Erhan offers a rigorous historical corrective by exposing the Apollinarian forgeries that have long distorted our understanding of early Christology. He effectively demonstrates that the Fathers' language of unity was never intended to collapse the essential distinction between Christ’s two natures.
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The Church Fathers Do NOT Teach One NatureAjouté :
Welcome everyone. This is David and today's video is on the church fathers are not monophysites rather they are deophosites. This is a response to Aen's massive quote mine compilation on the father's supposedly teaching one nature.
Um in this video in this response I will show that approximately at least 80% of them most a significant portion of the quotations fall under one of the three categories. One isogetical readings of passages. So basically assuming his own worldview imposing them into the passages and reading them in that light.
Uh this should be more simple to demonstrate. The second part which I will say it's very important is forgeries. He makes use of forgeries. He even defends the forgeries uh particularly the apollinarian forgeries.
These were texts that were attributed to various different saints uh that were actually written by Apollinarius. Right?
So he argues that they were not actually written by Apollin. They were actually written by the very saints that they attributed to. There's a very good reason why the scholars, you know, are united on this point that those texts were actually written by Apollin and I will demonstrate and prove that to be the case. And lastly, blatant misrepresentation of the fathers. So you know out of context quotes, mistransations uh things of that nature and then concluding the video with a brief really brief really short uh dohysite uh floor religion with a surprise argument basically. Um so with that we can begin starting with monopsite is Jesus. Now there are mainly three types. Um and a lot of a lot of the quotes really as I said they don't they're not really problematic for us. um they fall under one of the three issues. They speak about a union of nature. So the union language is assumed to be you know monopysic and then there's a language of mixture and then there's a language of twofoldness right two-fold language also being somehow you know one nature language. Now, Union language, I will argue, is very typically, you know, the the quotes that he uses, they're very broad. I mean, they can be accepted by pretty much anyone that speaks on basic Christologology. Um, and I won't make much of a deal of it. Mixture language and twofold language on the other hand are actually theophysite. And yes, you might be surprised. Mixture language, I mean, if anything, mixture language should be monophosicide, shouldn't it?
Yes, normally it is. But the fathers are employing stoic mixture language and stoic mixture is very different from other kinds of mixture as we are going to see and also the language of twofold which it's applying doubleness to uh to the natures of Christ obviously the physitic as I will also show. So let us start with the language you know the union language right. So following John Fopolis which really before him following Apollinarius he's the one who makes this argument monophasites argue that union because it means literally means making one or becoming one the things united the elements that are united if they are truly united must become one. So this is the basic presupposition. So statements like two natures united from two natures two natures are one two natures made one Christ is one not two Christ is not divided into two. do not divide the Christ into two after the union. Right?
These passages are all isogetically read as confirming monophysi christologology.
But there are very obvious problems with this. Before I move on to the next slide, one main uh thing about union is that yes, when there are things that unite, there is a unity. There is something that is a unity. What that unity is, that's a separate question.
Okay. So the union of two elements does mean there must be something that is united. But does that mean the elements themselves being united are strictly one? I will give two examples that for that not being the case. One of them is the marriage argument and he himself argued oh your interpretation of the marriage argument is notorian. If anything his understand his application of the marriage ar you know the state of marriage um to Christologology to the extent that he does is actually what is historian because if you look at marriage right and this is you know Christ says the two become one flesh right the two become one in marriage and what is marriage right husband and wife becoming one spiritual flesh right so the elements that are united in marriage are husband and wife. Does that mean that after their marriage there is one husband wife? No. There is the spiritual reality again of them being one flesh.
They are accounted to one another, right? They live one unified spiritual life. That is what marriage is. And so if you notice again after marriage there are still the elements remain the elements remain distinct. Another example, if there is any example of unity, it will be the Holy Trinity. And Christ in John 10:30 says, "I and my father are one." I and my father are names for hypoasis. Yet Christ says, "We are one." Is Christ lying when he says, "I and my father are one because they are two hyperostasis in their unity." So they are one because they have the unity of essence and they're indivisible. But nevertheless, as St. Hillary of purchase says that name which is peculiar to the divine nature is inherent in each.
Therefore the two are one. So there is a unity that's why they are one. But the elements or the things that are united do they become one? Not necessarily.
Does that mean that they are not united?
Does that mean that they are not one? No it doesn't. So this facious argument I will say has been demonstrated to be well facious.
Now let us come to the language of mixture. As I said the language of mixture in the fathers because they used the concept of stoic mixture is actually theite and this is explicitly theophysite even according to his own terms as I will as I will show now. Um but he cites many fathers such as saint irony and we will move from that but also other fathers that speak of a blending and a mixture of the natures.
Now of course um if this is applied in a mostly arisatilian sense which will mean that the elements do not persist after the union they change you know they they get dissolved etc. Um then this will be an incorrect application of the christoologgical union if not heretical but this is not what they use you see they understand this mixture to be in the sense of stoic mixture. Now what exactly is stoic mixture? Well, the my research into it started from this quote. Um, he cited this passage, right?
Erinius also uses Stoke mixture theory, etc., etc. And I wondered, okay, where is this passage from? I want to read it.
And I found the book is uh Anthony Brigman's God and Christ in Uranus. So, I read the chapter where he talks about St. is his christologology and I find it really interesting especially you know since uh as many as many of you have probably seen the debate he you know asked me about what do you think this scholar said what do you think that scholar said uh in the debate and trying to like I guess make a point about uh me disagreeing with them but this is a scholar that he cites that actually fundamentally disagrees with him and we will see how now what exactly is stoic mixture I mean talking about stoic mixture What exactly is it? Um the point of stoic mixture is not that the elements that are mixed become changed and they get dissolved and confused into one thing. That's not stoic mixture. Stoic mixture the main theme is that the elements that are united one of the elements pervades entirely through the other element. Right? That is the main theme of stoic mixture. Um so for example iron and heat uh you have you know you can you can put iron under heat you can have you know an iron sword or whatever any iron element and heat will completely pervade all throughout the iron and yet both of them retain their substance and their properties.
Now this is not what I'm saying. This is taken from uh the book. So you can put I'm putting the quotes here. This is not what I'm saying. Uh this is what not only stoics are saying but people commentating on stoic beliefs are also saying. So here you have Alexander Aphrodesus. I'm not going to read the entire quote but I will focus on the most important relevant part. So for example um the Alexander Aphrodicius says that the um the union in their entirety the historic mixture in the union of the entirety of their uh the substances right the original substance and qualities in such a mixture um remains after the union right this is one of the points that is um uh that is states stated this is also stated by another passage of Alexander of Aphrodicius the relevant passage before I move on to the other one is that uh the third type of mixture he says. So this is stoic mixture occurs through certain substances and their qualities being mutually co-extended in their entirety and preserving their original substance and qualities in such a mixture. Right?
Preserving their original substance. Now in the debate um he stated very clearly that the natures after the union there's no distinct natures after the union.
There's only one nature. So there can't be a distinction. Well, here in stoic mixture, Alexander of Aphrodicius states to us very clearly in a stoic mixture the elements remain in their original substance and properties distinct after the union and this is also you know this is continued to be stated by him in another passage and also Aras uh Ditimus. So again we have this is actually quite commonly known in the theory of stoic mixture. Now, Bregman cites Sarabji as a positive witness to make this point further. For the character of the mixture involved, one will expect orthodox believers in two natures to draw one stoic rather than Aristotilian theory. For the ingredients in the stoic mixture persist actually, not potentially. And one can be dominant as the divine nature was supposed to be without obliterating the other. And Bregman himself states in various different places that you know in the resultant of the from the blending the original substances and qualities properly each of the constituent ingredients persist. Right? In another page he says the union then between human beings and the divine word does not jeopardize their distinction. They remain different in kind and always distinguishable when united. Uh and again he states as I've stated several times now the Stoics believe that blending produces a union in which the original substances and qualities proper to each of the constituent ingredients persist and the qualities of each show forth. And finally you know in the final final sentence he says incorporating stoic mixture theory then enables Irenaeus and I add other fathers to affirm at one and the same time the distinction of the two natures and their unity. Again he cited this book not me.
I'm not citing this. I'm not originally citing this book. He cited this book. I agree with Anthony Brickman. I don't agree with everything he says in the book. Um but I do agree in so far as the way he describes stoic mixture. Um and if he doesn't if he doesn't agree with it, well, he should give us reasons why.
Because as I stated, what Anthony Brigman is say saying is not just his own scholarly opinion. It is also what as I previously shown the opinions of other Greek scholars, other Greek philosophers commentating on stoic mixture. Okay. So I think that makes it very clear that stoic mixture is inherently neophysite. Now let us finally move to twofold nature. Uh we have the Greek term diplus and other many many different Greek terms as well like dtos etc. um and gemini in Latin which means twofold. And so the argument goes well they modify a singular noun in the sense of you know when speaking about nature and since they modify a singular noun well it must therefore mean that it is there is one nature which you know that is from two natures.
Does Seis think that this is canonically the case that twofold that's referring to Christ as twofold or twin nature is orthodox? Actually Seis himself says no.
Now, Seus's argument regarding the passages where you know Christ is stated as twofold. Uh he argues that when the fathers say Christ is twofold and he gives examples of St. Gregor theologian and St. John Chrysm um when they say Christ is twofold what they actually mean is that well Christ is twofold meaning that he's from two natures and his twofoldness is contemplative which you know these are kind of ad hoc defenses and in the texts that are that I will also uh you know show that is not you know those qualifications are not mentioned in the text themselves. So Christ is stated as being twofold without those qualifications. So that's one thing to note.
As you can see in this passage, Seus himself states very clearly, none of the fathers nor of the divinely inspired doctors declared Christ to be twofold.
