Refutatio et Eversio 1 part 3/21

For wishing to establish their own perversity, they extol the erroneous belief of the impious who preceded them, so that, whatever vote they shall cast in favor of those men, this they may allot, boasting greatly, to their own opinion — men who are not so much to be shunned for their impiety, as to be abhorred for their shamelessness;

For out of great thoughtlessness and ignorance, they neither know what they say, nor do they know concerning what things they make their assertions; heedlessly and without scrutiny they make it their business to fabricate falsehoods, being trained in vain things and having sharpened their tongues with deceits.

For in saying these things, they speak discordantly from the father of lies who works through them.

And this would become evident, if we now proceed to particulars.

For how do they arrogantly presume to say that that God-hated assembly followed the holy and ecumenical synods? For in the first place, it stands inconsistent and incompatible with them, in that it was convened contrary to every canonical and ecclesiastical ordinance, with none of those established in the greatest and high-priestly sees giving consent.

But what sort of decree was issued by them? (For it is an ecclesiastical law that, wherever anything disputable should occur among the doctrines, it should by no means be resolved apart from the judgment of those highest hierarchs) — seeing that not even the throne of the imperial city had been allotted a high priest at the time when these matters happened to be under deliberation, as indeed I have already stated before? Then again, where did they find the holy councils casting the name of "idols" upon these sacred things, or accusing Christ of being feeble and powerless, as though He had in no way been able to deliver our race from the error of idols, or slandering Christians as though they had worshipped idols as gods, or at any rate did they recognize any spark of precedent in those councils pronouncing for the destruction of these icons, so that, following them, they might bring a vote concordant against them? But no one will ever be able to mutter a word in their defense, even should he drive himself, as they do, to the utmost extreme of madness and folly.

But as to what view the hierophants of God's mysteries held concerning the matters now proposed for our discussion, and how they continued gladly to embrace and cherish them — so that I may begin my discourse from that council by which the very first holy assembly was constituted, at Nicaea, the most fair-victoried and most orthodox city of the Bithynians — the sacred shrine erected in their name will at once cry out loudly.

For it was raised for their honor, not their dishonor, bearing, together with the other sacred images in mosaic, even down to this day, the venerable icons of the holy fathers themselves, wrought in bright and radiant tesserae, and displaying, set up as a memorial, the bust of him who assembled them — I mean the great Constantine, glorified in piety.

In light of these things, let their most upright and correct doctrines put the impious to shame;

Was it not a disease that is the most impious and most godless of all? And did they not investigate it safely and condemn it with full strength, having despised also that "second" degree of impiety, which held its impiety toward God in word alone? So that they did not follow them at all, but proceeded in every respect contrary to them.

Nor indeed, then, will they dare to say that anything was found among those assembled in the imperial city, concerning which they babble nonsense (I mean now those God-revealing teachers who adorned the second and the fifth holy synods), even though the struggle for them concerned precisely the worship of created things;

of whom the some made a public example of the impious Macedonius, who placed the divine and life-originating Spirit among created things, while the others utterly overthrew the newly-devised, God-hated doctrines of the Judaizing-minded, directed against the saving incarnation of Christ — the doctrines of Nestorius, who wickedly held the office of high priest of the imperial city, and of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who bishoped even more godlessly, and who first began to ravage the church.

And where will those who assembled at Ephesus be found — who deposed the deranged Nestorius for his teaching amounting to worship of created things — having made mention of these matters for his deposition, even though they ought, before all else, to have corrected Christians of the harm arising from idol-worship, had they seen any held fast by it? And the other fathers also piously defined Christ as circumscribable according to His humanity, just as He is uncircumscribable in His divinity, and bound with dreadful condemnations and anathemas those who did not confess accordingly.

so that they are not followers of these either, but opponents.

Christ our God is confessed and known to us as perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity;

Thus too the vast and God-chosen multitude that shone forth at Chalcedon proclaimed expressly;

and as to how, let the God-inspired definition proclaimed by it make plain.

For they teach that the one Christ, Jesus and Lord, is known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being nowhere destroyed on account of the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved as they concur into one person and one hypostasis.

If, then, the natures according to the Savior are unconfused and unchangeable, and the difference of these is nowhere destroyed, and circumscribability is one of the differences — that is, one of the bodily characteristics — belonging to the human nature, then it has not been destroyed, nor has it been changed into uncircumscribability.

