OF
JOHN CASSIAN
ON THE INCARNATION OF THE LORD,
AGAINST NESTORIUS.
CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER I.--The heresy compared to the
hydra of the poets.
CHAPTER II.--Description of the
different heretical monsters which spring from one another.
CHAPTER III.--He describes the
pestilent error of the Pelagians.
CHAPTER IV.--Leporius, together with
some others, recants his Pelagianism.
CHAPTER V.--By the case of Leporius he
establishes the fact that an open sin ought to be expiated by an open
confession, and also teaches from his words what is the right view to
be held on the Incarnation.
CHAPTER VI.--The united doctrine of
the orthodox is to be received as the Catholic faith.
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CHAPTER I.--How the errors of later
heretics have been condemned and refuted in the persons of their
authors and originators.
CHAPTER II.--Proof that the Virgin
Mother of God was not only Christotocos but also Theotocos, and that
Christ is truly God.
CHAPTER III.--He follows up the same
argument with passages from the Old Testament.
CHAPTER IV.--He produces testimonies
to the same doctrine from the Apostle Paul.
CHAPTER V.--From the gifts of Divine
grace which we receive through Christ he infers that He is truly
God.
CHAPTER VI.--That the power of
bestowing Divine grace did not come to Christ in the course of time,
but was innate in Him from His very birth.
CHAPTER VII.--How in Christ Divinity,
Majesty, Might and Power have existed in perfection from eternity, and
will continue.
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CHAPTER I.--That Christ, who is God
and man in unity of person, sprang from Israel and the Virgin Mary
according to the flesh.
CHAPTER II.--The title of God is given
in one sense to Christ, in another to men.
CHAPTER III.--He explains the
Apostle's saying, "From henceforth we know no man according to
the flesh," etc.
CHAPTER IV.--From the Epistle to the
Galatians he brings forward a passage to show that the weakness of the
flesh in Christ was absorbed by His Divinity.
CHAPTER V.--As it is blasphemy to pare
away the Divinity of Christ, so also is it blasphemous to deny that He
is true man.
CHAPTER VI.--He shows from the
appearance of Christ vouchsafed to the Apostle when persecuting the
Church, the existence of both natures in Him.
CHAPTER VII.--He shows once more by
other passages of the Apostle that Christ is God.
CHAPTER VIII.--When confessing the
Divinity of Christ we ought not to pass over in silence the Confession
of the Cross.
CHAPTER IX.--How the Apostle's
preaching was rejected by Jews and Gentiles because it confessed that
the crucified Christ was God.
CHAPTER X.--How the Apostle maintains
that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
CHAPTER XI.--He supports the same
doctrine by proofs from the Gospel.
CHAPTER XII.--He proves from the
renowned confession of the blessed Peter that Christ is God.
CHAPTER XIII.--The confession of the
blessed Peter receives a testimony to its truth from Christ
Himself.
CHAPTER XIV.--How the confession of
the blessed Peter is the faith of the whole Church.
CHAPTER XV.--St. Thomas also
confessed the same faith as Peter after the Lord's resurrection.
CHAPTER XVI.--He brings forward the
witness of God the Father to the Divinity of the Son.
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CHAPTER I.--That Christ was before the
Incarnation God from everlasting.
CHAPTER II.--He infers from what he
has said that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a son who had pre-existed
and was greater than she herself was.
CHAPTER III.--He proves from the
Epistle to the Romans the eternal Divinity of Christ.
CHAPTER IV.--He brings forward other
testimonies to the same view.
CHAPTER V.--How in virtue of the
hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ the Word is rightly
termed the Saviour or incarnate man, and the Son of God.
CHAPTER VI.--That there is in Christ
but one hypostasis.
CHAPTER VII.--He returns to the former
subject in order to show against the Nestorians that those things are
said of the man which belong to the Divine nature, as it were, of a
person of Divine nature, and conversely that those things are said of
God which belong to the human nature, as it were, of a person of human
nature, because there is in Christ but one and a single personal
self.
CHAPTER VIII.--How this interchange of
titles does not interfere with His Divine power.
CHAPTER IX.--He corroborates this
statement by the authority of the old prophets.