So he ultimately rejects twofold. it. He says Christ is not twofold and obviously he will reject it because twofold whether you whether you imply tuness in grammatically in the noun or whether you modify it by an adjective or whatever tuness implies division in seis right if there's tuness within the one substance well that means there's a duality there's a separation within the one substance so how can there be unity where there is separation logically speaking That's where that logic will go. So just on that front, twofold is absolutely not a um quote mophysite term even like normal mess terms it is not part of it right and sever's arguments are not really good as we shall see um but in terms of uh the fact that twofold can mean two um I will show St. Krill here. He says that uh nature of our negligence will not be understood as one and the same but rate rather as twofold and different. Right? So there are two uh natures of our negligence that he's he's talking about. Of course talking about nature in different sense here not christoologgically. Uh then we have St. Epipanius who says that God is a three-fold hypotheasis. Now a couple of pages later he says God is three hypasis in one us. Okay. So here he is using hypostasis in the sense of person. Um he says hypostasis the three-fold hypostasis. Noticeios that is the genative singular. It's singular. It's not plural. It's not hypoasis in the plural. Well that's a singular noun. Does that mean that God is one hypoasis? Absolutely not. Means he's basically saying that there are three hypotheasis in the trinity. U St. Gregor of Nissa states that believes in a god that has two natures. Not christoologgically of course but in in his own essence uh he says that you know Mrs. God is a being with double nature or composite right however he likes to state and then we have St. John Chrysum um so severis quotes St. John who says for this human life is twofold since it is compounded out of two substances so he uses this citation to argue that look uh John you know St. John criticism says Christ is from two natures and from two natures means there's one nature afterwards. So he's actually saying one nature, right? That's this is basically Seis's um argument in this passage. So the assumption is that from two natures means strictly one. But this is an assumption St. John himself does not believe. Now those who remember the debate will remember I mentioned a specific passage from St. John Chrysm where he speaks of uh human nature as two natures or two substances. Um I didn't remember the exact passage in my on the off the top of my head because I couldn't you know he thought it was funny which I I suppose um you're abnormal if you don't remember every single passage every single quote in your mind um so we're busy reading books but this is the passage that I was talking about the 29th homaly on Matthew and St. St. John Chrysum regarding the healing of the paralytic which last Sunday was the Sunday of the paralytic, right? So this is what he's talking about. He says, "Seeest thou how he indicates him to be created both of souls and bodies. He heals therefore the poly in each of the substances." Now someone might be super excited and say, "Well, the the word isn't here." Okay, but the word us is here. us that is the accusative that is the feminine accusative plural.
So it indicates that there is more than one nature here. This is a plural right to usas that will be the art that will be us with the article. So yeah he might not he might not say to but he is saying substances. He's speaking about substances in the plural. So nevertheless to is implied here very clearly. Um and then we have passages of twofoldness in the Greek fathers. Um so this is St. Greg the theologian. Um now prior to saying that Christ is twofold he says that my God right is used not of the word. So the word doesn't say my god but the visible one right it says visible word here in English but in Greek it's you know the one the seeing the seen one right. Um nevertheless it's not the word but the scene one that is saying this this language is not acceptable in um you know quote me of as I taught and again our lord was twofold right he states that Christ himself Christ was twofold uh this is stated also by St. of Jerusalem that the Christ was twofold. Man in what was seen, but God in what was not seen. As man truly eating like us, for he had the like feeling of the flesh with us, but as God feeding the 5,000 from five loaves, as man truly dying, but as God raising him that had been dead four days, truly sleeping in the ship as man and walking upon the waters as God. Right now let's get to the passages of twofold within the Latin tradition particularly the interpretation of Psalm 195 which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices as a giant the KGV says strong man but the Latin text is gigantes right a giant I think also the Greek text too like a as a giant to run a race now um in christoological application this is again used a lot by the western fathers uh the way they interpret this passage um is that some indicate that you know the bridegroom indicates the humanity, the giant indicates his divinity because of you know the implication of strength. Uh some state that the giant itself indicates a two-fold substance, a twofold nature. Now in terms of interpreting what this means um he cites Warren Smith who claims that you know St. Ambrose is speaking of a singular twofold nature um in in the case that you know as exemplifying the giant right because giants the giants that we're speaking about particularly as the Latin tradition understood it I think this is the case um were you know demon human hybrids right they were angelic by nature they were fallen angels um they were also you know human so these giants are a compound nature of angels and humans And so in this in this sense well okay if giants are a compound nature then it is applied to Christ then Christ is a compound nature. We will see that this is not how St. Ambrose is applied that is Warren Smith is wrong and Aen is wrong. So first of all St. Augustine which Aen himself admits is theite states that Christ is a twin substance giant. Right? So he understands twin substance to mean two substances.
Further on look at let's look at St. Ambrose himself again. Look he's talking about St. Ambrose. So let's look at St. Ambrose applying the text giant of salvation. So he talks about Christ has fulfilled as the giant of salvation the verity of the one son of God. How? Let's read the passage very carefully. Uh for he who as almighty is born from the almighty as redeemer is born the born of the virgin being the same in the diversity of his two divisible natures.
Right? And the Latin passages here so you can see for yourself. Um so he here he is interpreting Christ being the giant as him being two natures very clearly and very explicitly. Should I trust what St. Abra says or should I trust what Warren says? What do you say guys? Let's move on. uh further again talking about uh this passage let's look at oh I guess I shouldn't have added this part here but let's move to the next I will say huge huge mistake uh that he makes and that is his interpretation of utarch now he tries to argue that utar um in in is like you know judice utric doctor like the doctor of both laws and so it's kind of like you know you have two laws and they result in uh one doctorate you know being resulted of uh two laws. So this is kind of the so his his logic essentially is uh this basically is from two natures. This kind of language is from two natures that is not true. Ut primarily means each and I will expand more on that but let's first look at kind of like what he's appealing to. So there's this concept called doctor of both laws um which is kind of like you know more of the medieval and you know early modern time era uh thing which which was given to people who were qualified in canon law right ecclesiastical canon law and civil law right and so you will be doctor of both laws more properly doctor of each law right that's what uh Dr. Judis Utrike literally means. Okay. Uh now he gives the example of one doctrine resulting from two laws.
Now his christoologgical model is that there's a union of two particular natures that make one particular nature.
So all three of these things you know conceptually speaking are the same category of things. Okay. So it will be more accurate if this was two laws becoming one law. But that is not what's happening, right? These are two laws existing in one doctorate. So you as a doctor are qualified in both of these laws. Are these laws still two after your qualification of them? Are these laws still two or are they not? If they are two, then this very example that he uses is diaphazite. The quote he uses again uh law and the nations the building of both. It's not as if there are two buildings that make up one building. It's there are two two aspects in one building. Um but let's move further on because using this he even goes you know this we we go to an even worse direction with this um in the in the coming passages. But let's first understand utarch. And for those who might be confused, I mean he says, you say utri is the genative of ut right? It's just a different form of the same word. So utarch ut the same same word just is the genative form. Ut is the nomative nomative form. So this is the Oxford Latin dictionary. And to also confirm this, I also asked Ubietus, an actual Latin speaker. Um and they both agree that uter means each of the two.
This is the primary meaning each of the two regarded severally. Now there's a very slight difference between the terms both and each. With both you can kind of use it to state as if like you're bundling two units together speaking of them as one unit, right? Um it doesn't mean that's its primary meaning but it can have that meaning. Each however does not have that meaning. You're considering the things each mentally individually, right? But it's it's still you're still treating them as individual things, right? You're still speaking of each thing individually.
That means you're treating them as distinct units. So if you treat natures as those things by themselves, you are speaking of two natures at least, right?
Each nature is basically two natures.
Now if you want to look at the other definitions, I also put it put it here.
You can look at the pages. You can look at the dictionary yourself. Basically means each each of the two things. Each person or thing of two each of the two groups or each of the two reciproc reciprocally. Uh so let us look at how he understands this term and we have some blatant misransation. I mean, I will put this in the blatant misrepresentation of the father's point, but because this is so connected with what what I'm talking about right now, I decided I I just I just rather put it here. So, here he translates um the exposium.
The key passage here is according to his translation, St. Hillary supposedly says, "And there may be a there there may be between man and God a mediator confessing in himself the nature that is of both." Now think of this in in in English right the nature that is of both the nature is nominative here right so you will expect that to be the case in the Latin but no even here as provided right um is nominative but the e ending that makes it genative so if you look at it and I you know this is one of the few things that Chachi is good at is is actually translating and maybe he should have used that instead of I don't know what he did when when He translate that passage but more properly speaking St. Hillary is saying u for where Christ is man he stands forth as the mediator of God and man so that from both God and man one may subsist and that he may be a middle one between man and God by the confession in in himself by look by the confession in himself of each nature he's speaking about two natures here two natures being confessed in himself this is quite literally the acknowledged in two natures of the council of Kedodon um and again Utris and both are in genative singular So I don't know where he get this trans got this translation from but you know he should got he should get his money back. Um that's that's the nicest way I will say it. Let's look at the other instance right and because through these higher things he preached about the nature in which he existed again the nature in which he existed. But if you look at the Latin passage this is not what he's saying. I even went to ask Ubetus about this and this is how he translated this. He preached out of each type or genus of nature in which he was separately. each type of nature in which he was separately of God of course and of man and in Latin the script makes right out of each type in so that is right in which he was uh in the nature of you know of of each type basically like quite literally um essentially in short as you can read from the passage St. Hillary is once again teaching two natures that Christ that there are two natures in Christ.
Now um I'm citing St. Vincent here to just show that utri uter is understood as two two substances because St. Vincent attacks a pollinarian for not teaching that there are two natures in Christ for rejecting that there are two substances in Christ. Um so here the two substances is translated as you know each utri so more probably is each substance um but if you look at other passages you have you see St. Vincent explicitly talking about you know da substancas right so he speaks of you know two substances in Christ um and that apollinarius because he refuses two substance in Christ um he is you know ultimately hetrodox but Christ is two substances two substances but one person writes I I hope my pronunciation was not bad.
But basically, um, what I'm getting at here, if you're a little confused at what's going on, um, is that St. Vincent treats, you know, ut or to be identical with dua with two as as it literally is as it literally is per the Oxford uh dictionary of Latin. So let us now move on to a very important part of the video, the forgeries that Agen uses.
Now we will start with the most important ones, the Apollinarian forgeries. So for those who don't know, Apollinarius is a heretic that denied Christ having a human mind. Right? So this is Apollinius's main heresy, but he also had various different um christoologgical ideas backing that uh backing that up. He is the originator of at least the christoologgical usage of the mapsis formula that really you know the one incarnate nature formula really originates with him. And as you can see these fathers saints Gregory Tomatus, Pope Julius and Atonius um the writings of Apollon some of the writings of Apollin were attributed to uh these you know father to these figures uh by you know most probably you know 90 99% by his own followers. So Aen believes that in these texts there are evidences that the doctrine is not a pollinarian and also that there are some you know orthodox figures that say that uh the author of these is not a pollinist but some other people but we are going to again look there's a very good reason why scholarship agrees that these texts are a pollinarian before I move on just very brief note very important important very importantly is Leon Bzantine's work against the frauds of the Apollinarians.
