Codex 162

[Eusebius of Thessalonica, Against the Aphthartodocetae]

Read a work by a certain Eusebius,[1] a bishop of the orthodox faith, in ten books, written against a monk named Andrew, and called forth by his behaviour. He wrote a letter to Eusebius, which he calls a pastoral letter, imploring him to read it. Eusebius, having done so, first reprimands Andrew for his ignorance and temerity, showing that he had made many mistakes in spelling and could not write a line without making a blunder, but that notwithstanding he had had the audacity to write, forgetting his profession and the repose of a monastic life. He then refutes Andrew’s heretical opinions at length, for he was one of the sect called Aphthartodocetae,[2]from the impious doctrine that they held. He first points out that Andrew must explain why he used the word fqora&(corruption) in only one sense, thinking that it referred to sin only, whereas our Holy Fathers, in their usage of words, have traditionally applied it to different things. Secondly, he reproves him because he ventured to declare, like Julian, that the body of the Lord was immortal, impassible, and incorruptible from the union (of the two natures), although in this very letter he asserts that he has undertaken to oppose Severus and Julian, since they deny that there are two natures or two substances, two properties or two energies, in Christ. Thirdly, because he insisted that the body of Adam before the fall was neither formed entirely mortal nor corruptible by nature, from which, according to him, it would follow that Christ had assumed from the very union an incorruptible and impassible body; whereas, in reality, he ought to have thought and said that the body of Adam was by nature mortal and passible, but by divine grace was kept immortal and impassible, until his trangression deprived him of that protection. Such is the unanimous opinion of the Holy Fathers. Fourthly, because he called the present world incorruptible and indestructible, whereas he ought to hold that it is corruptible and changeable. In his first reply the bishop exhorted Andrew to retract his opinion on many other points, at the same time convicting him of obscurity and of blasphemy in his language.

Andrew, after he had received this exhortation to mend his ways, went from bad to worse, and wrote another work in which he again set forth at greater length the views he had previously expressed and, as he imagines, establishes their truth. As we have said, the pious Eusebius wrote ten books to combat these propositions, in which he shows that Andrew, not content with the definition of faith marked out by the holy synods, has audaciously drawn up an exposition of faith of his own; that he has wrenched many passages from the Fathers, and falsified and violently pressed them into the support of his views; that he contradicts both the New and Old Testament and our Holy Fathers in asserting that the world is incorruptible and indestructible; that he says that change, transformation, flux, can easily be misrepresented, just like the sufferings which have their origin in vice, and that our Lord Jesus Christ assumed a body that was unchangeable, impassible, incorruptible, and without flux. Again, he censures him because he asserts that the world is eternal, incorruptible, and ungenerated, and does not admit the transformation of the elements which contributes to its eternity, since he teaches that it is one of the passions which can easily be misrepresented; that the body of Adam was formed incorruptible, immortal, and impassible by nature, and not only this, but that the clay of which it was formed is incorruptible. Eusebius also censures him for taking the word “corruption “ in only one sense, whereby he shows that God is not the author of corruption or death or any vicious passion, but not even of sinful thoughts, although He is the author of corruptible and mortal substances, for these do not belong to existing things and have no subsistence in themselves. He also rebukes him for saying that the Lord’s body from the very union is impassible, incorruptible, and unchangeable, and in order to prove this, as he imagines, he shows that he has to rely upon his other nonsenical ideas about the world and Adam. In the same work Eusebius shows in what and how many meanings the words φθορά and καταφθορά and διαφθορά are used in the Scriptures: of physical affections that are by no means reprehensible, and of those that result from labour, fatigue, and old age, old age being the corruption of youth, as labour and fatigue of bodily tone; of bodily humiliation in ascetic and spiritual struggles, for the apostle says, “Although our outer man be corrupted, our inner body is renewed”;[3]of the affliction and wasting away of the body by blows and punishment; of the injury, partial or entire, in the case of animals, seeds, and plants; even of death itself, and, besides this, of the dissolution and flux of the bodies which take place in the grave; lastly, of vicious affections or sins. Since then the words for “corruption” could be used in so many ways, Eusebius is justified in stating that Andrew is wrong in attaching only one meaning to these words.

He confirms his arguments by passages from the Old and New Testament, from certain select Fathers, Athanasius and the three Gregories (Thaumaturgus, Theologus, and of Nyssa), Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Proclus of Constantinople,[4] Methodius [5] the holy martyr, and Quadratus,[6] from some of whose writings Andrew had wrenched and falsified passages and by explaining them either with deliberate malice or through ignorance, so as to support his own view, imagined that he was confirming his own mistaken opinions. But he pays the penalty of all that has been mentioned to Eusebius, for his tampering with the letter, his wickedness, and folly, and for putting together certain passages from heretical writings and venturing to ascribe them to our Holy Fathers.

From Andrew’s foolish utterances Eusebius also shows that he is of opinion that our Lord Jesus Christ, not being changed by resurrection from corruption to incorruption, is equally impassible in his manhood and divinity; that he dared to call those blasphemers who thought and said that our Lord Jesus Christ lived on earth with a mortal and passible body, while he himself is not ashamed, after His victory over sufferings and the abolition of death and corruption, monstrously to assert that the body of the Lord is passible, forgetting that, while insulting the orthodox by calling them Phthartolatrae[7] he himself is clearly convicted of being Pathetolatrae.[8]He then again adds some passages from the Fathers, and shows that the Lord’s body was passible, mortal, and consequently corruptible until His glorious resurrection, and that then by itself it became immortal and impassible. He also shows that Andrew talks idly in calling the orthodox Phthartolatrae,a name which is fitting and suitable for Arius, Aetius, Eunomius, Apollinarius, and Nestorius, but not for orthodox Christians. Eusebius also lays down the doctrine that our Lord and God, since He, as the architect of “nature, assumed our natural and by no means reprehensible “passions” (which are not properly called “passions” but might more fitly be called “works of nature”), was incapable of taking upon Him “passions” properly so called, originating from vice; that He ate and drank with His disciples after the Resurrection not in the same manner as He ate and drank before the Resurrection; in the latter case He acted according to the law of nature, refreshing and controlling the perishable flesh by food and drink, in the former He performed the act supernaturally by way of dispensation, to inspire the disciples, and through them all the faithful, with the belief that the body that suffered and was crucified rose again from the dead, the same and not a different body, although it had been transformed and had become incorruptible and impassible. Having laid down these doctrines in a manner acceptable to God, Eusebius finishes his tenth book. The style is clear, simple, pure, and characterized by distinctness where it is required.