The Letter of Atticus to Euspychius - An AI Translation into English
The Letter
Introduction
To the pure and pious priest Euspychius. Atticus sends greetings in the Lord.
We have greatly thanked you for the opinion you had of us—namely, that we are able, concerning those questions about which some are in doubt, to bring forth understanding through an explanation. But what causes us suffering—and I am filled with every kind of sorrow because of it—is that your Church, pure and free from all tares, after such a long period of time, is now on the verge of being filled, through the introduction of perverse doctrines, with a seed of falsehood and a sprouting of impiety.
For I thought it was indeed very beneficial that those who have such doubts should carry out their way of life and carefully attend to their daily conduct, so that even if one of the actions commanded for attaining the perfect life were to slip away from them unfinished, it would not be fitting to make God the one who is not to be sought out—He who, by His power, has accomplished in His dispensation what He willed and as He willed.
Now, it is precisely what is difficult and obscure among them that these good fellows have taken it upon themselves to examine—and this without being learned—namely, how the immortal soul was joined to the mortal body: the invisible to the visible, the incorporeal to the corporeal, and this soul not coming to that union by its own will, but by the will of its Creator, having taken upon itself to love the doubt that lies in its nature. If this person or that person has not known or understood—walking as they do in the darkness of obscurity—how, as has been said, they dare with unclean feet to trample upon the subject of the terrible divinity and violently strive to force a new doctrine alongside the ordered simplicity of the Church. But that is enough concerning them.
Lest we appear, through having failed to find an explanation for the questions about which there is doubt or controversy, to have taken refuge in accusations about what has been said—concealing our knowledge because of the fear we feel toward subjects of this kind—we now take up the very chapters which, in your letter, were written to us for explanation.
At their head, on the one hand, this is what is said among the things you have quoted: "They say that, at the time of the Passion, God suffered with the body." And the second is this: "that it was the man without a soul that God became." And the third is this: "that it was not from holy Mary that He took the body, but rather—from elsewhere, whether He existed beforehand, or however those who had such audacity dared to say it, I do not know." This, then, is what those who minds are corrupted say and think within your Church.
Part 1
And if this is so, how is it that the divine nature—an impassible nature, an incorporeal and incorruptible nature, a nature which nothing can approach, a nature whose very nature is not to suffer—how is it that, when he was seen in the world through the mediation of the body, not as he is God (for God is invisible) but as he is man, it was upon that nature that what befell the body he had taken was said to fall? And how is it that, instead of being himself impassible, he did not communicate his own impassibility to the one he had assumed? For this reason, indeed, death also is conquered, the resurrection anticipates the promise, and, when the doors are shut, the passible body—known by its three dimensions and attributed to length, breadth, and depth—enters. And how could this have happened if he had not passed from passibility to impassibility? And how could that divine nature have suffered, the nature which granted to the passible one the gift of not suffering? For if this did not belong to it, it would not give it to another whose nature is different.
One and the same, then, is God and man, the Word and the flesh, without having changed into something he was not; rather, he remained what he is, and he became what we ourselves are. When he receives suffering and death, it is not in what he is, but in what he has become. For if it were in what he was that he received suffering, he would have been passible beforehand. And the same applies to death as well, for suffering is the beginning of death. Therefore, he became what he was not previously, so that in what he was not previously he might die and rise again—that is, cause the resurrection.
And if you wish, accept the apostolic trumpet, the blessed Paul, as the interpreter of the questions that are in doubt. Tell us, O blessed Paul, why it is through the body that God the Word came into the world. He truly says that it is because of the sins of humanity and because of the fear of death that held our nature, and so that the promises made to the chief of the patriarchs, Abraham, might not remain unfulfilled—so that this covenant too would not be annulled and rendered ineffective, like the first one that was in the Law. For since the first covenant, which was written through the legislator Moses, was not ratified by the death of its author, it necessarily happened to it that it was not ratified and that it had no force. For as long as the one who made the covenant is alive, what he has written has no legal effect.
Now, because this is the time of the new covenant, and because it was fitting that God himself be the author of the covenant, while the manner of this undertaking presented a difficulty—namely, that the nature of the very one who makes the covenant does not receive death, and yet the validity of the covenant itself requires death—what, then, was this all‑wise one to devise? It is through the body that was assumed, and through the union of God the Word with the man who comes from Mary, that these two things are accomplished: so that when Christ—who from these two natures is one—was, in his divinity, the author of the covenant, he remained in the honor of the impassibility of his nature; and when, through his body, he also received death, he showed to all human nature his triumph over death by means of death. And this is what was said by the Apostle Paul: ‘He himself became the mediator of the new covenant, he who by his death became salvation for those who transgressed the first covenant, so that those who have been called to the eternal inheritance might receive the promise.’ And he said after this: ‘It is by death that a covenant is ratified, because as long as the one who made it is alive, it has no force. For where there is a covenant, it is the death of the one who made it that is established.’