Um he discovers an intraolinarian dispute regarding the consubstantiality of Christ. So you had um Apollinarians who you know said Christ is consubstantial to human beings and then you had prototypicians that denied even that. Um so within this debate within these texts he found out that quotes attributed to you know St. Gregorus and St. Pope Julius uh were utilized but this they were cited under the name of Apollonius. Now again this dispute most likely happened in the late fourth early fifth century. Um and the I think the latest Apollonian synod was all the way in the 420s at the very least in the middle east. So afterwards their effect pretty much you know they were pretty much left weakened. But nevertheless, these uh works that Leon Bzantium uncovered prove that these texts, some of these texts were written by Apollin.
Now, this is not the only evidence. This is what I wanted to start with.
Uh some of the arguments that Apollinist makes uh which is why he's important to um explain and understand in in terms of his influence of Mop of terminology that that occurred. For example, union means there cannot be two. This is an argument made by uh his student polyon. Um then there's the argument that Christ cannot be one person if he is in two natures.
This is an argument that polliners explicitly makes. Um he says you those who say Christ is one and alleged that his two natures have minds and are self-complete do not know him as the word which became flesh. Um and I believe there's another fragment where he attacks even like the Capidokians and Atonius for believing this. Um or or it's possible it was Polon. It was probably who made that argument.
Anyways, then we have fragment 150.
Christ is not double-minded. That is Christ does not have two mill wills. Uh he does he doesn't have two minds. He doesn't have two wills. Right?
And let us start with pseudo Gregory Tomus' katameos pistis also known as you know sectional confession of fate or confession of faith in parts or however you want to translate in English. Um again I will state the Greek term uh the Greek name katameos pistus right now St. Tama Turgus is a 3rd century church father. Um this work is like 30% 40% is on christologology which is very unusual for a 3rd century uh text. There are christoologgical statements or christoologgical arguments that are made but this you know section of confession of fate um a lot of it is on christologology. Moreover, a lot of it is also in trinity and is very nice scene which you will think such a document will be incredibly important and will be circulated a lot more if it truly was written by St. Gregory but it was not. In fact, there's no mention of this work. Um St. Gregor Nissa mentions a confession of faith attribute to St. Gregory Thomas in his encomium on uh Gregory Tomus. It's not this one.
It's a very short one. A it's like less than half of what like the nying creed is. It's it's a it's it's a very short confession of faith. It's a good one of course. It's a very valuable one. This is why it was preserved by St. Griff Nissa, but it's a very short one and it is not this uh it's not this text and it's not a quotation of this text either. uh there's no mention of this work until Theodder sites uh cites it in his eronyistas and until Uticus' floor legium which appears for the first time in his appeal to Pope St. Leo. Now in Teodoret he cites he cites it as a positive witness but he does not cite it as Gregorus he cites it as Apollinarius. Now this is important because this is not just Theodoret having an opinion on who might be may be the real author. there wasn't any dispute on who the author was um at his time if I remember correctly or if there was we don't really have any records of it but Theodor um is someone who has you know documents and writings of Apollin because as he states in his own church history um the last of the Apollinian senard I think between 4h 4 410 and uh 420 um they joined to the antiocin church right now when you have a sinnade joining back, you know, joining back to the church, their library also joins the church, right? And so it's left up to the church on deciding, okay, what are we going to do with these documents? Are we going to burn them? Are we going to do, you know, what are we going to research? What are we going to do? Uh, Theodor, so there's a very realistic um line of descent of the documents from the Apollinarians to Theodor, right? So he's not just someone who has an opinion. He's a very likely candidate and attestation of this document. Again, this is a minor argument, by the We're not we we haven't even gone to the major arguments yet. Um this language is similar to a polon works which I haven't haven't noted uh much but just wanted to state u in kasparis alto no qu and also non bizantium states that you know a pollinist themselves attribute this work to a pollinary so you have teodorets and epinus themselves attributed this to apollinis it's for the first time attribute to sinkois by utikis in Britain record and these are the u this is the work of you know against the fs of the apolarian epolinarians of lantius of bzantium uh So just putting the putting them here for you to for you to see. Now his main argument um now this text is important because again um states very clearly that Christ is not not two natures. Right now uh Aen argues um the what the passage I outlined with red that we are going to be analyzing. He argues that this is proof that the text is not of Apollinarian origin.
Why? Well, because according to his translation, spoiler alert, it is completely wrong.
And we're going to look at that. But according to his translation, it states that God has the sufferings of soul and flesh undefeated. And remember, according to Apollinarius, you know, Christ does not have a human mind. U in early stages, it means that he did not have a soul. So he cannot have the sufferings of soul. So there are two problems with this. Number one, Apollinarius um began with a dichomous model but eventually had a tricotmus model and especially this is clear in St. Greg Nissa's anti-apollin writings.
Um so tricotamus meaning for you know normally canonically speaking in um in you know orthodox anthropology man is a body and soul. uh Apollinarius at some point argued that man is a body and and a soul but an irrational soul and a rational soul that is the mind right so there is that point that also has to be considered it's a minor point um before we get to the translation the mistransation the other point is that assuming this is true um epolinarianism uh both Apollin himself and his disciples um at some point in order to deceive uh people into making them think that they are orthodox started to use certain orthodox phrasiologies like Christ is completely man but you know and in this case St. Epipanius gives evidence that you know Vitalius who's an Apollinian says um Christ was a perfect man but he didn't have a mind but we say he's perfect because instead of the mind he has the divinity uh this is the same argument Apollina makes in episcoposis so again we know this is from Apollinius and Apollina says that again um Christ is you know perfectly man um and he even says therefore the savior also did not have a body which was soulless senseless or mindless less. So he says Christ didn't have a mindless body because his mind was a divine nature. Um and very importantly he says and this you know keep this in mind because we're going to get back to this. He states it is complete with respect to a divine completeness and not a human one. Now let us look at the passage that he says um that he that he says is is proving his passage. So again passage the passage on the right is the passage in Greek um noose itos on this is the nominative so let's the the sentence is divided into two right nominative part and a genative part right so n is mind itos is unconquered on is being right so mind unconquered being right we're going literal right so no no so for now no regard for uh no regard for word order we're just going for a very basic um translation So basically the subject the subject of this passage is the divine mind unconquered being and then there's a genesis. So what is this of?
So of soul related and bodily or body related passions. Right? So when we combine these two things and we have a more bit more of a idiomatic translation we get this as a result. Of course the the subject is God. God being an unconquered mind over the soul related and bodily passions. This is what the passage idiomatically uh states. So he is not stating that Christ has u you know sufferings of the soul and flesh undefeated. He's saying that he doesn't have the he doesn't have the passions of the body and the soul at all because he's talking about the divine mind has no passions of that. If anything, this is proof that the text is a pollinarian because he's only talking about the divine mind. He's not talking about uh a human mind or a human human soul in Christ. Um another passage which I asked you to remember a passage we're going back to that. uh he says and the one without flesh who appeared in the flesh is true God whole with respect to the true and divine wholeness where is the mention of human wholeness absolutely not again in the Greek but nothing afterwards right it's just God you know Christ is only divinely whole but look at the passage what he says in episcoposa it is complete with respect to a divine completeness and not a human mind. This is a classically a polollinarian phrase.
So we have seen so far this is clearly a work of Apollinarius. If you if you want more evidence of what epolinarianism is and how this relates here is St. K of Alexandria. The Apollinarians attribute the activity of the intellect and the soul to the only begotten. He says the same exact uh statement in onorthodoxy to theodocious. So this is how sinil defines epolinarianism attributing the activity of mind and soul to the word alone right to the word alone being to the divinity right not to a separate subject obviously now let us move to move on to the works of pseudo julius right so pope St. Julius was the pope of Rome um I believe in you know the middle the middle of 4th century so he was he was a contemporary figure with Apollinarius if I remember correctly um and the the the last scholarly work on uh St. Julius's works is Thompson's correspondences of Pope Julius I. He views these works and there's there's like seven letters attributed to him that is of a origin. He views all of them as a forgeries. Basically these works are all a forgeries. So this is the updated scholarly view. Now we're going to focus on the three works the unarnat and starting with uh the so he cites this passage. Okay. Now, you don't want to site the UN at all.
You don't want to site it. Um, and I know you, oh, St. K is citing, you know, the he's citing this this as well. Um, first of all, again, this is, you know, the Apollinar admit that this is from Apollinarius. But what's even worse is that the the teaching of Deun is so obviously a pollinarian. Um the author says for in this way he gave life to the body by the sanctification of the deity and the dwelling of not a human soul.
Right? The dwelling of not a human soul.
Right? So Christ does not have okay the author literally says Christ does not have a human soul. So I think it's quite clear who is the author of this work.
Um, and he even, you know, the author even, you know, goes on to explain why that is the case. Because normal human beings receive a soul because they are, you know, they come from their father's sperm. They're the father's sperm. Um, and that's where you get your soul from.
That's basically his his approach. Um, but he argues that well, in the case of Christ, well, since he is not he did not come about from a sperm, he's not contrived from a sperm, there's no spermatic fluid. So there is no soul right now. He cites this uh to those containing the incarnation which um uh defeated it incarnation right uh so this is the passage that as you can see his rationally and sold face so this is used as oh look this proves that the author is not a pollinarius as I stated doesn't really prove anything even if this is not a forged passage um because as I've shown vitalius and apollinarius they started to use orthodox phrasiology to deceive people as St. Gregor the theologian says but bad news this is a for fourth passage this does not exist in the earliest manuscripts and Leitzman who's basically the scholar on this issue says this was an interpolation and most importantly why do we know that this is missing in the earliest manuscripts because the earliest manuscript is Utkiss's quote Petristic doseier this statement is not in Utkiss's dosier okay it does not it does not exist there so this passage is clearly a forge passage to make it look like St. Julius uh said this.
Now there's another um there's another problem as well. Um the author complains about being accused him and his son being accused of saying that uh the flesh of the you know the humanity of Christ is from heaven. Now St. Julius is never accused of this. If he is, we don't we don't have any records of it.
There's no records of St. Julius, Pope St. Julius being accused of this, but we have many records of someone being accused of this. Do you want to guess who that person is? Apollinarius. St. Greg theologian letter 101 says, "If anyone assert that his flesh came down from heaven, blah blah blah, let him be an atma." And in St. Greg, I mean, there's so many instances. I didn't want to just quote every single one of them.
