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one in substance, because neither do the parts admit of the same principle of being with respect to one another, nor can we know the same principle of being for both. For the principle of divinity and humanity is not the same, just as that of soul and body is not, as is evident to all. Therefore, the word of truth has never defined Christ as one in nature, nor as one nature, either simple or composite. For the name 'Christ' does not exist as indicative of substance, that is, nature, like a species predicated of many individuals differing in their hypostases, as the blessed Cyril says in his Scholia: "That the name Christ has neither the force of a definition, nor does it indicate the substance of something; but it is understood of the hypostasis of the Logos, clearly in the assumption of flesh having an intellectual soul." Nor is man one nature from soul and body, as if the body were of the same substance as the soul; but rather as in a species, distinguished on the one hand from other species by its constitutive difference, and on the other hand predicated equally of the individuals under it as a species and contained by it. And not for this reason did he deny that the soul and the body are two according to the essential principle, as soul and body, and one and another substance according to the principle of being: the things from which, and in which, and which man is.

That it is impious to say that Christ is one composite nature, and that it fights against the truth.

For every composite nature, having its own parts co-temporal with itself and with each other in their very generation into being, and brought forth from not-being into being, and for the completion of the ordering of the universe by the power that established the universe and holds it in being, possesses its own parts reasonably and by necessity contained by each other; as is the case both with man and with all other things that have been allotted a composite nature. The soul both involuntarily controls the body and is controlled by it, and provides it life without choice, by the very fact of being in it, and naturally partakes of passion and pain through the receptive power for these things inherent in it; even if (489) some, having strayed from the true doctrines of the Church concerning the soul, monstrously assert that the soul pre-exists its own body in the Greek manner, or exists after it in the Jewish manner, and suppose that a principle not good nor God-loving presides over the creation of visible things, and are hostilely disposed to such an argument; having judged that to refute their rotten and disconnected problems concerning this is not a matter for the present time and discourse, I shall return to the subject at hand.

Thus, then, since every composite nature is as described, none of those who have determined to think piously about divine things would ever dare to say that Christ is one composite nature, lest by some necessary natural sequence and consequence, having chosen to say such things, he make himself liable for terrible accusations—that He is wholly created and from non-beings, circumscribable and passible, and not consubstantial with the Father; and by supposing either that the flesh is co-eternal with the Logos, or that the Logos is co-temporal with the flesh—for such is the principle of every composite nature. For that which is of a composite nature is clearly also composite by nature. But that which is composite by nature could never be of the same nature and consubstantial with that which is simple by nature. It is not right, therefore, for the pious to say Christ is one composite nature, not only because of the absurdity inferred from such a statement, but also because none of the God-chosen Fathers ever

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τῇ οὐσίᾳ ἕν, ὅτι μηδέ ἀλλήλων τά μέρη τόν τοῦ εἶναι ἐπιδέχεται λόγον, ἤ ἐπ᾿ ἀμφοῖν ἡμεῖς τόν αὐτόν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον εἰδέναι δυνάμεθα. Οὐχ ὁ αὐτός γάρ θεότητος καί ἀνθρωπότητος λόγος· ὥσπερ οὐδέ ψυχῆς καί σώματος, ὡς πᾶσιν εὔδηλον. ∆ιό οὐχ ἕν τῇ φύσει, οὐδέ μίαν ἁπλῶς ἤ σύνθετον φύσιν τόν Χριστόν εἶναι, πώποτε ὁ τῆς ἀληθείας ὡρίσατο λόγος. Οὔτε γάρ οὐσίας ἤτοι φύσεως δηλωτικόν ὡς εἴδους τό Χριστός ὄνομα ὑπάρχει, τῶν κατά πολλῶν καί διαφερόντων ταῖς ὑποστάσεσι κατηγορουμένων ἀτόμων, καθώς φησιν ἐν τοῖς σχολίοις ὁ μακάριος Κύριλλος, " Ὅτι τό Χριστός ὄνομα, οὔτε ὅρου δύναμιν ἔχει, οὔτε μήν τήν τινος οὐσίαν δηλοῖ· ὑποστάσεως δέ τῆς τοῦ Λόγου ἐν προσλήμματι δηλονότι σαρκός νοεράν ἐχούσης ψυχήν νοουμένης." Ἀλλ᾿ οὐδέ τόν ἄνθρωπον μίαν φύσιν τήν ἐκ ψυχῆς καί σώματος· ὡς τῆς αὐτῆς τῇ ψυχῇ οὐσίας ὄντος τοῦ σώματος· ἀλλά τήν ὡς ἐν εἴδει· πρός μέν τά ἄλλά κατά τήν συστατικήν διαφοράν τεμνομένην εἴδη· κατά δέ τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτήν ὡς εἴδος καί ὑπ᾿ αὐτῆς περιεχομένων ἀτόμων ἴσως κατηγορουμένην. Καί οὐ διά τοῦτο τό εἶναι δύο κατά τόν οὐσιώδη λόγον τήν ψυχήν καί τό σῶμα ὡς ψυχήν καί σῶμα· καί ἄλλην καί ἄλλην οὐσίαν κατά τόν τοῦ εἶναι λόγον· τά ἐξ ὧν, καί ἐν οἷς, καί ἅ ὑπάρχει ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἀπηγόρευσεν.

