenly Habitation. For with the Father, He is Whole everywhere in Equal Divinity, Which no place contains. For all things are full with the Son, neither is any place without the Presence of His Divinity. Whence therefore, and whither do He say Himself about to go? Or in what manner do He assert Himself about to go to the Father, from Whom without doubt He never departed? But this was to go to the Father and to depart from us, to take away from this world the Nature Which He Received from us. Thou seest, therefore, that it was Proper to the Self-Same Nature to be taken away and It might depart from us, Which in the end of the times It is to be Returned to us, according to the attesting voice of the Angels: " This Jesus, Who is Take up from you, thus He will come, in like manner, as ye have seen Him going into Heaven." (Acts 1:11) For behold the Miracle, behold the Mystery of the Property of Both Natures. The Son of God according to His Own Humanity departed from us, according to His Own Divinity He said to us: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consumation of the age." (Matt. 28:20) If He is with us, in what manner did He depart? If He is with us, in what manner did He say: "The days will come when ye shall long for one day of the Son of Man, and ye will not see it," (Lk. 17:22)? But He is both with us, and He is not with us. Because those whom He left and from whom He departed in His Own Humanity, He did not leave, nor did He desert in His Own Divinity. For through the Form of the Servant, Which He took from us into Heaven, He is absent from us: through the Form of God, by which He does not depart from us, He is Present with us on Earth [lit: "in the lands"]: yet Both Present and absent, He is One and the Same to us.
VII. Hear thou even another Property of Either Nature. That Son of God was Buried, all we do read, all we do believe, all we likewise do preach, nor any Christian dares to doubt. Now here, if it pleaseth, let us treat with pacific moderation, what of Him was able to be buried, whether the Word, or the Soul, or the body, or at once all things? But it is absurd, either to say the Word, or the Soul, was wrapped with linens. It remaineth, therefore, that the Body Alone, Which was breathless, Which was even ferried by the hands of the burying ones, was Wrapped in the Shroud [Sindon] and was placed in the bosom of the Sepulchre. For here there is no need to argue, where the truth itself doth reveal more manifestly itself. The Word of God did not need the office of exequies [funeral rites]; the Soul was not able to be buried; Alone therefore the Flesh had the Office of Burial. And, yet, the Apostolic Authority hath taught that the Lord Jesus Christ was Buried. Thou discernest, therefore, there to be something Proper of the Flesh which cannot be of the Word; but, therefore, also to be of the Word, because That Flesh is of the Word, to Which all these things can more able fit.
VIII. To have grown surely through the courses of age, and even to have arrived unto the robust members of a young Body, the Gospels relate concerning the Lord Jesus christ. O thou, who wishest nothing to be Proper of the Flesh, dost thou suppose that the Word with That Flesh, Which was Born from the Virgin, through the successions of ages, both through the increments of members equally grew, and in the greater bulk of His Body was consolidated? Do not, I pray thee, cavil, choose thou one thigh which thou wilt. That to grow, and to become great of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to arrive even unto the perfect juvenile age, whose is it? Of the Word, or of the Flesh? I know what straits thou sufferest, with what heats thou pantest. If thou sayest the Property to be of the Flesh, thou confessest the Property of the Nature. If thou sayest both to be of the Flesh and of the Word (which indeed is true through the Unity of Person, not through the Propriety of Nature); is, I say, thou sayest this augmentation of age to be of the Word, thou introducest the Word of God mutable and convertible. For perchange a certain portion of Him had filled the Virginal Womb, and, therefore this small portion with Its Own Body felt the augmentation; whilst that greater [portion] which did remain, and which had not filled the Womb of the Virgin, gradually itself to its own portion, which it had in the Man, through the increments of the Body itself was being mixed; and in this mode according to you, not the whole, nor the perfect, but the moderated was God born, and through the congruities of ages was made great. But if it is impious and detestable either to say a portion of the Word, or to believe the Word to have felt in His Nature anything of growth, it is clear, nevertheless, the Lord Jesus Christ to have had an advance of age; who doth not see this to be Proper of the Flesh which grew, not of God, Who Assumed the Flesh of our Race? If in that Most Glorious Passion the Lord Jesus Christ was either punished by the head [i.e. beheaded], or mutilated by any other cutting of members, do we suppose that these [men] would say, that a part of the Word was amputated with the head, and another part truncated with the hands? And because He was Circumcised, it must be guarded, lest they opine a part of the Word with that exspoliation of the member was equally amputated; which neither today concerning truncated men would anyone day is true, whosoever savoureth more soundly and more rightly. For neither is it proper to opine, that when the hands of a man are cut off, equally a portion of the soul is cut off. That visible light also is taken away from the man through whatsoever passions of the eyes; nor yet is that light taken away from the soul, whereby it is able to discern between righteousness and iniquity. For the one is of the body, the other is proper of the soul.
IX. That thing, in the meantime, is before others by the mind to be gazed at, that if the Nature of God were of the self-same condition, that through Itself and in Itself were subjected to any kinds of passions, nothing would surely necessitate of the taking a human body. For what need was there for God to take unto Himself the Nature of mortals, if His Nature was able to lie beneath that laws of death? But because death, which had crept up through the prevarication of transgression, was to be destroyed by death, just as the Lord Himself had proclaimed, saying, "I shall be thy death, O death," (Osee 13:14) the Son of God had necessarily by an Higher and Profound Counsel of His Own Dispensation, that because He Himself is Impassible of Nature, He ought to Take a Body of a Passible Nature, in Which He might be afflicted by Injuries and Sufferings even to this extent, that arriving even unto the cost of death through a Nature subject of death, He might destroy death in its own throne, and plundering all the rights of Hell with the Triumph of the Victory of Conflict, He might return to the Heavens. Thou seests, therefore, that for no other reason God permitted Himself, of our Nature, to Die, than because His Nature is utterly not held by the condition of mortality; and thus to be something Proper to Christ which to Divinity, another which is Appropriate to humanity; although on account of the Unity of Person, both death is referred to Divinity, and Immortality to Humanity of the Self-Same God.
X. It is verily to be feared lest these ones who with most innane fear, on that account they do not wish to accept the Propriety of Either Nature, lest they seem to introduce two Christs, and likewise they move to us some question concerning the Trinity; that because there are certain things Proper of the Father, Which neither to the Son, nor to the Holy Ghost pertain; and there are certain things Proper of the Son, which neither to the Father, nor to the Holy Ghost pertain; and there are also not a few things Proper of the Holy Ghost, which neither to the Father, nor to the Son are shown to pertain, they accuse Catholics to worship three gods separated from one another. But lest perhaps thou be troubled by an unexpected question, consider thou through the individual ones. The Dispensation of the Received Flesh neither to the Father, nor to the Holy Ghost, but to the Son Alone pertains; for properly the Son, not the Father, was Born from the Virgin. Again, that Voice Which was heard over him: "This is My Beloved Son," (Matt. 3:17; 17:5), neither to the Son, nor to the Holy Ghost, but to the Father Alone Pertains. Likewise the Form of the Dove Which appeared in the Jordan, and the Multipartite Distribution of Fiery Tongues, proply to the Person of the Holy Ghost is shown to pertain. But lest thou still doubtest concerning these Properties, hear thou more manifestly. It is the Property of the Father to have Generated, and it is the Property of the Son to have been Begotten, but it is the Property of the Holy Ghost to Proceed. Nor doth it reciprocate at all unto another Person, which is Specially Proper to Each Person. If, therefore, These Three Persons, having Their Own Singular Properties, by which They Are More Significantly Distinguished, not by which They are separated, God is One; how is not the Son, with the Property of Either Nature secure, One Christ?
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