Traditional Western Orthodox Christian

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Vigilius of Thapsus, Against Eutyches, Book I, Sec. VI-X

Against Eutyches, or Against Nestorius and Eutyches in Five Books for the Defense of the Synod of Chalcedon

[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?

Monday, October 13, 2025

Vigilius of Thapsus, Against Eutyches, Book I, Sections 1-5

Against Eutyches, or Against Nestorius and Eutyches in Five Books for the Defense of the Synod of Chalcedon

[Rough draft translation]

Vigilius, Bishop of Thapsus (+500)

First Book, Sections I-V

https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Contra_Eutychetem

I. We learn a great and grave danger to the Faith, which is neither easily to be perceived, nor easily to be able to be avoided by many (because it is overshadowed by the appearance of piety), through the many Churches of the East to rage in domestic strife; and it has come to be defended by the obstinate animosity of minds, that neither the Traditions of the Ancient Fathers, nor the sever sanctions of Religious Princes can it or may it be amputated. For prejudiced by the error of false opinion, human hearing, is found to be hard and very difficult to perceive the rationale of Truth, however many witnesses is pressed [upon it]. For it prefers the sentence of perverse dogma, with which once it was infected, more perversely to vindicate, than to more healthfully change this same one, refuted by so many authorities of Divine and human laws. Therefore this lethal and deadly plague of pernicious danger, within the venerable entrances of the Church, thus fiercely ravages everything, that it harms the more, the less it is understood to harm. For thus having been taught by the mastery of the most terrible serpent [the devil], it has stretched out the two-edged snares of its own traps, on the right hand and on the left hand, so that it has left a very narrow and exceedingly arduous path of journey for those travelling. For if thou dost wish a little to bring wavering footsteps in either part, immediately thou wilt be captured.

II. Therefore between the sacrilegious dogma of Nestorius, once of the Church of Constantinople, not of a ruler but of a destroyer, not of a shepherd but of a predator, and the nefarious and detestable sect of Eutyches, thus the cunning of the serpentine aggression has so tempered itself, that most [people] may not be able to avoid both without the danger of both; while if anyone damns the perfidy of Nestorius, he is thought to succumb to the error of Eutyches. Again, while he destroys the impiety of the Eutychian heresy, he is accused to raise the dogma of Nestorius. But those who especially spread these clouds of inane accusations, they who either are sick by the fault of ignorance or with the disease of contention; and while they are raised with the pride of a petulant mind, they despise the Rules of Faith anciently handed down by the Fathers for this alone, that they may introduce badly conceived opinions of their own novelties into the Church. For this also to us, as it were, masters of the art of dialectics, not as true disciples of Christ, they aim the inevitable syllogism of a double-headed response, judging themselves to be able by these snares of propositions to hunt Christian souls. But the Strength of the Church experiences nothing new, nothing strange, agitated by such whirlwinds of questions from almost all heretics; she [the Church] has obtained Triumph over enemies and Steadfastness over adversaries. For while she was preparing herself against Sabellius by an armed struggled, she [the Church] vindicates the Existence of the Persons of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; that One is He Who Begets, and Another Who is Begotten; and Another Who Proceeds, Another from Whom He Proceeds; Another Sending, Another Sent; Another God the Word Who from the Virgin is Born, Another the Father Who Remains Ever Unbegotten; Another Who through the Dispensation of the Flesh, Fulfills All Offices of our frailty, Another the Father Who Remains without all these. Thou mayest immediately see Arius, having received the material as of a triumphal victory, to insult more arrogantly, and under the yoke of his own detestable perfidy, to wish to subject the necks of the faithful. [Arius] saying, "Know ye He Who sends to be greater than He Who is sent; that He Who obeys to be inferior, more dignity to Whom munificence is exhibited."

III. In the same way, when I strike at Manichaeus with the Truth of the Body of the Lord, that not by deceptive simulation and some tricks of illusions was It Received, I bring forth the swelling Womb of the Virgin; I bring forth the delays of the awaited time, which for a longer time within the hospitality of the Maternal Womb, all the way to the legitimate Day of Birth, He [Christ] spent; the cradles of childbirth, the cries of the Infant, the progress of age, to the Ultimate Mockeries of the Passion, the Yoke of the Cross, the Fastening of the Nails, the simultaneous Blood and Water of the Open Side, the Descent [Deposition], the Burial, the Resurrection, and what the Lord Himself also said: "Ye seek to kill Me, a Man Who hath told you the Truth." (John 8:40) And the Apostle: "As by one man came death, so by One Man came the Resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor. 15:21) And: "There is One Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5) While I am arguing these things against Manicheus, Photinus, as if he had prepared the whole meal, strives to devour with the more avid jaws of perfidy. Again, when I have armed myself against him with the arms of a lively reading, and I have thrown many javelins of testimonies, with proofs that the Son of God is True God, I have a necessity, among other things also, to oppose it, that He was made in the likeness of men, and was found in the fashion as a Man (Phil. 2:7). In which place Manichaeus strangles me, and he cries out with all the exaltation off a celebrating mind that I have resorted to him. But it is a great and exceedingly laborious task, to unroll such tendrils of opinions, by which the fraudulent theft of heretical machination strives to capture the Liberty of the Catholic Faith.