So, I just quoted only one of them. But um throughout you know throughout the text he basically attacks Apollinius for saying that for claiming uh that uh the humanity of Christ was from heaven not from the Virgin Mary. So this is a this is a very common accusation against Apollinarius and here the altar is complaining about that accusation. Again we don't have any records of pope St. Julius being accused of this but we have many records of Apollinarius being accused uh of this doctrine. So with this we can see very clearly defeated incarnation clearly a work of a pollinarius. Now the other text uh dionium where there's also again u you know monophysite terminology right uh quote neophysite terminology and we have again leis bzantium saying that this is a forgery um and then we have also the same act the same complaint about claiming that the flesh is from heaven again if if I mean if popes we will expect there being records of this acquisition Because it seems like, you know, this, you know, Julius is really being accused of the same thing over and over again. He has to state this all throughout his various different letters. It's almost as if he's constantly being accused of believing a doctrine that the Apollinarius, which he lived contemporaneously, also believed or this was written by Apollinarius.
And here we have pseudo Julius saying that the body that the uh that the body is not lifegiving. Now here if he's only talking about the body then he's he has he hasn't talked about the soul at all.
Right? So if he's talking about the body to mean exclusively the body throughout this throughout this work then since there's no mention of soul we will expect there being a mention of a soul or insold body from an orthodox author.
But this does not exist in this text. If body here means human nature in general, then he denies a spiritual activity of the body because he says it neither gives life by itself. Now understand that people are going to argue no he's talking about self. No, he's talking about the activity of the soul being you know giving life like the soul does in all of us right? The soul is the life force in all human beings. It's the act it's the life force in all human beings.
If you have a soul, it by nature is active. It has a life force. So if you're human by nature, you had this life force. But he says Christ did not have this life force. That's a rejection of Christ having a soul. And finally, pseudoanas. Now there are three letters that are being claimed to be the letter to Jovian. Right? So the main accusation is at St. Atonius wrote a letter to emperor Jovian. So, Emperor Jovian was an emperor of the Roman Empire for a very short time, like less than a year.
Um, and he I I don't think he even made it to the capital at all at any point.
Um, so he had a very he had a very short rule, but he had a very significant rule because he reinstated St. Aenius back to Alexandria. So, he's a very important figure because of that. Um, now there are three letters contesting and only one of them can be true by the way.
These are not like missing parts of a greater only one of these letters can be true. Okay, that's that's also an important part. Now we have letter 56 and this is the genuine letter to Jovian. We know this because this letter and its contest and what happened after it is attested by various different church historians. Um I think like gives a copy of like just writes like copies the letter. Uh St. Gregor theologian actually talks the most about its history. Um and he basically says this was about the consubstantial this was about the constubstantiality of the trinity. This was about defending the trinity defending the council of na. It was against the aryens and the emperor listening to him you know did what was needed with Atonacius which was you know accepting his position as the bishop of as the archbishop as the patriarch of Alexandria right and again the other church historians also verify these facts. We have a massive narrative about this letter about the genuinity of this letter. Now then we have two contesting letters. Um I will state you know the letter to Jovian and then the letter to Joinian. Right now actually they're kind of basically the same name but the letter to Joinian it's it's the name of it in Petrolia Graa. So there are two distinct letters. Um but the one that is mostly associated with Apollers is the letter to Jovian. Most likely letter to Join was also written by Napoleon or by Apollinius himself. Maybe it was a second letter of Apollinius. We don't know. But what is interesting about these letters there's no mention of Trinity. There's no mention of Nika. It uses hyperasis in in a sense that will not be acceptable to St. Aenatius especially in the letter to Joinian. And with the original letter what we saw is that well it was about the trinity. Why?
Because the problem was arens because St. Andius was disposed from his sea. So obviously he will talk about the trinity. He will defend the council of na will ask the emperor you know you need to you need to maintain um the acceptance the canonicity of the council of na that's your job. So letter 56 just simply makes sense. But the other letters making no mention of trinity, making no mention of christologology, letters of join making um no mention of n and even going as far as to use hypoasis in a nonatenation sense as as I will show are clear evidences of the nonatenation origin of uh these letters.
Now both the letter to Joinian and the so-called letter to Jovian again both are written uh not written by St. states that Christ is not two natures but one nature. Uh and the letter to Joinian says one nature and hypotheasis right now in the letter to Joinian it states that the flesh is uh is natural right is sorry is rational right as an evidence that this is not written by um Apollinarius as I've shown this is not a good argument but he's saying that this is under you this was you know transmitted under Atonius's name and of course his argument is that well you know St. John Damascus and all of these other Orthodox figures, they said that this letter was by Atonius. They were wrong. They were not correct. They had a wrong opinion about a letter and they thought it was it could be interpreted in an orthodox way, but they were unaware that the letter was actually written by Apollinarius. Um now when you state this it's like oh you deny your own fathers anything which is kind of ridiculous but um they were simply not uh they were simply people who had an opinion about a document. It's like let's say you write a document yourself.
Let's say you write an article.
um you're a ghost writer, but it's published under someone else's name. And everyone thinks that he published it and everyone is evidence that and and everyone says, "Okay, yeah, you know, this person X published this amazing article, but you know, and a few other people know that it was you who actually wrote the whole thing." So if you went to like 100 years after and like there was a there's a dispute regarding the authenticity of the article will we say well I mean it has to be written by person X because everyone attests to it everyone says he wrote it that's just an opinion right it's it's just stating an opinion of this person but for example if we have someone like Dorrett who actually has access to the documents then that's not an opinion that's that is someone who has access to the documents and attests to whoever wrote that what it wrote the said document.
Anyways, to go back to this point um first of all Ming says this was clearly not written by Atonacius does not represent his style at all. Um but more importantly and I will say the most explicit uh reason why this is not written by St. Atonius is that it uses hypostasis in a sense that that Atonius will not accept it. So here it says both his nature and hypotheasis incarnate completely having become man right. So here hypostasis is kind of being used in a in a particular sense but in the 335 version of the nine creed um states that whoever asserts that the son is of a different hypoasis of the father is anata and sttonius in fact says on the senos of armenium in Italy and cucian isoria those which by the senots are you know semi-aran senots right so they were I believe both of them were composed of actual orthodox bishops who were forced to accept semi-aranism that was kind of basically will happen or at least one of them was like this. But anyways, regardless uh St. Antonius in this letter says and in what scripture did they on their part find unoriginate and the term essence and there are three substances where do they find this right? Basically um what he's basically saying is that where is three hypoasis in scriptures?
Where is three hypoasis in the teachings of the church? He's rejecting three hypotheasis because for him three hypotheasis means three essences. Three essences means well non-consubstantiality and if there's any doubts about the meaning of the passage the following passage St. Anthony says where did they find the statement Christ is not true God. So um he's using three hypotheasis as a negative belief not a not a positive um not something that people should believe. Um and there's also the other passage um which is according to only the flesh which is from Mary he is a man but according to spirit the same one is son of god and god. So I'm I'm pointing I'm pointing this because of course people might may argue that your flesh means human nature um in in Atonacius but in in a text like this where it is not mentioned at all and this is kind of again just an assumption it is I will say a minor evidence that supports the fact that this is written by um Apollinarius and moving on with the main evidences. So let's look at his evidences. So St. Damascus and St. Era of some random Latin guy from the sixth century thinks they are authentic.
That is basically the only evidence and the other evidence is well the internal text shows that they're not a pollinarian but we just refuted all of them. So the only argument that remains is just appeal to authority. Um, and again, if you think it's problematic that I'm saying the saints were wrong in attributing the identity of the person who wrote this, then I don't know what to tell you because the saints were never supposed to be historically infallible. They are infallible together in unison when they're preaching doctrine. So, um, that is that in terms of evidence for a them being aon forges.
Well, there are many texts match the literary style of other aonian fragments. I didn't even you know I didn't even discuss this but there are various different examples of this.
There's a clear eponyian doctrine in many of the works within the texts themselves that are cited.
We have testimonies that are authoritative like Leontis Bzantium who produces a interapparian dispute or Theodoret who cites a document from a pollinarius right from the writings of a polaris himself. There's no mention or citation of the attribute writings until utic is like together um used them in his appeal to pope St. Leo. Prior to that we see you know St. Carol of Alexander coming into contact with uh Suda Atonius. So he cites Suda's letter to Jovian and he cites also I believe at protocium and this is even cited in the council of Ephesus. So um one of the Apollinarian forgeries even made it to the council of Ephesus but it didn't have any epolinarian teaching in it. So u it wasn't necessarily problematic but it was it still made it into the council of Ephesus. So conclusion there's a very good reason why scholarship agrees they are forgeries for the exact reasons and more that I have shown here. Now next part that I want to discuss is the is the part about St. Simeon the stylite.
So he believes St. Simeon um was an anti-calcian because there are two letters the letter to Mar Jacoup of Kafra and the letter to Emperor Leo um condemning the council of Kalcodon. So let us first talk about the history and then the letters that he claims to be written by St. Simeon himself.
Now, first of all, in terms of his, you know, the historical life that we know of from the main sources, putting aside the letters for a second for good reason, is that he's not only a Cadonian, he was a friend of the Antiocin theologians of his day. So, St. Simeon the Stylite lived at the time of the council of Calcidon and he died in 457. So he knew of the council of Kalcodon and he was a recip sorry he I think he died in 459 rather not in 457.
Um nevertheless he lived through those times he was friends with for example Theodoret right Theodoret even uh wrote uh about the life of St. Simeon the silite in his history and the important part where St. Simeon becomes relevant is in 457 St. Marian, Emperor Marian dies and we have a new emperor, Emperor Leo in 457.
Um, he know he notices that there's a significant issue most notably in Alexandria. So in Alexandria, St. Proterius gets murdered and um in 454 while St. Proterius was the patriarch of Alexandria uh Timothy A. Lurus upon Dioscurus's death made himself bishop of Alexandria right he basically ordained himself as bishop in secret unconically etc etc and he basically said no I'm the real bishop of Alexandria proarius is the fake one but obviously Peterius was elected by a synad of bishops right and he was elected you know legitimately uh and was kicked out of the church also deposed you know legitimately but that's a different debate basically there was this situation at hand right with St. Protus's death, Emperor Leo uh wanted to ask two things from the people that he circulated this letter to. Number one, what do we think about the council of Calcadon? Okay, do we think it's an orthodox council? Do we accept it?
Number two, what do we do with Timothy?
Is he a bishop of is he a bishop of Alexandria? Should we keep him or should we get rid of him and because he's a, you know, not a bishop and should we get an actual bishop in Alexandria? Now this is the narrative that Evagras Scholasticus explains. This narrative is accepted by the monophysite historian Zechariah Mitili. Okay. And this is also part of the narrative of the very letters that he himself cites right the uh the so-called letter to emperor you know Leo letter to Mar Jacob of Kafra right. So both narratives, both the orthodox narrative and the monofite narrative know like state that this is something that happened right emperor Leo asked bishops on their opinion on the council.