For this reason, then, the Word became flesh: so that through his body he might receive death, because this could not happen in his divinity, since—as we have said above—he is immortal and impassible. And if he were not impassible, there would be no need for a body that receives sufferings, for behold, even before taking a body, such things would have suited him by nature. But because he is not passible, and because he was impassible—as indeed he still is—he became what he became, so that in what he became he might take upon himself our sin, and for our sake be in pains, offer his body and his cheeks to blows, and finally come to an ignominious death. And he is sown in dishonor so that he might rise again, he himself also, in glory, in order to bring the resurrection to completion for our race.
And otherwise, how shall we understand what was said by the Truth in the Gospel: ‘Destroy this temple’—that is, the body—‘and I will raise it up in three days’? What, then, is the one that is destroyed? The body that comes from the Virgin. And who is the one who raises it? The Word who comes from the Father. And if, as these people say, the Word also is passible, then he too has fallen together with the body. How, then, does he raise up the one who has fallen, if he himself has also fallen? There would then be need of another, a third, to raise up those who have fallen. But the Truth does not lie. Therefore, the body fell under the blow of sufferings; the divinity raises it, without what assailed the body having assailed it. What has fallen is not standing, for it would not have fallen if it were standing. The one who raises is not fallen, and otherwise he would not raise. But one and the same Christ fell as man, and raised up as God; he fell according to the lowly nature, and he raised from the fall according to the strong nature. And thus this saying is fitting: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it.’
And if, by seizing upon the Apostle’s words and stealing their meaning, when they use his authority in their arguments while remaining far from his intention, they still quote Paul when he says: ‘Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,’ it has escaped them that they are deceiving themselves and that, in their foolishness, they do not understand the meaning of the Apostle’s thought.
For this blessed one, indeed, because he knows that the body is not mixed (with the divinity), but that it has been added to the divinity by virtue of the union… [Unfinished sentence, which is taken up again in the following paragraph ─ Briere's note.] For what is mixed is confused, so that its nature is no longer recognized or distinguished—just as wine, likewise, when mixed with water. But what comes into union does not take upon itself mixture or blending; and when it is added by virtue of union, it allows the natures to be recognized according to what belongs to each of them—just as gold, likewise, is added to copper without being mixed with it, and silver with tin. It is in this way that God also was added to the body, and he was not mixed with our body. Therefore Christ is one by virtue of the union, and the sufferings of the body are separate from the impassible divinity. And thus, indeed, he endured, as man, what belonged to man; and from there he accomplished, as God, what belonged to God, who is far removed from all the circumstances and conditions that belong to created beings, from all the labors that cause suffering, and from all human fears.
The Apostle, then, because he knows that Christ is one—as I have said—often seems simply to exchange the name flesh and place it in the position of the greatness of God the Word; and not only this, but—what is the opposite of that—he even uses the very name Jesus, which indicates the reality of the flesh. How, then, when speaking of him as flesh, does he say that he has ascended into heaven? And how, in the same way, does he also call him the Son of God, he who truly took upon himself the garment he devised in his love, by reason of the greatness of his wisdom? For he said: ‘Jesus, the Son of God, who has ascended into heaven.’ How, then, is Jesus, insofar as he is man, the Son of God, and this when he has risen above the heavens? Because this body, indeed, has obtained what is greater and higher than all humankind, having become a lyre and an instrument for the one who honored it and dwelt in it—that is, for God the Word. For this reason it has also obtained honors greater than its nature, and it is called—though it is not so by nature—what he is who received it, without its nature being mixed, but because it has been honored by grace. Therefore, when the Apostle says, ‘The Lord of glory was crucified,’ it is not by the mere name of glory that he makes those whose natures are different equal in name and nature; rather, it is this lowly nature that, because of the grace of that exalted nature, he honors with the name of glory.
For the wool taken from sheep, shorn from their backs like grass from a field, is all of the same value, and its common use belongs to everyone. But when the dye extracted from the shellfish of the sea has penetrated it, it is called purple; and when its name has been changed and its use reserved for kings—those to whom it alone is fitting—it both is and is not wool. For although its nature remains what it originally was, its use is no longer what it first was; it has fled from the simplicity that made it common, because of the greatness of the one who has clothed himself with it. In the same way, this body also, which was taken from universal human nature, because it became for Christ a royal mantle, has obtained the same glory that belongs to the one who clothed himself with it, even though its nature has not been changed. Therefore it is fitting that Christ is called ‘the Lord of glory’ even inasmuch as he is man—he who, according to his human nature, receives suffering, and whose ignominy is transferred to the one who has clothed himself with it as with a garment. For just as the one who tears the king’s purple garment receives punishment as though he had offended the king himself—although nothing harmful has happened to the king, and it is the suffering of his garment that he bears—so likewise, in the sufferings of the body, although God the Word remains impassible, he is considered to be involved through the ignominy of his own body.
