Saint Leo the Great

“The heart of this old man (Eutyches) has not heard what the voice of those preparing for baptism proclaims throughout the whole world. Not knowing what he ought to think about the Incarnation of the Word of God, and not wishing to explore the vast domain of the Holy Scriptures to acquire the necessary light, he should at least have lent an ear to the confession that all the faithful pronounce with one unanimous voice, saying that they believe in God, the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, begotten by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. By these three articles, almost all the inventions of the heretics are annihilated. For since one believes in an almighty God and Father, one attests at the same time thereby that the Son is eternal with him, that he differs in nothing from the Father, since he is God from God, almighty from almighty, eternal, born of the Eternal. Neither later in time, nor lesser in power, nor different in glory, nor divided in substance, it is the same eternal Son of the eternal Father, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. This temporal generation has in no way diminished his eternal generation, nor has it added anything to it; but it was employed entirely for the restoration of fallen man, so that he might overcome death and triumph over the devil, who had the power of death. For we could not have overcome the author of sin and death, if he whom sin cannot defile and whom death cannot chain, had not taken our nature and made it his own. (Here the Pope cites as proof Matthew 1:1; Paul to the le Pape Pope who maintained close correspondence with Constantine and the Gallic bishops. Romans 1:1; Genesis 12:3, 18; Galatians 3:8; Ezekiel 7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:45). Then he continues:

If it is objected that the Conception of Jesus Christ was the work of the Holy Spirit, and therefore His birth was not purely human, it must be answered that one should not conclude from this that the new character of this creation took anything away from the distinctive character of the nature. The Holy Spirit gave fruitfulness to a Virgin, but the reality of the body was taken from the body of this Virgin, and in this house which He had built for Himself, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that is to say, in the flesh which He had taken from man and which He had filled with the spirit of intelligent life. Thus, each nature and each substance having kept its distinctive properties intact, but having united to form only one person, humility was adopted by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity; and to erase the crime of our race, the invulnerable nature united itself to that which could suffer, so that, as was necessary for our salvation, the same mediator, God and man, Jesus Christ, could die as man and remain eternal as God. Thus, in the entire and perfect nature of true man, the true God was born, whole in His own, whole in ours. Now, ours is that in which the Creator had first formed us, and which He undertook to restore. For, in the Redeemer, one sees no trace of the evil brought by the deceiver and the evil accepted by the deceived man. And likewise, although Jesus Christ took upon Himself the community of weaknesses, He has no part in our faults. He took the form of servitude without the stain of sin; He enhanced humanity without lowering divinity, because the abasement by which the invisible made Himself visible, by which the Creator and Lord of all things willed to become one of the mortals, was the effect of His inclination for mercy and not a diminution of His power. He who remained in the form of God made man, and became man Himself, in the form of a slave. The Son of God, having entered this world by descending from His heavenly throne, but without abandoning the glory of His Father, was therefore born of a new birth in a new order of things. We say in a new order of things, for He who, in His own, is invisible, became visible in ours; the incomprehensible willed to be comprehended. He who was before all time began to exist in time; the Lord of the universe, by veiling His majesty, took the form of slaves; the impassible God did not disdain to become a passible man, and the immortal to subject Himself to the laws of death. We repeat again that He was born of a new birth, for the virginity, remaining intact, did not know voluptuousness and yet provided the matter of the flesh. It is nature, and not sin, that Jesus Christ received from the mother of the Lord; and because the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten in the womb of the Virgin, is miraculous, His nature is not for that reason different from ours. For the true God is also true man; this unity is not a lie, for the humility and the greatness of God reciprocally united and penetrated each other. Just as God is not lowered by mercy, man is not absorbed by dignity. Each of the two forms, divine and human, performs, in community with the other, the operations that are proper to it. While the Word does what is of the Word, the flesh executes what is of the flesh. The former shines with brilliance in miracles, the latter succumbs under outrages. Just as the Word remains in the equality of glory with His Father, the flesh does not abandon the nature of our race. For the Redeemer, always one and the same, is, we cannot repeat it too often, truly Son of God and truly Son of man. He is God, since it is said: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and God the Word is in man, since