Moreover, we also know that according to again both the narrative presented in the letter to Marafrao and your narrative that St. Simeon was one of the recipients of the letter. We also know this 100%. Right? Both sides agree on this, right?
And we also know from Evagrias and Zechariah Mitilene that everyone except for Afilocus of Ceda except the council of Calcodon.
Um, Evagras says this. Zachariah says this.
So now Zachchariah does not necessarily state that St. Simeon was a recipient of the letter but the supposed letters of St. Simeon does indeed say basically I received your letter and now I'm responding to you that I reject you know the council of Kalo basically so both narratives accept the following emperor Leo circulated letters St. Simeon received the letter. Only Afilocus rejected Castadon. But even Afilocus bas basically everyone accepted yeah this Timothy guy is not a bishop. He should be you know he should be kicked out. We should get an actual bishop etc. So everyone agreed on that on that point right uh so I will say that Zechariah is also proof that St. Simeon accepted Cassidon, right? Because he said everyone except for Afilus accepted Cassidon, right? This is what Zechariah says. Um now if you look at the letters themselves um now these letters, there are four letters, three of them supposedly written by um St. Simeon. One of them is written about St. Simeon. Now these letters exist um in a there there are two like monopsai floor religion in the 8th and 9th centuries. Um and they are parts of that floria.
So u if you want more more on this this is uh uh Tori's uh the letters of Simeon the stylite right and he basically argues these letters are most likely forgeries and today they're accepted to be forgeries. So I'm going to talk about all four of the letters and give reasons the problem with with these letters.
First of all as I said these are very late fragments. Okay, we didn't we didn't have them until the 8th and 9th centuries. Um, and one of the things again they accept the orthodox narrative that is that s St. Simeon was a recipient of the letter. But it is not that it is not as if St. Simeon first accepted it and then rejected it. St. Simeon claims well rather pseudo Simeon claims I never accepted the council.
Okay. So in the first letter to Emperor Leo um he says that he is rejecting custom a second time. Right. um and he is complaining about emperor the emperor's late response um after pseudo simeon responded to his circular letter denying conidon. Now this detail this detail is very crucial in determining the fact that this is most likely a forgery. Why? Because St. Simeon died in September 459.
Um but the emperor's circulated letter was either written in late 457 or in 458. Right? and to understand about like how letters operate. Um it's not normal to expect like an instant response from letters. Okay, when you wrote a letter, it will take time, right? It will go on a massive journey on wherever it's going. Um and you know, we're talking about St. Simeon, he's in the Middle East and then the emperor who's in Constantinople. So there's a there's quite a fair distance. Um it takes days and once it even reaches it takes, you know, days to kind of, you know, it doesn't mean that, oh, I read your letter, I'm going to respond immediately. Sometimes it's it takes time. Sometimes there won't be a response for some time. So um there's basically not enough time for s for pseudo simeon to for you know uh if the if this is written by the actual saint simeon to say I'm waiting on your response. You're taking too long to respond to me. Especially when the emperor is writing many letters to many different people, right? He's circulating the letters to many different people and St. Simeon is complaining that he hasn't responded to him. this doesn't really seem realistic.
Um, second letter letter to Jacob of Kafra, he said, and in this letter to Jacob, he says, um, I never accepted Kazon and I never accepted it. Right?
Um, and he attributes the one of the reasons why this is most likely for is that the attribution is that he's Simeon who stands upon the pillar near the village Telness. Um, now the problem with this is that St. Simeon is he doesn't need to specify that like oh I am the Simeon who sits upon the pillar here as if there are multiple other Simeons around. Um he is he was at his at his in his life he was a once in a lifetime kind of a person. Of course afterwards there was a lot there were a lot of styites that imitated him but St. Simon in his time was was the unique man. He didn't need to specify himself in this direction. Um it's more likely that the forger uh stated this to make the people like to make it sure that the people who are reading it basically people in the 8th and 9th centuries that he's trying to propagate this letter to is well this is this is this Simeon this is the same Simeon the style of this time he's the one writing this letter not the other Simeians and then we have the third letter led to John of Antioch and he's in this letter he tells John of Antioch to ally with St. and and to not delay going to Ephesus.
Um which I mean this is basically clairvoyance which I mean I mean this is St. Simeon of course he has clairvoyance but it is basically saying you know John of Antioch don't be late to the council.
Uh so for those who don't know what this reference is to uh the council of Ephesus began because John of Antioch was late. So either this is stating that John of Antioch deliberately went late which first of all there's no reason for that. If anything, he will want to be early to defend uh to basically defend himself and um to defend Ntorius at this time. Um but another reason is is also because it's kind of a strange thing to strange thing to know. And if this really was an act of clairvoyance, let's let's grant that for a second. You will expect this to be noted in his life, right? Like people will say, "Wow, you know, here's a here's a instance of clairvoyance of, you know, um St. Simeon. He told John of Antioch not to be late but he was late because John of Antioch didn't listen to him. That didn't happen. Like no one states that this was a miraculous event throughout his history. We see this first time in here. So it's quite interesting that we will see in this letter. And then we have letter four, the letter of Alexandro Mabbok and Andrew of Samosata to John of Antioch and Theodor to Osiris. So this is about uh St. Simeon.
And basically they're stating that oh you know Simeon has opposed us and he's not one of us anymore. He's he's against us. Basically, um when you so when you read the four letters in this way, this is a very convenient narrative that all they all came out in the 8th and 9th centuries. We didn't have this before.
No church history mentioned, you know, Evagras doesn't mention it. Zechariah of Italy doesn't mention it. None of these people mentioned it. We see this mentioned here and it's just super convenient. We have this like massive narrative. Emperor Leo circulates the letter to him. He says, "I never accept the cast. Where is your second letter?
I'm waiting on your response." Then to another person, hey, I don't accept Kan.
Never accepted Kan any unless anyone claims that I did based on, you know, the reports of Evagrias and and you know history of Orthodox historioggraphy. So it's just the basic uh reputation. It's it's just too good to be true. The letter is just frankly too good to be true. And as Tori says, the these are all these are very clear evidences that these letters were late developments. So if you want me to give you like a very brief um proof that St. Simeon was Calconian, look at Evagrias. Look at Evagras's um statement that he accepts it. And then look at Zechariah Mittellin who says only um only Amphiloccus rejected Cstone implying that everyone else accepted Cone. And again both narratives again remember this both narratives admit St. Simeon received the letter. So when Zachchariah is saying everyone that includes St. Simeon. If it doesn't include St. Simeon, then Zechariah is disagreeing with the narrative proposed in these letters, which at that point there's a contradiction within the monophysite narrative. So it's very clear the Orthodox narrative is just much more consistent um even in light with Zechariah of Mitim. Now he cites this from against you 4 um saying this is from St. Basil. This is not from St. Basil. It's very notorious to know that against you four and five were not written by St. Basil himself. It's debated who actually wrote it but this is not written by St. Basil. Um and then we have um this uh homaly homony 23 of St. in Proctor of Constantinople um where the statement two natures in one nature is made right now this um statement is made by a Syriak fragment which he also cites from Ming but this is actually from Cardinal Mai right but we will look at what the um actual uh fragment says well not actual fragment but rather one of the earliest fragments um one of the earliest manuscripts not fragments but one of the earliest manuscripts which is a Coptic manuscript states that we do not divide the natures into two persons but the two natures are one person. So this is this is the Coptic manuscript right? Um now this is the Syriak manuscript that he is citing from Vatican 369. Then there's a Vatican 368. Um the problem with these uh manuscripts is Vatican 368 which must be considered with Vatican 369 is mutilated on the very same part. So this is basically removed and deleted. Um and you know Carla Mai as Carl Mai states this is most likely done by monophysite who was displeased with the orthodox statement of St. Proclas. Uh so it states a deliberate manipulation and so Vatican 369 well seems like there is the same intention um with Vatican 369 with manipulating the document. More importantly the homaly I cited is the Coptic manuscript which predates the Syriak manuscripts by two centuries.
Moreover, the citations of St. Ephraim of Antioch Bzantium of Jerusalem which are all sixth century figures. And then we also have John Maron who has a very you know working with more authentic fathers which states that you know there are two natures in Christ crisis in two natures. Um they all agree with the two natures in one hyperstasis um statement and they predate also the Syriak manuscript. Um, so there's just frankly no good evidence of the authenticity of the Syriak fragment, especially in light of the fact that there's evidence of mutilation of another Syriak fragment again Vatican 368.
So he cites the oration on the dormish of blessed Mary attributed to St. K of Jerusalem. Um now he there's there's he cites this passage below right the attribution to kurill is accepted by bur gospel bur's gospel and vates evangelian 17 right these are the shortened version of the works here's a question what book is this from because it wasn't easy for me to find this book but I did um it wasn't easy I can tell you that much this book is this is from a very interesting book but I will say more importantly is this the full citation is he is he telling is he giving us the full statement here? Now this book is from Morton Smith's Clement of Alexandria and the secret gospel of Mark. So for those who don't know who Morton Smith is uh this is a guy who thinks that uh you know the apostle you know Mark wrote his secret gospel and he found the secret gospel and then the evil Christians took it away and he took a photograph of it and so he has the evidence and he wrote a whole book about it. Basically is a skitso. Um now first of all Aen only cited the the attribution that accepts this to right so this is the citation from the video if you don't believe me you can see the video for itself now the full citation is what we see on the right the attribution to kur is accepted by bur vates and doubted by vhava and denied by James review of hen and altoner in patrol. So this this discourse is contested but he only cited the part which they accepted and he states this to be false the text will nevertheless come from southern Palestine and probably from the century after Kir's death right uh so first of all this there's this detail right this is a disputed passage um and this is most likely a forgery not written by St. K of Jerusalem because I don't think St. of Jerusalem will baptize someone in the name of uh in the name of the virgin Mary. I think they will baptize them in the name of the trinity uh not in the name of the virgin Mary. And if you think um this is actually all no he talks about the person taking the name Mary. No uh because he again baptized him in the name of the lady of us all saint Mary whose day is this date. This is not um this is not a formulation that I've seen myself. So this is most likely not a work of uh St. Jerusalem.
Now we've gone to the third stage, blatant misrepresentation of the fathers. Uh let's start with St. Uni.
First of all, I'm really confused what he's trying to do with the statement. I mean, maybe I just don't understand, but um in the Latin passage that he himself cites u right that uh he's condemning those who say that the lord is made of one substance and another substance. um even the creative dominant xepsis x alter x alter that's from. So he's basically saying um that he condemns those who say that the the word was formed from two substances.