And this same thing is also, among the properties of the body, the most proper and most evident;

for a body could never at all be spoken of apart from circumscription;

and the property of each nature is preserved;

therefore circumscribability, too, is preserved concerning the one and the same person of Christ.

For otherwise, whence would the perfection of the natures according to Christ be established for them, if any of the properties should be granted as destroyed? For if but one of these should be lacking, the whole is lost, just as one may also observe in the case of man;

for if one should take away rationality, or mortality, or any of the other properties, he will no longer be man at all;

thus it is easy to observe the same also in the case of other living beings.

As, then, the differences and properties according to the divine nature are preserved unchangeable and are in no way whatsoever confused (among which indeed is uncircumscribability, which has not been transferred into circumscribability), so of necessity the opposite differences according to His human nature, being likewise preserved, and their properties, will possess unchangeability and freedom from confusion;

and among these is also circumscribability.

Christ, therefore, is circumscribable according to His humanity;

for thus also the opposite differences of the natures concerning the one person will be soundly confessed, if indeed Christ proceeds from two opposites — I mean flesh and spirit — according to our theologians;

but those who are champions of confusion have not chosen to grant this to the body of Christ, but strive in every way to destroy it.

How, then, do the adversaries of the synodal dogmas not blush with shame to profess that they follow the ecumenical synods? Through these holy synods, then, and through the whole time associated with them, this God-beloved history remaining as testimony, nothing inglorious has ever been said.

but how it has rather been held in honor, what follows will make clear.

It remains, then, to compare the words of these unholy men alongside the much-longed-for [teachings] of the blessed fathers, who convened for us the venerable Sixth Council, and whose doctrines shine forth throughout the whole world under the sun, so that we may know how they too stand with regard to the chapter now before us.

For the shield-bearers of piety, since they obtained a lot equal in honor to the shepherds who preceded them, are known to teach doctrines equal in honor and kindred concerning the wills and energies pertaining to Christ.

They say, then, in their divine horos: 'In the manner that the all-holy and immaculate ensouled flesh of the Savior, having been deified, was not destroyed but remained within its own definition and principle, so also his human will, having been deified, was not destroyed, but has been preserved.'

If, then, the Lord's flesh, having been deified, did not depart from its own definition and principle, how would it not be circumscribable even after the deification? For if it is not circumscribable, then it has departed [from its own nature].

And if the will, the human [will] in him, has not been destroyed, how much more necessary is it to confess that that from which the will proceeds is preserved? And since the human [nature] is preserved, who is so senseless, who so deranged and foolish, as not to agree in every way that the Savior is circumscribable according to his humanity? Such things they also declare concerning his energies, saying in a manner befitting God:

For each form works, in communion with the other, that which is its own property: the Word performing that which is of the Word, and the body accomplishing those things which are of the body.

For surely we shall not attribute one natural energy to God and to the creature, lest we either elevate the created thing to the divine essence, or bring down the excellence of the divine nature to the place befitting created things.

For we recognize the miracles and the sufferings of one and the same [person] according to the one and the other of the natures out of which he is and in which he has his being.

If, then, this is so, how is it not right also here to say, by consequence, that when we speak of the circumscribable we do not thereby refer it to the divine essence, nor when we speak of the uncircumscribable do we bring it down to the created nature, but we glorify each as remaining within its own definition and principle, according to the pious and true doctrine?

But the unholy ones, having denied every definition and principle concerning the incarnation of our Savior, how do they arrogantly babble that they follow the councils? And since these divine fathers of ours also formulated canons pertaining to the apostolic character, they too, it is said, set forth pure canons.

It is fitting to set these side by side, so that we may know how much agreement and concord they bear with one another.

Let those of the truth and of ours take the lead.

For a canon has been proclaimed by them concerning the sacred symbols of Christ's saving economy, having this form:

In certain paintings of the venerable images, a lamb is depicted, pointed to by the finger of the Forerunner, which was received as a type of grace, prefiguring for us through the Law and the Prophets the true Lamb, Christ our God.

While, therefore, we embrace the ancient types and shadows handed down to the Church as symbols and preliminary sketches of the truth, we give preference to grace and to the truth, receiving this as the fulfillment of the Law.

So that, then, the perfect [mystery] may also be depicted in paintings before the eyes of all, we decree that from now on, instead of the old lamb, [the figure of] the Lamb of God, Christ our God, who takes away the sin of the world, be set up in images according to his human character; thereby understanding the height of the humility of God the Word, and being led by the hand to the remembrance of his life in the flesh, his passion, his saving death, and the redemption that thence came to the world.