Ὅτι ἀσεβές ἐστί τό λέγειν μίαν σύνθετον φύσιν τόν Χριστόν, καί τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μαχόμενον.

Πᾶσα γάρ σύνθετος φύσις, ἑαυτῇ τε καί ἀλλήλοις κατ᾿ αὐτήν τήν εἰς τό εἶναι γένεσιν ἔχουσα τά ἴδια μέρη ὁμόχρονα, καί ἐκ τοῦ μή ὄντος εἰς τό εἶναι, καί εἰς συμπλήρωσιν τῆς τοῦ παντός διακοσμήσεως, παρά τῆς τό πᾶν συστησαμένης, καί εἰς τό εἶναι συνεχούσης δυνάμεως παρηγμένα, ἀλλήλοις εἰκότως ἐξ ἀνάγκης τά ἴδια μέρη περιεχόμενα κέκτηται· ὡς ἐπί τε τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔχει, καί τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα συνθέτου εἶναι ἔλαχον φύσεως. Τῆς ψυχῆς ἀκουσίως τε κρατούσης τό σῶμα, καί ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ κρατουμένης, καί ζωήν ἀπροαιρέτως αὐτῷ, κατ᾿ αὐτό μόνον τό ἐν αὐτῷ εἶναι παρεχούσης, καί πάθους καί ἄλγους φυσικῶς μεταλαμβανούσης διά τήν ἐγκειμένην αὐτῇ τούτων δεκτικήν δύναμιν· κἄν εἰ τά (489) μάλιστά τινες τῶν κατά τήν Ἐκκλησίαν ἀληθῶν περί ψυχῆς δογμάτων ἀποσφαλέντες, προϋπάρχειν Ἑλληνικῶς, ἤ μεθυπάρχειν ἰουδαϊκῶς τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος τήν ψυχήν τερατευόμενοι, καί ἀρχήν οὐ καλήν οὐδέ θεοφιλῆ τῆς τῶν ὁρατῶν δημιουργίας προκαθηγεῖσθαι ὑποτιθέμενοι, ἀντιπαθῶς πρός τόν τοιοῦτον διάκεινται λόγον· ὧν διελέγξαι τά περί τούτου σαθρά, καί ἀπαγῆ προβλήματα, οὐ τοῦ παρόντος εἶναι καιροῦ τε καί λόγου κρίνας, ἐπί τό προκείμενον ἐπανελεύσομαι.

Οὕτω τοίνυν, καθά πρόκειται, πάσης συνθέτου ἐχούσης φύσεως,οὐκ ἄν τις τολμήσαιέ ποτε τῶν εὐσεβως περί τῶν θείων φρονεῖν ἐγνωκότων, μίαν εἶναι σύνθετον φύσιν εἰπεῖν τόν Χριστόν, ἵνα μή ἐξ ἀνάγκης εἱρμῷ τινι φυσικῷ καί ἀκολουθίᾳ τά τοιαῦτα λέγειν ἐξελόμενος, κτιστόν ὅλον καί ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, περιγραπτόν τε καί παθητόν, καί τῷ Πατρί οὐχ ὁμοούσιον· καί ἤ συναΐδιον τῷ Λόγῳ τήν σάρκα, ἤ ὁμόχρονον τῇ σαρκί τόν Λόγον ὄντα ὑποτιθέμενος· τοιοῦτος γάρ ὁ πάσης συνθέτου φύσεως λόγος· φοβερῶν ἑαυτόν καταστήσει ἐγκλημάτων ὑπεύθυνον. Τό γάρ συνθέτου φύσεως ὑπάρχον, καί σύνθετον κατά φύσιν δηλονότι ἐστί. Τό δέ κατά φύσιν σύνθετον, τῷ κατά φύσιν ἁπλῷ οὐκ ἄν εἴη ποτέ ὁμοφυές καί ὁμοούσιον. Οὐ θέμις οὖν μίαν τόν Χριστόν λέγειν σύνθετον φύσιν τούς εὐσεβεῖς, οὐ μόνον διά τήν συναγομένην ἐκ τῆς τοιαύτης φωνῆς ἀτοπίαν· ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι καί μηδείς τῶν θεοκρίτων Πατέρων τοῦτο πώποτε