Um that will be a denial of from two natures. So I I'm confused what he was doing with here. Uh then we have St. John Cassian who he quotes you know St. St. John Cassian saying you know God and Jesus is in one of the same substance and then you see the substance of Christ and God. The problem is this is talking about the divine nature. Uh first of all the you see in three you know uh in the citation on the left right therefore understand without doubt right the citation below um the full citation shows that this is talking about divine nature because he says he you see then you see then that the judgment seat of God is the same as that of Christ. Yeah.
Because they have the same nature. um he's talking about the divinity here. Um then we have um uh he he cites St. Ambrose talking about uh new work. Uh this is a misunderstanding. So his argument is that well St. Ambrose is saying that there's a new work because of the incarnation. No, there's a new work because of the resurrection. He's talking about the resurrection being the new work of Christ because the resurrection transformed the humanity of Christ. This is very common in Petristic understanding of the resurrection. So this is not referring to a one composite energy of or will of Christ. This is referring to a new operation of his uh resurrected humanity. Uh passages about St. Dunius the Aropagite. Uh so here uh on on the top he says that Christ came forth according to one nature. Oh you see he says one nature. Well what is fusinos? We're going to look at that. Um because one thing that we might have to ask oursel to anyone who knows Greek fusenos they don't they don't agree with each other. Fuzzin is feminine. Enos is not feminine. So Enos is talking about something else. Then why is he only putting putting fus in Enos? Um then we have letter four to gayos which we'll also look at. Um the you know God in energy of God having become man.
So uh first of all I put the I put the more you know in context citation and also the Greek passage uh which states that advancing to the divided condition of ourselves without change from the essential one and the basis for this translation is that again fuses is a feminine word but enos is the masculine neutrogenitative of ace or hen which both mean one right. So in Greek um one has three genders. The masculine is hes uh the neutral is hen. The feminine is mia right and this is why right mia fizzes because they agree with each other one nature. But enos does not agree with nature because enos as I said is masculine neuter genative. So enos does not modify fuses. So he's not stating that there's one nature. Um rather it modifies ecto right um and it is genative because said construction is also genative.
That's what is going on here. So more idiomatically the phrase means proceeding unchangeably from the one according to nature toward or divided condition and then we have uh these these passages here. Now if you look at the actual again uh translation in terms of uh the supernatural nature of Jesus translation right what he's actually saying first of all um in this in this passage St. Dysius is basically saying Christ took the substance as man.
He took the human nature. He says we have received as a mystery but we do not know in what manner from virginal bloods by a different law beyond nature. So the humanity um is supernatural. That's basically what he's saying. His humanity is supernatural. He was formed and how with dry how with dry feet having a bodily bulk and weight of matter he marched upon the liquid and unstable substance. And so with regard to all the other features of the super physical physiology of Jesus dot dot dot dot uh so basically at least the way I understand he's talking about the human nature becoming super physical and physiological but uh this is not specifically a statement of again Christ having overall one nature he's talking about the human nature this passage so then we have epistle 4 first of all uh in this epistle St. Denis talks about uh there being one you know incarnate you know newandic nature not neutranic nature newandic will and energy which St. Maximus and the sixth council accepts with with an orthodox interpretation. So it is not a specifically monafite understanding.
However, um if you are to look at the actual translation compared to the monophysite uh passage in quotation that we see which is Jesus who is the firstborn among all is connected to all men by substance the same entirely become became truly man. It's dot dot dot. The actual translation states how you ask is Jesus who is beyond all ranked essentially with all men. For not as author of man is he here called man but as being in absolute whole essence truly man. So Christ takes on the entire essence of humanity. He is in his whole human essence fully man. But he is not he's not man only. Neither sup super super essential nor man only. So he is both super essential that is divine and also man but truly man. He who is preeminently a lover of man. the super essential taking substance above man and after man from the substance of men. Now I don't remember if they left translation states that uh Christ is fully man he takes on full full human essence. So even the very epistle where he teaches one tandic bill there is there is the persistence of the human u human nature afterwards. So now let's get to the relevant passage letter letter four new god incarnate energy of God having become man. Does this mean that St. Dianius is a monotelite? No it does not. If you look at on the divine names chapter 2 paragraph 6 he explicitly states that the veils and energies uh are in some sense not communicated um rather what he's saying is that the in his human work of god right so he says regards to Christ in his human work of god um for in these the father and the spirit in no respect communicated right so in his human activities ities the father and spirit is not communicated to them that is it is the human work it is the human activity so he's confessing a human activity that the father and the spirit does not take part of that's dio that's dioenergist then he states thus we too strive to unite and distinguish in the word the things divine as the things divine themselves are united and distinguished what he's stating here is that just like we are distinguishing the persons of the trinity without dividing them we are distinguishing things in the word without dividing uh Christ into two persons.
Then we have uh this the work on the incarnation against Apollinarius and he claims that this is uh we have to accept this as a work of St. Aius because the fifth council cites this as a work of St. Athonius.
No, we don't. We don't have a not just the the sixth council cites it as a work of uh St. Atonius. No, we don't. Again um we are not beholdened to the historical analysis of even of even like the council stating okay this work is from this person. The council can be wrong in stating who wrote this but in receiving the writing it is basically stating this writing is orthodox right this uh text so to speak uh this passage is orthodox and the council receives it and puts it as an evidence against its opponent. So yes people did believe that St. Athtonius was the author of it. But a really significant reason why we know St. Atonius was not the author is because again the unatonation use of hypoasis which was explicitly used in the sense of particular which is again St. Aonius does not use um hypoasis in any other sense other than essence in any other sense other than us. So we know for sure Atonius did not write this text. It was someone else. Um but it's quite amusing that he does cite this text because if you actually read the text um the the text is very dohite. Um the author states that uh the word became flesh not that the word might not no longer be word but that the word might be always word and at the same time the word might have flesh in which he accepted the passion and death in his human form. Now in the very same work the author states that form and nature are identical. So he's saying that he suffered death in his human nature.
But it's not only just the author of this work. Various different other files like St. John Chrysum as I've shown in my uh video uh on the Bible proving two natures. This is you know form is identical to nature. Um and then we have um this statement right the word became you superior to angels. It was not the word himself the maker of the angels that became their superior as if he had ever been inferior but that form of the servant. So it's the human nature that became superior to the angels according to the author and it became by nature God's own flesh right the humanity of Christ became by nature God's own flesh not as being co-essential with godhead of the word and then later he says for that which is co-essential impassible and incapable of death does not admit of union with what is coessential in regard to hypostasis but in regard to nature whereas in regard to hypoasis it exhibits its own perfection. So here clear evidence of the unattonation use of hypostasis. So clearly the author is not atonacious but the author is clearly theophysite.
Now he cites um the influence of theodor of Mobs on Augustine's letter 187 by JMW Dart uh who argues that there is a line from Theodor of Mobsia to St. Augustine to proer of Accutane to pop St. Leo.
basically Theodor of Mobs influenced Pope Leo in this regard and it was he was influenced through St. Augustine right so basically the argument is in St. Augustine's letter 187 according to JMW Dward. Um Augustine was influenced by Theodor of Mapsia as it is seen in the way he uses Theodor's terminology.
This article is actually refuted by Farjam Makin. Did Augustine's theology depend on Theodor of Mapsia and also Robert Kiche the antipellagian christologology of Augustine. So here Farja Makin gives a very simple um argument and reputation says Dart proceeds in the second part of her thesis to tie the connecting lines between Augustine and the antio even more tightly by postulating a direct literary dependence of letter 187 on Theodor's de incarnation. To support this she cites seven instances of parallelism in none of them can I find any synonymity of language only the commonality of the team of God's presence in the saints. At several instances of supposed parallel, Augustine is clearly elaborating his argument from the basis of biblical illusions which are now present in Theodore. If there had been a literary dependence, biblical paradigms might well have been omitted but hardly added in the way they appear in Augustine's text, closely woven into the fabric of his argument. And the other argument he makes is that you know Dart makes this bad argument that um Theodore was circulated by the Latins like there there will be Latin works of because St. Augustine didn't read Greek he didn't know a lot of Greek so he will not be able to read Theodor in Greek he will have to if he read Theodor he will have to have read him in the Latin the problem with this is Theodor's works were not really popular in Latin. Um the only evidence that we have of that that she and she used this as an evidence.
The problem with this evidence is that they are uh they only show that the circulation of his writings in the sixth century and is by the defenders of the three chapters. Right? It is not um because they read Theodore beforehand.
It was to defend the three chapters. Um so that is those are not evidences for Theodor Mobest's writings being u you know spread in Latin. There's frankly no evidence um as far as I can see of St. Augustine somehow finding out about Mobs and reading him. Um now uh there's an interesting argument that they make in which they argue that look St. Augustine admits that he was actually influenced by Theodore because he uses a terminology from Theodor of Mobsia namely the term man of the lord.
So man of the lord is not accepted at all in you know monophasai terminology I I will suppose and they're using it well man of the lord is a specifically notorian term andor uses it and staint Augustine even goes and and says I regret using the term man of the lord I wish it that I had not now he doesn't cite the full passage because in the full passage he says but there is an orthodox way to cite this passage according to some orthodox teachers but anyways the argument is look I read it in the writings of certain Catholic commentators on the sac sacred scriptures. Well, this seems to mean he must have read Theodor of Mobsia. Is that really the case? Um first again this is the fuller part later. In fact, I saw that it should not have been said although it can be defended with some justification. So he says this can still be justified. So did he really get this from Mapsia? Is this really a specifically netorian terminology?
Because if you look at the term man of the lord in Latin it's homdminicus in Greek it's hokuryakos anthropos.
Let's look at St. Gregor of Nissa. He says the man of the lord of the savior cried out to his father on the cross saying father into your hands I entrust my spirit. So we have s grifnissa using the term man of the lord. Then we have epipanius of cyprus. He says he says you know he talks about the constitution of the man of the lord kiryuanropu in another instance he says Christ has suffered in the flesh I say in the man of the lord himself which the holy god logos himself who came from the heavens formed so Christ suffered in the man of the lord first of all this is very explicitly theophazite but even more than that again this statement is used by s griissa and staint epipanius if you want to read more on the use of kurakanos because there's more Um it is in Marcelos of Anankura apparently. Um it is um arguably it is in St. Aenatius.
Um it is arguably in St. Jerome. Uh according to Rufinus of Aakula it's it's in St. Jerome. So the term Kiryakosanthropos or Homodinus is not is is not as rare as they will want you to think. So this is absolutely no evidence of Theodorian influence on St. Augustine. It's much more likely that St. Augustine got this from actual Orthodox writers that actually do use this term.
