Folio 103

St. Anastasius II, 496-498

printed p. 71 · pdf p. 103

ture, that is, the divine; and Nestorius none the less mentions a single [nature], namely, the human; if we must maintain two against the Eutychians, because they draw out one, it follows that we should without doubt proclaim also in opposition to Nestorius who declares one, that not one, but rather two existed as a unity from His beginning, properly adding the human, contrary to Eutyches, who attempts to defend one, that is, the divine only, in order to show that the two, upon which that remarkable mystery rests, endure there; in opposition to Nestorius indeed, who similarly says one, namely, the human, we nevertheless substitute the divine, so that in like manner we hold that two against his one with a true division have existed in the plenitude of this mystery from the primordial effects of His union, and we refute both who chatter in a different way of single [natures], not each of them in regard to one only, but both in respect to the abiding possession of two natures: to wit, the human and divine, united from His beginning without any confusion or defect.

(4) For although one and the same person is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the whole God man and the whole man God, and whatever there is of humanity, the God man makes his own, and whatever there is of God, the man God possesses, nevertheless, granted that this remains a mystery and cannot be explained in any degree, thus the whole man continues to be what God is, [as?] the whole God continues to be whatever man is. . . .1

ST. ANASTASIUS II 496-498

The Ordinations of Schismatics2

[From the epistle (1) "Exordium Pontificatus mei" to Anastasius Augustus, 496]

169. (7) According to the most sacred custom of the Catholic Church, let the heart of your serenity acknowledge that no share in the injury from the name of Acacius should attach to any of these whom Acacius the schismatic bishop has baptized, or to any whom he has ordained priests or levites according to the canons, lest perchance the grace of the sacrament seem less powerful when conferred by an unjust [person]. . . . For if the rays of that visible sun are not stained by contact with any pollution when they pass over the foulest places, much less is the virtue


  1. See the whole tractate in Thiel, who then adds many "Testimonia veterum de duab. nat. in Christo" p. 541 ff. 

  2. Th 620 f.; Jf 744 c. Add; Msi VIII 190 E f.; CIC Decr. I, 19, 8: Frdbg I 63; Rcht I 56.