CHAPTER X.--He proves Christ's
Divinity from the blasphemy of Judaizing Jews, as well as from the
confession of converts to the faith of Christ.
CHAPTER XI.--He returns to the
prophecy of Isaiah.
CHAPTER XII.--How the title of
Saviour is given to Christ in one sense, and to men in another.
CHAPTER XIII.--He explains who are
those in whose person the prophet Isaiah says: "Thou art our God,
and we knew thee not".
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CHAPTER I.--He vehemently inveighs
against the error of the Pelagians who declared that Christ was a mere
man.
CHAPTER II.--That the doctrine of
Nestorius is closely connected with the error of the Pelagians.
CHAPTER III.--How this participation
in Divinity which the Pelagians and Nestorius attribute to Christ is
common to all holy men.
CHAPTER IV.--What the difference is
between Christ and the saints.
CHAPTER V.--That before His birth in
time Christ was always called God by the prophets.
CHAPTER VI.--He illustrates the same
doctrine by passages from the New Testament.
CHAPTER VII.--He shows again from the
union in Christ of two natures in one person that what belongs to the
Divine nature may rightly be ascribed to man, and what belongs to the
human nature to God.
CHAPTER VIII.--He confirms the
judgment of the Apostle by the authority of the Lord.
CHAPTER IX.--Since those marvellous
works which from the days of Moses were shown to the children of
Israel are attributed to Christ, it follows that He must have existed
long before His birth in time.
CHAPTER X.--He explains what it means
to confess, and what it means to dissolve Jesus.
CHAPTER XI.--The mystery of the
Lord's Incarnation clearly implies the Divinity of Christ.
CHAPTER XII.--He explains more fully
what the mystery is, which is signified under the name of man and
wife.
CHAPTER XIII.--Of the longing with
which the old patriarchs desired to see the revelation of that
mystery.
CHAPTER XIV.--He refutes the wicked
and blasphemous notion of the heretics who said that God dwelt and
spoke in Christ as in an instrument or statue.
CHAPTER XV.--What the prayers of the
saints for the coming of the Messiah contained; and what was the
nature of that longing of theirs.
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CHAPTER I.--From the miracle of the
feeding of the multitude from the five barley loaves and two fishes he
shows the majesty of Divine power.
CHAPTER II.--The author adapts the
mystery of the number seven (made up of the five loaves and the two
fishes) to his own work.
CHAPTER III.--He refutes his opponent
by the testimony of the Council of Antioch.
CHAPTER IV.--How the Creed has
authority divine as well as human.
CHAPTER V.--He proceeds against his
opponent with the choicest arguments, and shows that we ought to hold
fast to the religion which we have received from our fathers.
CHAPTER VI.--Once more he challenges
him to the profession of the Creed of Antioch.
CHAPTER VII.--He continues the same
line of argument drawn from the Creed of Antioch.
CHAPTER VIII.--How it can be said that
Christ came and was born of a Virgin.
CHAPTER IX.--Again he convicts his
opponent of deadly heresy by his own confession.
CHAPTER X.--He inveighs against him
because though he has forsaken the Catholic religion, he nevertheless
presumes to teach in the Church, to sacrifice, and to give
decisions.
CHAPTER XI.--He removes the silent
objection of heretics who want to recant the profession of their faith
made in childhood.
CHAPTER XII.--Christ crucified is an
offence and foolishness to those who declare that He was a mere
man.
CHAPTER XIII.--He replies to the
objection in which they say that the child born ought to be of one
substance with the mother.
CHAPTER XIV.--He compares this
erroneous view with the teaching of the Pelagians.
CHAPTER XV.--He shows that those who
patronize this false teaching acknowledge two Christs.
CHAPTER XVI.--He shows further that
this teaching is destructive of the confession of the Trinity.
CHAPTER XVII.--Those who are under an
error in one point of the Catholic religion lose the whole faith, and
all the value of the faith.
CHAPTER XVIII.--He directs his
discourse upon his antagonist with whom he is disputing, and begs him
to return to his senses. The sacrament of reconciliation is necessary
for the lapsed for their salvation.
CHAPTER XIX.--That the birth of
Christ in time diminished nothing of the glory and power of His
Deity.
CHAPTER XX.--He shows from what has
been said that we do not mean that God was mortal or of flesh before
the worlds, although Christ, who is God from eternity and was made man
in time, is but one person.