Now u we have uh quotes that he uses from uh saints of roms against baron and helix. Um one thing I would like to state in my personal opinion it feels like against baron helix is too good to be true of a work. I am saying this when he thinks that it favors his view, but it absolutely doesn't because this work is explicitly diotilly. It's explicitly dioenist and it's explicitly um it's explicitly uh diophysite. And I could even go as far as to just like cite all of the fragments because frankly it it is as I said too good to be true. Um again it's I don't know much about the authenticity of it. It does seem to be authentic according to some according to some others. it does not seem to be authentic but I haven't seen you know when was this written etc but nevertheless he cites this and he thinks that it favors his view so let us see if it actually does now in the text of the in the left it states that there's one natural substance right this is basically what's implied by the by the text but this is using the Latin translation if you look at the Greek fragment if you if you look at the Greek statement um the statement is not natural substance is natural existence orin right is existence. So it's basically stating that the divine and human exist as one.
That's not that's hardly a one nature statement. But then when we look at the full quote what he does did not site the following sentence um the following par the following sentences he says showing himself thus as both being in reality and as being understood to be one at the same time infinite god and finite man having the nature of each in perfection with the same activity that is to say the same natural properties. You can see the Greek passage um below here, right? He has the essence, right? The essence of each perfectly, right? In their perfection with their energies and their natural properties. I mean, this is just classic. This is just classic datalitism. This is just classic two nature theology. Um Vince, we know that their distinction abides always according to the nature of each and without conversion. Now remember in the debate he said there is no distinction of natures after the union. He's St. Hippolitus here is saying we know that there distinction abides always according to the nature of each. So on the natural level there is a distinction. Um this is another passage that he uh that he quotes. I'm just going to quote the previous passage that gives the full context because here um basically it's just you know the two energies operating as one right in in their unique mode. Well, if you look at the pre previous passage, he explains how. For they did not perceive that it is impossible. So, he's talking about his opponents, right? Baron and Helix.
For they did not perceive that it is impossible for the energy of the divine nature to become the property of a being of a different nature apart from conversion. What what does it mean here?
So, let me translate this very simply.
If you have different natural if the natural properties of an X nature become the natural properties of a Y nature then there's a change of natures. What he's basically saying is that the properties of the divine nature cannot be the properties of another nature including the human nature or any other nature. So he's basically saying that if there are you know if there are there's a union of the natures their properties remain in their respective natures which again he also denied yet he cites St. Hippolitus to support his argument. Um and then in the last um sentence in the last fragment he says baron therefore since the case stands with him and as I have already stated confounding together in nature the deity and the humanity of Christ in a single energy and again separating them in person subverts the life not knowing that the identical operation is indicative of the co-natural identity only of co-natural persons. What he's basically saying is that if you have the sameness of energy and the sameness of property you have the sameness of nature. So if Christ is a single energy you cannot have u you know you cannot you cannot even really have a single Christ you will have two Christ you will have a separation because they will be they will be separated of the same nature basically this is kind of the the argument that he's going for but simply put the properties of divinity and humanity cannot be confused with one another according to saintus or rather according to the author of against bon and helix right um now in in the work of saintus in his exposit it speeches against the Jews. He says Christ prayed all this economically as man being however true God but as I have already said it was the form of the servant that spake and suffered these things from the servant is the human nature.
Now last part this is a short floor on the visitism or two nature theology in the fathers let's look at St. John Cassian um against Ntorious book one chapter 6 he cites the confession of Leaporius who repents from his palagianism um and this is the confession rejecting one substance talking about um two substances the double the double substance the two-fold substance of the lord um and we know again as I say he said god forbid leorus says this and John and St. Jcast says this is the confession of the church.
God forbid that we should imagine that the two natures being in any way in a way molded together should become one substance for a mixture of this sort is destructive of both parts. So this is a very important statement. Mixture of this sort is destructive of both parts.
So neither part shall be destroyed.
Right? Both parts therefore should remain after the union. And this is stated you know in his confession which is again uh clearly theophysite. But if you want theophysitism in St. John Cassium look no further than this statement. He says most admirably does he that is Saints Paul point not merely to him who was visible but to him who was in what was visible distinguishing the indweller from him in whom he dwelt by pointing out the natures not by denying the unity of persons. Again nurum that's in the plural. So yes, maybe two is not there but um is a plural statement. So he's talking about two natures and what is he doing?
Distinguishing the inver from in him in whom he dwelt. And this is a you know this is a popular uh biblical argument uh especially this is uh associated with antiogs but really it's just a biblical as application of you know God dwelling in the tabernacle. Just like how God dwelt in the tabernacle, God now dwells in his tabernacle which is in his body.
Um and so he says we distinguish the dweller from what what is dwelt not because they are separate persons but because they are distinct by nature.
This is a distinction of natures after the union because God is indwelling in something in in a nature that is established. So this is a two natures after the union uh quote. Then we have St. Ambrose and this is quoted by the third ecimenical council. He says, "Let us take heed and and by the Greek passage, of course, this was written in Latin, but the Greek passages to record how the Greek um you know how the Greek translation was recorded." And he says, "Let us take heed to the distinction of the Godhead from the flesh. In each there speaks one and the same son of God, for each nature is present in him."
The Greek term is heater, right? Heatra means each. It's basically the same as utra. So it considers each nature you know as as a single thing. Um basically saying in each nature right of right so in him speaks each nature.
Now if this is if this is not convincing enough oh there there are two that each nature is indeed in Christ but Christ is not in each nature. And this doesn't mean that there's a distinction of the natures after the union. If that is not enough, then the last passage because he speaks in my nature referring to USA.
How does he speak in our nature if that nature is not in him? Simple as that. So again this is again cited in the third communical council. Then we have another letter of St. Ambrose who attacks the apollinarians because they affirm one substance. This is repeated in another work, the incarn in incarnion incarnationist Dominic Sacramento um where he again attacks those who say uh the flesh of the lord and his divinity became one nature and in his letter 46 which is against the pollinarians again uh he says Christ was in the form of a servant in Latin forma but he was also in the glory of God the father in glory de so Christ is in the form of a servant and in the glory of But also scripture tells us he is in the form of God. So he's in human nature, in divine nature, in two natures.
As Kakadon says, nevertheless, in the psalm, the son has plainly called the father lord. They that looked upon me shake their heads. Help me, oh Lord, my God. For speaking in the form of a servant, he called him Lord, whom he knew to be his father, though equal in the form of God, proclaiming himself to be a servant according to the substance of his flesh. Remember as I state as I quoted this letter, in this letter he states that um form is nature, right?
Form is the perfection of uh nature according to St. Ambrose. And then we have this statement uh this longer statement uh where he commentates again on Philippians. He says what is the meaning of or well actually now I'm talking about it I didn't talk about it before I'm talking about it now but I talked about it in a different video now I'm repeating here. He says, "What is the meaning of in the form of God, but in the fullness of the Godhead, in the expression of the divine perfection?
Being therefore in the fullness of the Godhead, he emptied himself of it and receive the fullness of human nature and perfection, so that in either form, in utrakia form, all right, in each form, he might be perfect." Wherefore, David also says, "Though art fairer than the children of men, the Apollinarian is confuted. He has no refuge to turn to.
He is caught in his own net. For he himself had said he took up he took upon him the form of a servant. He was not chosen to be a servant. I ask again therefore what is the meaning of in the form of God? He replies in the nature of God. Which is which he affirms. I inquire what is the meaning of took upon him the form of a servant. Doubtless as I have stated the perfection of the nature and condition of man that he might be in the likeness of man. And then he says he was seen in the form of man. So Christ is in the form of God, in the form of man. Form means nature. He was seen in the form of God. He was seen in the form of man. He is seen in two forms. He is in two forms. Says you can't get in. He's he is in either form.
He is in each form. He is in both forms.
He is in two forms. This is what St. Ambrose is simply stating. Now let's move to St. Hillary of Portier. You know on the trinity book nine. I have been compelled to dwell briefly on this less we shall forget our Lord Jesus Christ is being treated off as a person of each nature. This is the more appropriate translation. Since he who was abiding in the form of God took the form of a servant in which he was obedient even unto death. The obedience of death has nothing to do with the form of God. So it's obedience is only to the form of man only to the human nature. This is explicitly by the way condemned in in seis that you can't attribute things only to a specific nature. Well here here St. Hillary does exactly that. Just as the form of God is not inherent in the form of a servant, yet through the mystery of the gospel dispensation, the same person is in the form of a servant and in the form of God. Same person is in the form of a servant, in the form of God. For his nature, he is in two natures. This is just constidon all over again. Though it is not the same thing to take the form of a servant and to be abiding in the form of God. Nor could he who was abiding in the form of God take the form of a servant without emptying himself. Why? because the combination of the two forms will be in Congress. So they cannot be one form. You can't you can't get any clearer than in this passage. And then we have St. John Chrysm in his deon substantial. Now I'm quite sure this is this is indeed an authentic work um in uh we have according to St. St. John Chrysstm scholar um this is a uh Vitzu according to Vitzu this is an authentic authentic text and here St. John Chrysstm uh in commentating on uh the Lord's agony in the garden of Gethsemane uh he says you know in this but he prefaced this as the heretic right so he's basically making an argument against his opponent um that denies the consubstantiality uh of Christ with God and with man he says for the words indicate not only distress but also two wills one of the son and one of the father opposed to one another for the saying not as I will but as I but as you shows this yet they have never admitted this rather while we say I and the father are one with respect to power they claim that this is said with respect to will asserting that the father and the son have one will now he says if then the will of the father and the son is one how does he say here nevertheless not as I will but as you will for if this is said with respect to the divinity a contradiction arises and many absurdities follow from But if it is said with respect to the flesh, the words make sense and no blame results. So basically stating that if when Christ saying not as I will but as you will if that is stated in his divine will that doesn't make any sense because they have one will but if it is stated in his human will then the statement will make sense. Um and else and again in the same work he says he leaves it by himself stripped of his own activity in order that by showing its weakness he might confirm its nature. Um then he says for just as if he continually displayed what is human this will have been taught of him. This will have been taught of him. So also if he constantly performed what belongs to divinity the doctrine of the dispensation uh will not have been believed. For this reason he varies and intervenes both words and deeds so that he might give no occasion either to the disease and madness of Paul Samosa nor to that of Marcus. So what he's basically saying here sometimes Christ acts only as God.