IV. And forasmuch most fully, by our Ancestors [the Fathers], all these plagues of the heretics have been fully argued against (for even if no books were composed unto the destruction of their error, this itself alone, that they were pronounced heretics might suffice for the security of the Orthodox), let us now see those whose mind that terrible serpent hath corrupted from the chastity of the Faith, which is in Christ Jesus; that unto the open adultery of nefarious preaching, hath it armed their forehead covered with calluses of impudence, so that by right in them that Prophetic Oracle might redound: "The face of an harlot is become to thee." (Jer. 3:3) For if it is not so, what to them therefore would it mean that neither do they yield to so many Decrees of Councils, nor to so many Sentences of the Ancient Fathers? Therefore, they accuse us, while we both confess Christ of Both Natures, as if we might seem to assert two Christs, One God, the Other Man, according to the monstrous error of Nestrious, through the Duality of Nature. But we profess One God, the Same Son of God, and Son of Man, not Two; and thus the Word within the secrets of the Virginal Womb, to have sown the beginning of the Flesh for Himself, that is, He was Incarnate, so that yet the Nature of the Word was not changed into Flesh. And likewise, thus the Nature of the Flesh to have passed through Commixture into the Person of the Word of the One Taking, so not yet was consumed in the Word. For Both Remain, that is, the Nature of the Word and of the Flesh, and from These Two Which Remain today, there is One Christ, and One Person. For who, clothed in sacrilegious opinion, would go so far as to be foolish? Who would throw himself into such a deep precipice of error, as to deny that the Son of God, without His Own Proper Flesh, Which in the Womb of the Sacred Virgin He thus United to Himself by an Ineffable Mixing of Union, so that the Word became Man, and Man became God, and the Self-Same One, not changing the 'kinds' of the Natures, today to Sit at the Right Hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead; since he doth not know that the Lord Himself said: "When the Son of Man shall come in the Glory of His Father"(Matt. 16:27)? Not that, as we have often said, one be the Son of Man, another be the Son of God: but He wished so far to show that the Nature of our kind was not consumed through the Undivided Unity of the Commixture, so that He also calleth Himself the Son of Man placed in Heaven, so that through the appellation of the true name, that thou mayest acknowledge the Truth of the Nature. If therefore the Undefiled Nature of the Word remaineth even until now, remaineth also the Pure Nature of the Humanity, which the Selfsame One Received of His own, without change.

V. How is it defended today that there is only one Nature of Christ? If thus it is: truly therefore One from the Two has been abolished. Which one therefore? If the Human, alone therefore is the Nature of the Word, and it will be false because Christ Jesus thus will come just as He was seen to go into Heaven. Forsooth, through the Bodily Form of our Race the Same Lord appeared to eyes of those observing, just as He will show Himself again in the Same Form of the Body to the eyes of those piercing in the consummation of time. For if One of These Two [Natures] is extinguished or rather consumed, One is left; the consequence will be that the Lord Jesus Christ, either Only God, and not the Same Man, or Only Man, and not the Same God is most impiously preached. Therefore, we must not through this madness of foolish preaching undermine the Mystery of Honour and Dignity. Honour namely, for God Deigned to become Man. Dignity, however, for the Nature of the Word, in the Union of the Flesh, Immutably Remaneth, through the Mystery of the One Person, the Same Man is God. And this Catholic Sense admits the Union of Natures Co-Existing in Themselves, not the union of nature; while from the Two [Natures] United, and Remaining the Same, One Christ is believed, the Same God and Man. For according to those who contend there to be only One Nature, either of the Word which was changed into Flesh, that they might be One; or of the Flesh which was consumed in Word, so that, losing the existence of itself through the abolition of itself, at all to be it is not able, so that the Word alone remaineth One. How impious and sacrilegious this appears to me, it is most clearly known, whoever follows the Apostolic Doctrines, not human inventions. For in truth the Same God is Man, and the Same Man is God, Subsisting from Both, not lacking in Both, it manifests Him to be of the Nature of Both, for neither is He able to lose.