Let these things put to shame the wickedness of the Christ-fighters, and let them persuade — things sufficient even to persuade the utterly ungrateful.

[Is it not clear] that from the beginning these sacred-painted [images] have both excelled and been held in honor among priests and emperors and all Christians? For the divine heralds, being credible witnesses possessing unimpeachable authority, coming forward, will confirm these things very well.

If, then, those ancient types carried away what was welcome and honorable, how much more do the things in grace itself? Therefore let the tongues of the God-fighters be fettered, and let every mouth be stopped of those who devise empty and unlawful things against the reputation of Christians and weave much slander against the Church.

These, then, are the words of the saints.

But those of the accursed ones — what are they like? For it is now time, next, to set forth those as well, from which the consequence is somehow shown.

For first, as these men themselves say, they condemned the making and veneration of images as without authority, untransmitted, and useless.

For they teach thus:

That every image made of any kind of material by the evil craft of painters' coloring is to be rejected, alien, and abominable [and cast out] from the Church of Christians, and that no person whatsoever shall any longer dare to practice such an impious and unholy practice.

But whoever from this present [time] dares to construct an image, or to venerate it, or to set it up in a church, or to hide it in a private house...

...against whom, accordingly, the appropriate penalties are determined, in the case of bishops and presbyters and the remaining orders.

And things similar to these are decreed also for their obedient disciples and newly-anointed teachers who hold such doctrines.

Then, moreover, they did not blush to call the veneration of the divine symbols idolatry.

For the deranged ones, having excised certain sayings of the divine Gregory, who presided over the church of Nyssa, spoken in the funeral oration he composed for his brother, the great Basil, against the God-fighting Arians (who reckoned the Only-begotten Son and God of all and Creator among created things) — having wrongly understood these and, twisting them to suit their own madness, put them forward as though they accused the sacred images, and having added to these the customary blasphemy of theirs, they uttered that lawless and God-hated horos, fashioning a snare and a soul-destroying and pernicious device for the character of the more simple-minded.

Again, the artificer of evil, unable to bear seeing the comeliness of this [Church], did not lack, at various times and in various manners, evil contrivance, so as by deceit to make mankind subject to himself; but under the pretext of Christianity he secretly reintroduced idolatry, persuading, by his own sophistries, those who looked to him not to depart from [worship of] creation, but to venerate it and revere it, and to suppose the created thing, called by the name of Christ, to be God.

Thus far, then, they have appropriated to themselves the things of the Father.

From here, then, they append the things of their own impiety, which run as follows:

Wherefore, just as of old Jesus, the author and perfecter of our salvation, having clothed his all-wise disciples and apostles with the power of the all-holy Spirit, sent them out against every such thing for the diminishing [of error], so also now he has raised up his servants, our faithful emperors, rivals of the apostles, made wise and enabled by the power of the Spirit, for our instruction and teaching, and for the destruction of demonic strongholds that are raised up against the knowledge of God, and for the refutation of diabolical scheming and deceit.

who, with the abundant divine zeal that is in them, not enduring to see the Church of the faithful plundered by the deceit of demons, summoned the whole priesthood, the assembly of God-loving bishops, so that, having come together synodically for this purpose, and having made scriptural inquiry concerning the deceptive image-painting of likenesses, which drags down the mind of men from the lofty worship befitting God to the lowly and material worship of created things, it might, moved by God, proclaim its judgment.

...more impious? What is equal in weight to this in blasphemy? Who among those who hate God has so lifted [his head] against the head of God and spoken injustice on high? Who has so whetted his tongue against the divine economy and worked evil against the Creator? Who has so 'set his mouth against the heavens, and his tongue walked through the earth'? Not even the Lord-slaying Jews, who crucified Christ, would have snorted forth such things.

Why do I speak of Jews? Even if it were possible for the evil and accursed demon to make use of a human tongue, as of old he made use of that of the serpent, I do not think he would have burst forth with such utterances against the Creator as these wretched and unholy men have dared — ungrateful creatures, fashioned by the evil one, who have received his entire wickedness and venom, and who exalt themselves against the might of the Only-begotten and against the piety of Christians.

It would be more tolerable, I think, to sacrifice to idols than to utter such things.

Demons, moreover, having been utterly weakened by the condescension of the Word, would have been more gratefully disposed, and they show this by confessing [it] through what they suffered.

O the longsuffering of God!