For this reason Paul teaches us that Christ our Lord, insofar as he is man, is the Son of God. And before Paul, the archangel Gabriel, announcing the wondrous birth to the Virgin Mary herself, said: ‘Hail to you, full of grace; our Lord is with you. Behold, you will conceive and bear a Son, and his name shall be called Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High.’ Thus Jesus is called God, not because his body was changed into the divine nature, but because, through the union with God the Word, he received the name of the same glory.
And the blessed Paul, explaining the Gospel that had been entrusted to him, said that he had been set apart for the Gospel of God, which He had previously promised through His prophets concerning His Son; and he makes known who the Son is by saying: the one who was born according to the flesh from the lineage of the house of David. For although they are very bold, and the insult of their fury strikes them in the face, they still do not depart from what is fitting to such an extent as to say that it is as the Word that God the Word was born from the lineage of the house of David. And when this has been acknowledged, it is evident and certain that it is because of his corporeality that Paul says he was born according to the flesh from the lineage of the house of David, and that he is known to be one single Son. Thus, inasmuch as he is the Word, he is Son by nature; and inasmuch as he has clothed himself with the body, he has made known that it is through the union that our nature has shared in the glory of the divinity. Therefore, when the Apostle says, ‘The Lord of glory was crucified,’ he has not brought down that impassible nature to the level of the passible one; rather, it is this passible nature—because it is passible—that he has in view and that he calls the Lord of glory on account of the union.
Thus one of these questions has been explained briefly, and in a letter, for those who discern. As for the deceivers, whom neither Christ nor Paul, ‘the servant of Jesus Christ,’ nor the Gospels have persuaded—how could a lowly man, who is so far beneath them and unable to answer their dispute, persuade them? As for you, be watchful in all things.
Part 2
What, in fact, is man? A rational and mortal animal. Of what is man composed? Of soul and body. What is the cause of God’s coming according to the flesh? The sin committed by our nature. From where does sin come? From desire, which desired what was not permitted. Who is the one who desired? That man who was formed first. With what did he desire—soul or body? Desire does not belong to the body but to the soul. For choosing the pleasure of the body belongs to the soul; and carrying out everything chosen through the soul happens by means of the body. This first man received the command not to touch the tree. He consented to touch the tree because he obeyed the Slanderer, who opposed the divine command. With what did he consent—body or soul? They themselves say it was with the soul, though they are full of boldness. And if it was with the soul that he consented, then it was with the soul that he was deceived; it was with the soul that he saw, among what he saw, that the tree was beautiful; it was with the soul that he desired. As for the body, it served the will of desire. And the condition of death came upon the head of our nature because of sin, and as our nature advanced, sin advanced together with it. For this reason, then, God came: to restore to life the one who had gone astray, to bring back the one who had perished, and to clothe again with the first honor the one who had gone out from paradise. If therefore, as these people say, he became flesh but did not take the soul—which was itself the cause of sin—not only has he accomplished only half a salvation, but his salvation is entirely useless, because he did not heal the root of the cause, and the body, which served sin, has been honored merely because it was assumed.
And he called the man of the spirit the one who conducts himself according to faith and according to grace, and who—because God has given him an authority that extends over all things—is led to the knowledge of many things. Thus the man who is in the flesh is also a man according to his nature, although he is not so according to his spirit. And the man of the soul is a man according to his nature, although he is not so according to his faith. And the man of the spirit is a man, even though it may happen that he is elevated in his conduct. Therefore, when the Evangelist said, ‘The Word became flesh,’ he said that He became man, and that He also became, from man, that which is more lowly than the whole man, in order to show—through the depth of sin—the height of mercy. So if God is impassible—as He truly is, and as Scripture itself has shown—and if the body without the soul is without sensation, what is it that suffered? And where is what the Apostle declared: ‘Christ suffered in the flesh’? He said in the flesh, not in His divinity; and man is called flesh in a humble manner of speaking. But when those who are jealous for their own salvation wish to show that the divinity itself is passible, they say, instead of the soul, that God Himself dwells in a mortal body, adding in truth this dreadful thing about Him: that He feared at the hour of death, just as the refusal of the cup and the rest of the other words which He spoke as man—teaching human beings, introducing them into an excellent doctrine, and showing how man himself must conduct his life with justice.