CHAPTER XXI.--The authority of Holy
Scripture teaches that Christ existed from all eternity.
CHAPTER XXII.--The hypostatic union
enables us to ascribe to God what belongs to the flesh in Christ.
CHAPTER XXIII.--That the figure
synecdoche, in which the part stands for the whole, is very familiar
to the Holy Scripture.
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CHAPTER I.--As he is going to reply to
the slanders of his opponents, he implores the aid of Divine Grace to
teach a prayer to be used by those who undertake to dispute with
heretics.
CHAPTER II.--He meets the objection
taken from these words: No one gave birth to one who had existed
before her.
CHAPTER III.--He replies to the cavil
that the one who is born must be of one substance with the one who
bears.
CHAPTER IV.--How God has shown His
omnipotence in His birth in time as well as in everything else.
CHAPTER V.--He shows by proofs drawn
from nature itself, that the law which his opponents lay down, viz.,
that the one born ought to be of one substance with the one who bears,
fails to hold good in many cases.
CHAPTER VI.--He refutes another
argument of Nestorius, in which he tried to make out that Christ was
like Adam in every point.
CHAPTER VII.--Heretics usually cover
their doctrines with a cloak of Holy Scripture.
CHAPTER VIII.--The heretics attribute
to Christ only the shadow of Divinity, and so assert that He is to be
worshipped together with God but not as God.
CHAPTER IX.--How those are wrong who
say that the birth of Christ was a secret, since it was clearly shown
even to the patriarch Jacob.
CHAPTER X.--He collects more
witnesses of the same fact.
CHAPTER XI.--How the devil was forced
by many reasons to the view that Christ was God.
CHAPTER XII.--He compares this notion
and reasonable suspicion of the devil with the obstinate and
inflexible idea of his opponents, and shows that this last is worse
and more blasphemous than the former.
CHAPTER XIII.--How the devil always
retained this notion of Christ's Divinity (because of His secret
working which he experienced) even up to His cross and death.
CHAPTER XIV.--He shows how heretics
pervert Holy Scripture, by replying to the argument drawn from the
Apostle's words "Without father, without mother, etc."--Heb.
8.
CHAPTER XV.--How Christ could be said
by the Apostle to be without genealogy.
CHAPTER XVI.--He shows that like the
devil when tempting Christ, the heretics garble and pervert Holy
Scripture.
CHAPTER XVII.--That the glory and
honour of Christ is not to to ascribed to the Holy Ghost in such a way
as to deny that it proceeds from Christ Himself, as if all that
excellency, which was in Him, was another's and proceeded from another
source.
CHAPTER XVIII.--How we are to
understand the Apostle's words "He appeared in the flesh, was
justified in the spirit, etc."
CHAPTER XIX.--That it was not only
the Spirit, but Christ Himself also, who made Him to be feared.
CHAPTER XX.--He tries by stronger and
weightier arguments to destroy that notion.
CHAPTER XXI.--That it must be
ascribed equally to Christ and the Holy Ghost that His flesh and
humanity became the temple of God.
CHAPTER XXII.--That the raising up of
Christ into heaven is not to be ascribed to the Spirit alone.
CHAPTER XXIII.--He continues the same
argument to show that Christ had no need of another's glory as He had
glory of His own.
CHAPTER XXIV.--He supports this
doctrine by the authority of the blessed Hilary.
CHAPTER XXV.--He shows that Ambrose
agrees with S. Hilary.
CHAPTER XXVI.--He adds to the
foregoing the testimony of S. Jerome.
CHAPTER XXVII.--To the foregoing he
adds Rufinus and the blessed Augustine.
CHAPTER XXVIII.--As he is going to
produce the testimony of Greek or Eastern Bishops, he brings forward
in the first place S. Gregory Nazianzen.
CHAPTER XXIX.--In the next place he
puts the authority of S. Athanasius.
CHAPTER XXX.--He adds also S. John
Chrysostom.
CHAPTER XXXI.--He bemoans the unhappy
lot of Constantinople owing to the misfortune which has overtaken it
from that heretic; and at the same time he urges the citizens to stand
fast in the ancient Catholic and ancestral faith.
Notes.
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