the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; He is God, since all things were made by Him and nothing was made without Him. Man, since He was born of a woman and under the empire of the law. The birth of the flesh shows the human nature; the conception of the Virgin is the sign of the divine power; the weakness of the child is seen in the humility of the cradle; the glory of the Most High is manifested in the voice of the angels. He whom Herod wants to cruelly put to death enters into life as a man; but it is the Lord of the universe whom the Magi come to humbly adore. So that it might not be ignored that the divinity was covered by the envelope of the flesh, when He was baptized by John, His precursor, the voice of the Father resounded in heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have placed all my affection. He who, as man, is tempted by the artifices of the devil, is, as God, served by the angels. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and sleep are evidently of man; but to satiate five thousand men with five loaves, but to distribute to the Samaritan woman a living water of which he who drinks never suffers thirst again, but to walk with a steady foot on the waves of the sea, to conjure the storm and appease the waves of the sea, are acts incontestably of a God. It is certainly not the same nature that, seized with deep sorrow, weeps for the friend who has just died, and, by the sole power of His word, calls back to life the one who had been lying for four days in the tomb; it is not the same nature that lets itself be attached to the cross and changes day into night and makes the earth tremble; that lets its limbs be pierced with nails and opens the gates of paradise to the thief who pronounces a word of faith; it is not the same nature that says: I and my Father are one, and: My Father is greater than I. It is this unity of person in each of the two natures that makes it said that the Son of man descended from heaven, and that the Son of God took body in the womb of the Virgin who conceived Him; that the Son of God was crucified, was buried, and yet that He could not be so in the divinity itself, by which He is equal to the Father in eternity and in substance, but in the weakness of the human nature. This is why everyone confesses, in the creed, that the Son of God was crucified and buried, in accordance with these words of the Apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. But after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was really the resurrection of the true body, since no other was resurrected than the one who had been crucified and buried, what happened during those forty days, if not that the whole of our faith was cleared of all obscurity. All the apparitions of the Lord, all that He did and said, served only to make known how the distinctive character of the two natures, divine and human, remained the same without division. It is this holiness of faith that Eutyches totally ignores, since he does not want to see our nature in the Son of God, neither in the abasement of mortality, nor in the glory of the resurrection, and he despises this word of the evangelist Saint John: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in a true flesh is of God, and every spirit that divides (solvit) Jesus Christ is not of God; and that is the antichrist. But what does Jesus Christ call *solvere*, if not to separat Eutychès Heresiarch whose errors were condemned by the councils. e from Him the human nature and to annihilate, by impudent fictions, the mystery by which we are all saved? Now, he who is in such great ignorance about the nature of the body of Jesus Christ, he must also tea ch, in the saint Jean Saint to whom Zita had a great devotion. same blindness, foolish things about the Passion. For if he does not hold the Cross of the Lord for a lie, and if he does not doubt that the death He suffered for the salvation of the world was true, he must necessarily believe in the true humanity of Him whose death he believes in. Therefore, if he confesses the faith of the Christians, and if he does not tear from his heart the angelic revelation, he will examine what is the nature that was pierced with nails, that was attached to the cross, from which blood and water flowed when the side of the Crucified was pierced. Let him also listen to the holy apostle Peter, announcing that the spirit is sanctified when it participates in the blood of Jesus Christ, and that it is not by corruptible silver or gold that we are redeemed, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the lamb without blemish. He will not resist the testimony of the holy apostle when he says: The blood of Jesus Christ purifies us from all our sins and in another place: This victory by which the world is conquered is the effect of our faith; and again: Who is he who is victorious over the world, if not he who believes that saint apôtre Pierre Apostle mentioned for the setting of the procession date. Jesus Christ is the Son of God? It is this same Jesus Christ who came with water and with blood; not only with water, but with blood; and it is the spirit that bears witness that Jesus Christ is the truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one and the same thing. Yes, certainly, the spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism, which three things are but one and cannot be separated. The Catholic Church lives and perpetuates itself by this faith that in Jesus Christ humanity is not without true divinity, nor divinity without true humanity.

