By Water & Blood

On Eutyches

Last of all the envious demon introduced the ill-named heresy of the Eutychians, through which he threw the Churches throughout the inhabited world into confusion; and finding as instrument receptive of his own wickedness the wretched Eutyches, he made the heresy of Valentinus, long since withered, bloom again. For Arius confessed the assumption of the body alone, Apollinaris of the soul also; but this man denied even the assumption of the body. For he said that the God Word took nothing human from the Virgin, but himself, being changed without change and becoming flesh—for I use his ridiculous words—made only the passage through the Virgin, and that the uncircumscribed and unlimited and uncontainable divinity of the Only-begotten was nailed and fixed to the cross, and that this, handed over to the tomb, obtained the resurrection.

But that we may leave aside the excess of the madness, let us consider this: that no benefit has come to us from the incarnation, and we have no pledge of our resurrection. For if God has been raised from the dead, it does not at all follow that a human will also rise; for the difference of the natures is very great. Why then does the divine Apostle confirm the account concerning our resurrection from the Master’s resurrection, and writing to the Corinthians cry: “But if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised”? For through what is believed he showed what is disbelieved, and with what is disbelieved he cast out also what is believed. For if, he says, that Christ rose is true, then it is also true that we shall rise; but if this is false, then that Christ rose is also false; for that too was a body, and these are. Having thus confirmed this with more syllogisms, he then added assertively: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” And through the firstfruits he clearly also indicated the lump; for the firstfruits has the same nature as that of which it is firstfruits. He also teaches the cause of the economy: “For since through a human being came death, through a human being also resurrection of the dead.” Then he passes from the natures to the persons: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

But having written often about this, I have considered it superfluous to prolong the present account—especially as I am about, God willing, to speak also of these things in the fifth book. Having thus set an end to this fourth book, I have attempted, as far as is possible for me, to exhibit the nobility of the evangelical teaching.