IV.
If
anyone shall divide between
two persons or subsistences those expressions (
φωνάς
) which are contained in
the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, or which have been said
concerning Christ by the Saints, or by himself, and shall apply some to
him as to a man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others
to the only Word of God the Father, on the ground that they are fit to
be applied to God: let him be anathema.
Notes.
Nestorius.
IV.
If any one assigns the expressions of the Gospels and
Apostolic letters, which refer to the two natures of Christ, to one
only of those natures, and even ascribes suffering to the divine Word,
both in the flesh and in the Godhead; let him be anathema.
St. Cyril.
(
Apol. contra Orientales
.)
For we neither teach the division of the hypostases
after the union, nor do we say that the nature of the Deity needs
increase and growth; but this rather we hold, that by way of an
economical appropriation (
κατ᾽
οἰκείωσιν
οἰκονομικὴν
),
he made his own the
properties of
the flesh, as having become flesh.
(
Quod unus est Christus
.)
For the wise Evangelist, introducing the Word as become
flesh, shows him economically submitting himself to his own flesh and
going through the laws of his own nature. But it belongs to
humanity to increase in stature and in wisdom, and, I might add, in
grace, intelligence keeping pace with the measure of the body, and
differing according to age. For it was not impossible for the
Word born of the Father to have raised the body united to himself to
its full height from the very swaddling-clothes. I would say
also, that in the babe a wonderful wisdom might easily have
appeared
. But that would have approached the
thaumaturgical, and would have been incongruous to the laws of the
economy. For the mystery was accomplished noiselessly.
Therefore he economically allowed the measures of humanity to have
power over himself.
A. B. Bruce.
(
The Humiliation of Christ
. Appendix to
Lect. II.)
The accommodation to the laws of the economy, according
to this passage, consisted in this—in stature, real growth; in
wisdom, apparent growth. The wonderful wisdom was there from the
first, but it was not allowed to appear (
ἐκφῆναι
), to avoid
an aspect of monstrosity.
St. Cyril.
(
Adversus Nestorium
.)
Therefore there would have been shown to all an unwonted
and strange thing, if, being yet an infant, he had made a demonstration
of his wisdom worthy of God; but expanding it gradually and in
proportion to the age of the body, and (in this gradual manner) making
it manifest to all, he might be said to increase (in wisdom) very
appropriately.
(
Ad Reginas de recta fide
, Orat. II., cap.
xvi.)
“But the boy increased and waxed strong in spirit,
being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon
him.” And again: “Jesus increased in stature
and wisdom, and in favour with God and men.” In affirming
our Lord Jesus Christ to be one, and assigning to him both divine and
human properties, we truly assert that it was congruous to the measures
of the kenosis, on the one hand, that he should receive bodily increase
and grow strong, the parts of the body gradually attaining their full
development; and, on the other hand, that he should seem to be filled
with wisdom, in so far as the manifestation of the wisdom dwelling
within him proceeded, as by addition, most congruously to the stature
of the body; and this, as I said, agreed with the economy of the
Incarnation, and the measures of the state of humiliation.
(
Apol. contra Theod
., ad Anath. iv.)
And if he is one and the same in virtue of the true
unity of natures, and is not one and another (two persons)
disjunctively and partitively, to him will belong both to know and to
seem not to know. Therefore he knows on the divine side as the
Wisdom of the Father. But since he subjected himself to the
measure of humanity, he economically appropriates this also with the
rest, although, as I said a little ago, being ignorant of nothing, but
knowing all things with the Father.