See the History of Saint Leo, by M. de Saint-Chéron M. de Saint-Chéron Author of a 19th-century History of Saint Leo. .

Virgin, and in that house which He built for Himself, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that is to say, in the flesh which He had taken from man and which He had filled with the spirit of intelligent life. Thus, each nature and substance having kept its distinctive properties intact, but having united to form only one person, humility was adopted by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity; and to efface the crime of our race, the invulnerable nature united itself to that which could suffer, so that, as was necessary for our salvation, the same mediator, God and man, Jesus Christ, could die as man and remain eternal as God. Thus, in the entire and perfect nature of true man, the true God was born, whole in His own, whole in ours. Now, ours is that in which the Creator had first formed us, and which He undertook to restore. For, in the Redeemer, one sees no trace of the evil brought by the deceiver and the evil accepted by the deceived man. And likewise, although Jesus Christ took upon Himself the community of weaknesses, He has no part in our faults. He took the form of servitude without the stain of sin; He enhanced humanity without lowering divinity, because the abasement by which the invisible made Himself visible, by which the Creator and Lord of all things willed to become one of the mortals, was the effect of His inclination for mercy and not a diminution of His power. He who remained in the form of God made man, and became man Himself, in the form of a slave. The Son of God, having entered this world by descending from His heavenly throne, but without abandoning the glory of His Father, was therefore born of a new birth in a new order of things. We say in a new order of things, for He who, in His own, is invisible, became visible in ours; the incomprehensible willed to be comprehended. He who was before all time began to exist in time; the Lord of the universe, by veiling His majesty, took the form of slaves; the impassible God did not disdain to become a passible man, and the immortal to subject Himself to the laws of death. We repeat again that He was born of a new birth, for the virginity, having remained intact, did not know voluptuousness and yet provided the matter of the flesh. It is nature, and not sin, that Jesus Christ received from the mother of the Lord; and because the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten in the womb of the Virgin, is miraculous, His nature is not for that reason different from ours. For the true God is also true man; this unity is not a lie, for the humility and the greatness of God have reciprocally united and penetrated each other. Just as God is not lowered by mercy, man is not absorbed by dignity. Each of the two forms, divine and human, performs, in community with the other, the operations that are proper to it. While the Word does what is of the Word, the flesh executes what is of the flesh. The former shines with brilliance in miracles, the latter succumbs under outrages. Just as the Word remains in the equality of glory with His Father, the flesh does not abandon the nature of our race. For the Redeemer, always one and the same, is, we cannot repeat it too often, truly Son of God and truly Son of man. He is God, since it is said: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and God the Word is in man, since the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; He is God, since all was made by Him and nothing was made without Him. Man, since He was born of woman and under the empire of the law. The birth of the flesh shows the human nature; the conception of the Virgin is the sign of divine power; the weakness of the infant is seen in the humility of the cradle; the glory of the Most High is manifested in the voice of the angels. He whom Herod wants to cruelly put to death enters life as a man; but it is the Lord of the universe whom the Magi come to humbly adore. So that one might not be ignorant that the divinity was covered by the envelope of the flesh, when He was baptized by John, His precursor, the voice of the Father resounded in heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have placed all my affection. He who, as man, is tempted by the artifices of the devil, is, as God, served by the angels. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and sleep are evidently of man; but to satiate five thousand men with five loaves, but to distribute to the Samaritan woman a living water of which he who drinks never again suffers thirst, but to walk with a steady foot on the waves of the sea, to conjure the storm and appease the waves of the sea, are acts incontestably of a God. It is certainly not the same nature that, seized with deep sorrow, weeps for the friend who has just died, and, by the sole power of His word, recalls to life him who had been lying for four days in the tomb; it is not the same nature that lets itself be attached to the cross and changes day into night and makes the earth tremble; that lets its limbs be pierced with nails and opens the gates of paradise to the thief who utters a word of faith; it is not the same nature that says: I and my Father are one, and: My Father is greater than I. It is this unity of person in each of the two natures that makes it said that the Son of man descended from heaven, and that the Son of God took body in the womb of the Virgin who conceived Him; that the Son of God was crucified, was buried, and yet that He could not be so in the divinity itself, by which He is equal to the Father in eternity and in substance, but in the weakness of human nature. This is why everyone confesses, in the creed, that the Son of God was crucified and buried, in accordance with these words of the Apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. But after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was really the resurrection of the true body, since no other was resurrected than He who had been crucified and buried, what happened during those forty days, if not that the whole of our faith was cleared of all obscurity. All the apparitions of the Lord, all that He did and said, served only to make known how the distinctive character of the two natures, divine and human, remained the same without division. It is this holiness of faith that Eutyches totally ignores, since he does not want to see our nature in the Son of God, neither in the abasement of mortality, nor in the glory of the resurrection, and he despises this word of the evangelist Saint John: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in a true flesh is of God, and every spirit that divides (solvit) Jesus Christ is not of God; and that is the antichrist. But what does Jesus Christ call *solvere*, if not to separate from Him the human nature and to annihilate, by impudent fictions, the mystery by which we are all saved? Now, he who is in such great ignorance regarding the nature of the body of Jesus Christ, he must also teach, in the same blindness, foolish things about the Passion. For if he does not hold the Cross of the Lord for a lie, and if he does not doubt that the death He suffered for the salvation of the world was true, he must necessarily believe in the true humanity of Him whose death he believes in. Therefore, if he confesses the faith of Christians, and if he does not tear from his heart the angelic revelation, he will examine which is the nature that was pierced with nails, which was attached to the cross, from which flowed blood and water when the side of the Crucified was pierced (*ut ecclesia Dei et lavacro rigaretur et poculo*). Let him also listen to the holy apostle Peter, announcing that the spirit is sanctified when it participates in the blood of Jesus Christ, and that it is not by corruptible silver or gold that we are redeemed, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the lamb without stain. He will not resist the testimony of the holy apostle when he says: The blood of Jesus Christ purifies us from all our sins and in another place: This victory by which the world is conquered is the effect of our faith; and again: Who is he who is victorious over the world, if not he who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? It is this same Jesus Christ who came with water and with blood; not only with water, but with blood; and it is the spirit that bears witness that Jesus Christ is the truth. For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one and the same thing. Yes, certainly, the spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism, which three things are but one and cannot be separated. The Catholic Church lives and perpetuates itself by this faith that in Jesus Christ humanity is not without true divinity, nor divinity without true humanity.

See the History of Saint Leo, by M. de Saint-Chéron.