O the great forbearance!

Neither fear of God, nor reverence for angels, nor shame before men, nor the sense of reverence for holy things, nor the whole of surrounding creation brought them to a realization of so great a blasphemy.

For thus, having stiffened their necks against the divine majesty, they have pronounced against the weakness and powerlessness of God the Word and of his all-powerful might, as though he were by no means able to deliver us from idolatrous deceit, nor to benefit mankind at all through his divine embodiment.

For the logic of their blasphemy brings both [claims] to the same point.

To such a degree has the audacity of the God-fighters been carried.

For they, living together with unreason and impiety, being unable to distinguish between holy and profane, and between clean and unclean, mix together things unmixable and separated by an infinite [distance] — more than light [is separated] from darkness — corrupting the truth and leaning upon falsehood.

But these senseless men did not even understand that they were passing judgment against their own head.

For, championing the doctrines of the Arians (for it was their doctrine that Christ should not be depicted, which the chief of the Arians, Eusebius, also introduced to these men), they made use of the Father's words spoken against the Arians, bringing them forward against themselves rather than against the Christians, whom in their folly they supposed they were accusing.

From what scriptural research and examination have they made their apprehension of the matter sought? As if, wherever they happened upon a bare word, our ears would likewise be deafened by them buzzing round about like the sound of a trumpet, and stupefying our sense.

For if some evil device has been found by them, they have brought forward the utterances directed against idols, fighting against God against the divine [images] — whereupon they do not fear to place in the category of idols even those golden Cherubim which the hierophant Moses, at God's command, fashioned, which the ancient tabernacle, under the Law, bore above the ark; and further, whatever the wisdom of Solomon constructed, and what was seen by the inspired prophet Ezekiel, and whatever such thing is recorded in the sacred books — choosing rather to reject than to accept the God-inspired Scriptures.

From which things they will rightly be considered more unbelieving and more ungrateful than the Jews, having both thought and uttered things truly worthy of their own abomination and unbelief.

For indeed here too they openly fight against Christ.

For the things prescribed to the divine Ezekiel, namely the Cherubim and palm trees, were depicted in the Jewish Temple — unless they suppose the Spirit told false tales.

And Christ did not destroy [the Temple], but declared it his Father's house, and enjoined those he drove out from it not to make it a house of commerce and a den of robbers.

He indeed was not seen to dishonor even the image of Caesar — and this though it was of an idolatrous, pagan man — but rather deemed it worthy of honor, saying that the things of God should be rendered to God, and the things of Caesar to Caesar.

Whoever would dare to say that these things are so has slipped into brutishness and folly. Or are they not rather seen to be enemies in every respect? For the things which those [ancients] continued to treat with reverence as venerable and honorable, these men spit upon and reject as abominable and dishonored.

And what those [ancients] have called venerable and worthy of veneration, these men have not shrunk from insulting with the name of idols.

And the one side wish the perfection of the Word's incarnation to be depicted also in paintings, being led by the hand to the remembrance of his life in the flesh and his saving death, and of the redemption thence granted to the world.

But the other side declare these things to be demonic strongholds, and noise it about that [image-]painting is the deceit of diabolical scheming and a deceptive art, dragging [men] down to material and lowly worship of created things.

And since they also call them 'likenesses,' it is necessary to inquire in relation to what these are likenesses — that to which they refer the blasphemy.

Those [the orthodox] were concerned for the fine adornment and splendor of the divine temples.

These [iconoclasts], by contrast, have zeal to tear down and destroy and hand over the holy things to fire.

How great, then, and how extensive is the war against those who are pious!

Why speak of other things? What the priests of God fashioned in an orderly and dignified manner, the priests of shame have overturned in a disorderly and undignified manner.

Therefore, in all things they stand convicted and put to shame, not following the councils, but rather being maddened against Christ and his saving incarnation.

For having turned aside from the royal road, and vigorously setting themselves against our orthodox doctrines, they have followed the commandments and teachings of impious men, corrupted both in body and soul, possessing an alien mind, and enslaved to the desires of the flesh — men whom they registered as teachers sent for [their] instruction, tyrannical both in mind and in impiety.