Sometimes he c he acts only as man and sometimes he acts as both simultaneously u to basically uh state that the heresies that deny his divinity and heresies that deny his humanity are both heretical. Again this is uh distinguishing the sayings and applying them to the natures. I want to finalize my argument with the with a discussion on the letter 32 of St. Gregor of Nissa.
Now this is uh our opponents love to claim that this is a forgery. This is a forgery by Leant an evil forgery by Leansu Jerusalem. So what I will do is I will demonstrate that this letter does have decent um testament to its authenticity. Um now this is relevant because in this letter St. Greek of Nissa says Christ then existing in two natures. Right? Right. So he states that Christ exists in two natures bears in himself the in unconfusible and indivisible distinction between the word and the insold flesh through which the principle of the properties is preserved integrally. So very clear do theizite statement right the properties essential properties are attached to their respective respective natures. Now the main argument says manuscripts are late and it's first attested by the notorious forger Leantius of Jerusalem who is very unreliable and we can never trust him.
And this letter is not popularly circulated. It's you don't see it everywhere and this is a question mark.
Why is it why is it not stated? Um why is it not circulated? Especially if this you know if this letter is right you will expect this to be circulated even by theites. But it is very rarely. So I would like to start with the manuscripts are late argument. Um this is not an argument because we have many manuscripts uh we have many texts that we trust that have late manuscripts like the Daki. I think the earliest manuscript goes as far as back to the 10th century and we really only found out about the Daki in the 19th century in in an orthodox man. I think in mount atos like that's the first time like people kind of discovered the dedaki but now we know the dedaki is a is an actual document written by the apostles. Um so late manuscripts it's not about the date of the manuscripts it's about the quality of the manuscripts that matter.
Um second about the notorious forger Leontius no scholar really considers him a notorious forger. Um Patrick Gray in his introduction on Leon Jerusalem's against the monophysites rather states that the problem with Leontius is that he's very careless with his sources. He works with bad sources and he pretty much works with anything that he can get his hands across. Right? So it is true he's very careless with sources. He's not very super reliable.
But the argument is not dependent merely on Leontis as I will show and he is not the main source of uh the authenticity of the letter. In fact, it is much more likely that it is more independent. Um on the point about it not being popular circulated, this is something that I will discuss uh discuss later. But mainly this is a private letter and a private letter not being popularly circulated is actually very normal. Uh but let us look at the history of attestations. So um in scholarship we knew leans of Jerusalem we knew St. John Damascus and there's actually difference between the attistation of St. John Damascus and Leon Jerusalem. So they don't even they don't exactly like take from the same source but this letter existed only in the fragmentaryary form in in in the scholarship and then we discover John Maron. Now John Maron is a monotilite patriarch. You know, you have the Marinite sect in Roman Catholicism.
He's basically the he's basically Marinites. Maron, John Maron, that he's the guy. He's basically the guy, right, of the Marinites. And um you know, John Maron was a monatalite. Um so he was not very well regarded. He was uh pretty much a hostile treated as a as as someone hostile. But John Maron um with John we find a large portion of the letter. So if you have access to the letter it is thanks to Jamaran and he translated the letter to Syriak right. Uh then we have um the we have the fact that you know this translation is not dependent on Leontius because a large portion of the letter um transl was by him and Leontius only has a fragment right um unlike John. John actually probably had the entire letter. So that also indicates difference of sources. Now moving on, we have Giovanni Marcati who finds a 16th century Latin manuscript and then he traces it to a 9th century Latin manuscript. And one interesting detail about the Latin manuscript is that it is clearly translated by someone who knows Greek quite well because it is very carefully translated. It is completely aware of the Capidokian terminology. It is aware of the terminological norms um in translating it to Latin. There's a lot of statements, you know, kind of like in parentheses you could think um and renderings of the key Greek theological terms from Greek to Latin. So this is not just translated by anyone. This was translated by someone who knows the the two languages and the tradition of the two languages like the back of his hand.
The most likely candidate is the s is St. Donicius Exugus who's the saint in Roman in the Romanian patriarchet. Um who's one of the skits monks. He's basically the most likely candidate. uh one of the other reasons is because he already translated another work of St. Gregnissa on the on the creation on the making of man or on the creation of man.
So theius Exagus um is most likely the translator of this work. Now if you move on to the private letter objection um it's not being circulated so popularly is is really not surprising for a private letter. It's it's basically the norm. Um, it will be strange if it was promulgated actually because first of all, private letters are well private.
They're not supposed to be spread around. They're just private letters sent between. So, if it was spread around widely all across the world, it will kind of make you ask, okay, either this letter is super popular or there's something going on around here. Um, and another argument that I will also make is that if this was a forgery, last thing I will want is to forge a private letter with a with a foreign sender because he there's no other recipient.
uh Phillip the the letter is to the monk Phillip. There's no other letter with the recipient monk Phillip. You will basically want a recipient that is in Gregory's corpus. You don't have that.
Um so there's a lot of reasons why a forgi is just very unlikely. Uh but compared to other letters in the ancient Greek world, we actually have very decent attestation information about this letter. So for example, and Estatius, we know that this these were written by S.A. Um but they are traced to a singular source in the 9th to 10th centuries but no one doubts their doubts their authenticity. Um so that can't be the so you know uh compared to letter you know letter 32 I mean if you don't want to count Leontius you can count John Maron and compared to Leontius's and his documents unreliability and this is the important point regarding John Maron because again it's not just Leontius is sloppy his documents his sources that he's working with is also clearly sloppy right it's not just he is the problem he is working with really bad sources right uh in his in his area And you know if he wants to he can do decently scholar decent scholarly work.
This is why he you know he's one of the people who argued against um apollinarian forgeries right so he can do okay scholarship if he wants to but it seems like he had access to horrible documents and just made use of anything that he could got and just threw everything until you know one of them could stick right that is basically his his his strategy. But no one in scholarship um states that you know Leonus was deliberately forging documents. This is something that um is not really claimed. This is this is just a claim. This is not something that is based on uh based on fact. This is not based on reality. Uh but compared to the sloppy scholarship of Leontius, John Maron scholarship on the other hand is very good. Which indicates it's not just the person, it's also the documents he's working with.
That is he is working he is operating with different sources. That is a point.
This will mean not one but two early independent attestations to the letter which that alone will basically cement this being an authentic letter because you don't see this usually with with even authentic letters but two independent attestations is really good for the ancient world right for those who don't know um now its attestations are in the fringes of the Roman world it's not super widely circulated as you will expect from a private letter um for example Leontius cites it in Jerusalem John is in Syria. St. John Damascus is also Syria. So, this is a very Middle Eastern. You this this letter is really in the Middle Eastern local. You don't see it in Alexandria.
So, of course, St. wouldn't know about this. Um, you don't see it in Anatolia or or any or any place like that. You see it Rome really only after um but you see it in the Middle East which might suggest that this monk Philip first of all was in was was someone who lived in Syria and St. Gregory did send letters to Syria. So this is something that will not be abnormal. So perhaps this was a private letter that went to Syria to Middle East and just stayed here and it was in the libraries of you know certain monasteries and certain different places and one of those places was the Antius whose monastery or place record just about anything and didn't care for their authenticity. And then we had you know stayed in St. John Damascus's and then John you know came into came into getting this letter and transited himself and it survived even the Islamic invasions being in the hands of St. John Damascus. Um so if this was really intended as a forgery we will expect this to be in the more central place except this was mostly in Syria right Syria and Palestine. It didn't really get out of here. But all of this together, we know that Leontius and St. John Damascus attest to this letter.
We have the the larger letter. We have the letter itself. Thanks to John Now, where did he get this from? We don't know. But John got the letter and he translated this and it corresponds with the fragmentaryary citations that we see in Leontius and John Damascus. So, it's not as if like someone just like made something up like from different sources. um you can't really do that, right? You can't make something up from different sources.
There's always going to be something that doesn't correspond. So that correspondence is there in the independent attestation. That's why it's really reliable. And then we have the Latin translation probably from uh St. Dunus Exigus. But St. Dunysius predates Leontes of Jerusalem which will mean that there was a Latin translation of this letter even before you know Leon Jerusalem did what he did. So we have a Latin translation, we have the Greek source, we have a Syriak source.
these all of these details taken together. It seems like you will have to have very high standards to think that this letter was inauthentic and to think that this letter was a forgery. Now I know Aen does not have those standards.
Absolutely not. He does not have those kinds of standards because I know that he thinks independent uh fragments, Arabic fragments are legitimate. That's why he cites the statement from St. Felix of Rome. We all where do we have that same not from Utkiss's dosier? I checked the dosier myself. That quote is not in Utkiss's dosier. That quote is in in an Arabic fragment. Where did that where did we get an Arabic fragment? We don't know. I know he doesn't have a regard for this because he thinks St. Simeon denied Kum based on 8th 9th century fragment two two you know letters of two different collections that are also in monafaside floor. Oh, how convenient. Um I know he uses St. Sever Cabala again just a fragment.
So compared to all of these I will say letter 32 of St. Greg of Nissa is very very very reliable compared to all of the various different evidences I have seen him use which I haven't talked about this in the video for the sake of time. Um so all of these taken together it is much more likely that St. G of Nissa is indeed the author of the letter to Philillip and as I said the Silas Anna Silva scholarship u also points out and also the scholarship on John which talk about um the how you know which talk about the scholarly process that he conducted in uh translating letters making use of them in his text and in his flegium etc etc so there's more to it than than ones I can see if one merely believes in just claims. Now, this finalizes pretty much everything that I have to say. Um, what is a conclusion? Right? What can we conclude from this video? Well, I hope to show that union language, the the language of two natures becoming one is not specifically monophysi. It's not specifically mophysite. It's not specifically one nature. Does not refute orthodoxy. Stoic mixture is actually theophysite. It actually does refute one nature christologology. Twofold language is also the physite. It also refutes one nature Christologology. Outside of forgeries and unreliable fragments, fragments much less reliable than St. Griffith's letter 32. There is not a single evidence of explicit Meaphysite terminology in the fathers prior to St. K of Alexandria where and St. K of Alexandria only starts using it because he thinks St. Atonacius used this and people around him started using it more because they thought other fathers were using it. That's why Utkiss's dosier is so important because he is the first one to connect as I said St. Greger Tomus St. Atonius and pope St. Julius as kind of like the main authors of anti-ophysisite you know prophysite terminology but as we have seen all of those were written by Apollinarius and many of the fathers he appeals to in fact just expresses theite christologology as we have seen many of them there are many many more that I could have added into this video but will have been a lot of effort and also will have been too long this video will have been too long frankly I think this video is already too So, thank you for watching this. Make sure to like and share and subscribe. I will see all of you elsewhere in a different place.
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