Part 3
What is it they say: ‘It is not from Mary, as you have written, that God the Word took the body, but from somewhere else’? Let them then say from where, and how, and in what manner! And if they say that He took a perfect man, why was there any need for the mediation of the Virgin? And if he was not perfect, how was he born? And how was he constituted? Barrenness and virginity—the prophet comes from the barren woman, and God comes from the Virgin—are two wonders standing side by side, though they are not alike. For the one is barren and advanced in years, and the other knows neither husband nor marriage. The one, like a temple, conceives the prophet; the other, like the heavens, receives God. Such is the case, according to the knowledge of the One who dwells within. In the womb is the prophet, and in the womb is the Christ.
There is only one being who announces both events. And who is he? The archangel Gabriel, who announced to Zechariah, inside the temple, the birth of John, and who announces to the Virgin herself the birth of the John's Lord. There, it is Zechariah; here, it is Joseph. And why did he not make the announcement to both men in the same way, rather than not doing so? Why did he not likewise make the announcement to the women? Yet he did not do this. Instead, he made the announcement there to Zechariah, and here to the Virgin. He did both things according to a great rule and according to the law of nature. For where it is the husband who is the cause of the one who is born, it is the husband who, as father, receives the promise; and where there is a husband, but he does not perform what belongs to a husband, it is to the Virgin—through the power of God that comes upon her—that the announcement of the birth is revealed, and of the birth of the child who is not subject to the law of nature. Because of this, she receives the announcement far from the husband; for she is entirely alone and does not know what marriage is. And these things have been stated thus; will those who examine the words understand them otherwise than as they wish?
And after this announcement of Gabriel, the one who is Virgin and mother meets the one who is barren and mother; and she greets her with the customary greeting which, once it entered her ears, stirred up the prophet himself—who was hidden—to make himself known, so that the mother herself, because of the child she carried, might be able to say, in greeting the Virgin: ‘You are blessed among women, and the fruit of your womb is blessed,’ as she calls fruit of the Virgin’s womb the child Jesus. And how do you doubt, O man, from where the body of our Lord comes, as though you did not know, when you yourself hold the cause: ‘You are blessed among women, and the fruit of your womb is blessed?’
And she does not stop there. But after this she says: ‘Who has granted me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ And the prophet, through his mother, names as his Lord the One who was hidden in the Virgin’s womb, and the barren woman calls God the One who was in the Virgin’s bosom. How do you know that He is the Lord? ‘For when the word of your greeting fell into my ears, the child leaped in my womb with great joy.’ He leaped—very well; leaping belongs to nature. But how do you know that he also leaped with joy? For that is something that requires proof.
So the body of our Lord does not come from some other place, nor does it exist merely as an apparition, as it has pleased some of the deniers to claim. For if it were a hallucination, how would it grow within the Virgin’s womb? Or how would Simeon, according to the promise of the Spirit, have taken the child into his hands and said: ‘Now, my Lord, you let your servant depart in peace, according to your word’? And how also does the prophetess Anna praise God while prophesying? And whom were the shepherds glorifying during their night watches? And whom were the angels singing in their ranks, saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth’? Or how is an eight‑day‑old apparition circumcised? Or how does an apparition grow in stature, in wisdom, and in grace?
And how, moreover, would the rest of the whole matter of the sufferings have found any place in one who is a mere apparition? And in what manner, after the resurrection, were the nail‑holes in His hands, the scars, and the place of the spear in His side recognized by those who had doubts about Him and were strengthened? Nails do not pierce apparitions; an apparition has no side, and it does not allow itself to be pierced by a spear. But our salvation does not come from an apparition; the economy is in truth. And the One who lived became our nature, because He truly shared in our nature—He who by His own nature was far removed from it.
Imagination and spider’s web—such indeed are the words of those who dare to say such things. For the body that comes from the holy Virgin is not an apparition, and it is not without a soul. Rather, in Him there is intelligence, and in Him there is a soul. And the human being is perfect, and it is entirely the human being who sinned and transgressed the commandment in Paradise, with the rational soul—which belongs to the intelligence—and who did not first receive sin through the body once, but through the mediation of the soul. For indeed, it is the thought that was corrupted by seduction, and it is thought that received disobedience—Paul has testified to this when he says: ‘I fear that, just as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your thoughts may be corrupted and drawn away from the simplicity that is toward Christ.’ What, then, was corrupted? The thought. And because it was the thought that was taken captive, it is that which has been delivered from corruption. And let no one speak foolishly or rise up against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Let no one divide the economy, nor call it imperfect or contrary to the economy; for a severe punishment is laid upon those who, through their wicked disputation, despise the works of God, while crowns are reserved for those who accept, according to faith and according to the mind of true religion, the Scriptures and the traditions of our holy Fathers. As for you, may you be kept safe and in good health for us in our Lord, by the grace of God, O our pious brother!
End of the Letter