How, then, will these men ever be reckoned to be set in the ranks of priests, when they entrust to those counted in the portion of the laity the things reserved for the priesthood and for the evangelical canons, granting them everything, as though receiving nothing at all from the Spirit? And if their father and teacher, that slave of Mammon (or rather he himself might better be called Mammon), found Christians, as they say, held fast in idolatry from ancient and most numerous times, how could anyone admit into the rank of the priesthood those who have only recently peered out from idols and altars, without any repentance whatsoever and without canonical bonds? How can they come together in assemblies and set forth doctrines of the Church of Christians — men who but now reeked of the stench and pollution of sacrifices to idols, and then, as they professed in their own writings by recanting, be reckoned righteous by Christians or be believed? How should those who need to attend to their own affairs take thought for the affairs of others? What reasoning [permits] that men teeming with the sores of atheism and rotten and reeking with the bruises of unbelief, suffering incurable and hard-to-heal [wounds], should prescribe [remedies] for those who are strong in sound faith, for the sake of strength and spiritual well-being? But these things — being irrational and full of the greatest absurdity, and moreover the marvel-mongerings by those who praise them, full of much folly and nonsense, being no different from old wives' tales and childish babblings and playthings — must be dismissed, having already been thoroughly and sensibly refuted and overturned by those before us.

Let us now observe what sort of things are said next.

Wherefore also the Church of God has remained unshaken for not a few years, its subject people being kept in greater peace.

Who is so deranged, who has reached such an extreme of madness, as to dare to declare such things? But they themselves, having utterly cast off the fear of God, and possessing I know not what kind of conscience, having fabricated these things, speak emptily, not even suspecting the laughter [that will come] from those who know [the truth], nor avoiding the reproaches of those who are pious and sound of mind.

Truly, they have acquired 'the face of a harlot.'

They behaved shamelessly toward everyone.

For having hardened their souls through shamelessness, they were never eager to make proper use of reason.

For where shall we place the most grievous and unbearable persecution stirred up against the Christians who had learned true piety? What kind, and how great it was — to put it more summarily — of the sort ever kindled by rulers among Greeks and barbarians against the faithful of that time; and how manifold and varied were the clouds of torments, it is by no means easy to set forth and measure.

For if anyone wished to recount the particulars one by one, time would fail him, and he would have to labor long and toil in vain, were he even to attempt to reach the smallest fraction of the whole.

But if one must set down a few things out of many, such are the things which that assembly — old in wickedness and flourishing in impiety, a worker of evil — both taught and brought about.

First, the edicts and proclamations of the imperial godlessness, going out through every land and city, threatening such terrors, as many and as great, as we have known from the unbelievers of old.

Then from this followed the heaviest chains, and the unbearable scourges, and the other torments that attend these — amputations of the most conspicuous and most essential limbs — no mercy being granted to those persecuted.

Having at one time cut off the noses of as many wretched men as possible, just as of old the head of the divine Forerunner and Baptist John was offered to Herod, so they dedicated these on a platter to the impious Herod of our own day, as though a sweet and delightful gift.

And blindings of the eyes, and burnings of the beard, and sheddings of blood — what need is there even to speak of them? And if anywhere panels imprinted with these sacred forms were found, they were smashed and shattered against the heads of those who owned them.

Some of those who suffered these things, like living monuments of the impious, are preserved even to this day, bearing triumphant witness to the bestial, cruel, and inhuman character of their intent.

And how violent and extraordinary were the deaths of those who received the end of their wretched life!

The sacks would have cried out something loud and mighty, had it been possible for them to utter a voice — wronged in their use, for they had been devised for utility and service in human life, but were made instruments of destruction for wretched men, sinking together into the depths of the sea along with those shut up within them, who met their end by a liquid sword, through the taste of the brine.

What tragedy do these things not eclipse? Who did not wail aloud, seeing holy temples torn down and obliterated, and sacred altars overthrown and dug up and stripped of their proper adornment, holy treasures handed over to profane and unholy hands, given to the fire and reduced to ashes? And who has not marveled at the long-suffering of the divine gentleness, when monasteries dedicated to God were released and made common property, given for the possession and dwelling of impious men enrolled in the military order, sold off variously to one person after another and handed over to them, while the so-called cathedral churches were permitted to serve as stables for horses because of military senselessness? For within the sanctuary, even to this day, the remains of dung-troughs of wood still lie there.

These things we ourselves beheld with our own eyes, and we ourselves became the agents of their cleansing.

How that accursed one set slaves against their own masters, making them accomplices in the accusation and betrayal of their owners, if these happened to be pious, has not remained unknown to most people.

...to regard them as a kind of defilement of life, and by no means to draw near or hold any converse whatsoever with them regarding peace;