Folio 115

John II, 533-535

printed p. 83 · pdf p. 115

JOHN II 533-535

"One of the Trinity Suffered," and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God1

[From epistle (3) "Olim quidem" to the senators of Constantinople, March, 534]

201. [Since] Justinian the Emperor, our son, as you have learned from the tenor of his epistle, has signified that arguments have arisen with regard to these three questions, whether one of the Trinity can be called Christ and our God, that is, one holy person of the three persons of the Holy Trinity; whether the God Christ incapable of suffering because of deity endured [suffering in] the flesh; whether properly and truly <the Mother of God and the Mother of God's Word become incarnate from her> the Mother of our Lord God Christ ought to be called Mary ever Virgin. In these matters we have recognized the Catholic faith of the Emperor, and we show that this is clearly so from the examples of the prophets, and of the Apostles, or of the Fathers. For in these examples we clearly point out that one of the Holy Trinity is Christ, that is, one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity is a holy person or substance, which the Greeks call ὑπόστασις, [various witnesses are brought forward, as Gen. 3:22; I Cor. 8:6; the Nicene Creed; Proclus' letter to the Westerners, etc.]; but let us confirm by these examples that God truly endured in the flesh [Deut. 28:66; John 14:6; Matt. 3:8; Acts 3:15: 20, 28; I Cor. 2:8; Cyrilli anath. 12; LEO ad Flavium etc.].

202. We rightly teach that the glorious Holy ever Virgin Mary is acknowledged by Catholic men [to be] both properly and truly the one who bore God, and the Mother of God's Word, become incarnate from her. For He Himself deigned from earliest times properly and truly to become incarnate and likewise to be born of the holy and glorious Virgin Mother. Therefore, because the Son of God was properly and truly made flesh from her and born of her, we confess that she was properly and truly

  1. ACOec Tom. IV, Vol. II, p. 206 ff.; Msi VIII 803 E ff.; Jf 885; Hrd II 1150 C ff.; ML 66, 20 C ff.; BR(T) App. I 496 a ff.—Certain monks at Scythian Constantinople announced the proposition: One of the Trinity suffered. For this reason it happened that they came under suspicion of the Monophysite heresy, and they set out to HORMISDAS, the Pope, to defend their own Roman orthodoxy. He did not give judgment in this matter, but in epistle 70 to Possessor [ML 63, 490 ff.] he showed that he bore the impudence of the Scythians with difficulty. But when other monks, namely the Acoemetae of Constantinople, attacked the same proposition out of a feeling of perversity, JOHN II approved the letter of Justinian the emperor, in which he accused them of the Nestorian heresy [ML 66, 17 f.], and in another letter directed to the Constantinopolitan senators he decreed as above regarding this matter.  ↩