Letter 146: Rest and a life free from cares are deeply welcome to me.

To John the Oeconomus, Rest and a life free from cares are deeply welcome to me. I have shut the door of my monastery and have declined social contact with my friends. But I have received reports that fresh attacks are being made against the faith of the Gospels, and I conclude there may be danger in my silence. When an offense is committed against some earthly ruler, not only the perpetrators but also the bystanders who made no effort to stop them face punishment. What penalty, then, should be suffered by those who dare look on passively while blasphemy is uttered against our God and Savior? This fear has prompted me to write and expose the innovations I have been told about. I am informed that a common report in the city says this: after certain presbyters had concluded their prayers in the customary manner -- some using the formula "For to You belongs glory, and to Your Christ, and to the Holy Spirit," others saying "Through the grace and loving-kindness of Your Christ, with whom belongs glory to You with Your Holy Spirit" -- the archdeacon prohibited the use of the expression "the Christ" and said that "the Only-begotten" alone should be glorified. If this is true, the impiety could not be greater. For he is either dividing the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons -- treating the Only-begotten as the legitimate and natural Son but "the Christ" as adopted and counterfeit, and therefore unworthy of being named in the doxology -- or else he is trying to prop up the heresy that has burst upon us like a drunken revel. Had we been in the grip of a terrible storm, one might suppose the man was adjusting his words to suit the crisis, out of fear of those who originated the heresy. But now that He who is being blasphemed has "rebuked the winds and the sea" [Matthew 8:26] and blessed the storm-tossed churches with calm, and the apostolic proclamation is preached everywhere by land and sea -- what room is there for such blasphemy? Not even those who recently inserted into church teaching the claim that flesh and Godhead are of one nature have ever forbidden praising "the Lord Christ." A man holding the highest ecclesiastical rank ought to know Scripture and to have learned from it that just as the heralds of truth number the Only-begotten Son with the Father, so they use the title "Christ" interchangeably with "Son" and number Him sometimes with the Father and sometimes with the Holy Spirit -- for the Christ is none other than the Only-begotten Son of God. Consider the divine Paul, writing to the Corinthians but teaching the whole world: "There is one God the Father, of whom are all things...and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things" [1 Corinthians 8:6]. Here the Apostle called the Only-begotten "Jesus Christ" and numbered Him with the Father. He could have said "one Lord, the Only-begotten Son." Instead he chose the title acquired through the incarnation, because the Person named is one and the same. To the Philippians he wrote: "At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" [Philippians 2:10-11]. The divine Scriptures are full of such passages. Peter said: "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" [Acts 2:36]. Isaiah prophesied: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God" [Isaiah 9:6]. The angel said to the shepherds: "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" [Luke 2:11]. If the archdeacon knew any of this, he would never have dared to separate the Christ from the Only-begotten. They are not two different persons. Christ is the Only-begotten Son who, while remaining God, became man. To forbid glorifying Him as "Christ" is to deny the incarnation itself -- for it is precisely as the incarnate One that He bears the name Christ, meaning "the Anointed One." I write with sorrow, praying that those who have fallen into this error may return to sound teaching, and that the peace so recently restored to the churches may not be disturbed again by fresh innovations.

Letter 146