The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

116
EVAGRIUS
There is included in the said transactions that, when the part of Leo’s
letter was read out which contains: 200 ‘And for the requital of the debt
owed by our mortal nature, the divine nature was united with the
su¡ering nature so that ^ this indeed is appropriate for our cure ^ the
one and the same, being the mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus, 201 both could die with regard to one aspect and could not
perish with regard to the other . . .’, the Illyrian and Palestinian bishops
were doubtful about such a statement. 202 But Aetius, archdeacon of the
[84] most holy Church of Constantine, presented a statement of Cyril
which contained the following: 203 ‘Since then His own body has through
the grace of God, as the apostle Paul says, tasted death on behalf of
everyone, 204 He Himself is said to su¡er the death on our behalf, not as
if He came to experience of death at least as concerns His own nature ^
for to say or think this is lunacy ^ but because, as I have just said, His
£esh tasted death.’
And again with regard to the passage of Leo’s letter which
contains: 205 ‘For, in communion with the other, each form is active in
respect to what its particular nature is, the Word accomplishing that
which is of the Word, while the body achieves what is of the body. And
of these the former shines forth in the miracles, while the latter is
200 ACO II.i.2, pp. 81:32^82:11. The point of these exchanges is to demonstrate that
agreement at Chalcedon was unanimous, and was reached after discussion and demonstration,
not by coercion as Monophysite accounts asserted.
201 1 Timothy 2.5.
202 The objection was to Leo’s overstatement of the di¡erences between Christ’s
natures, which might permit Christ to experience death as a man but not as God. For the
attitude of the Illyrian bishops, cf. n. 170 above; Palestine was to become a bastion of Chalcedon
in the East, but at the moment its bishops would have been in£uenced by the equivocations
of their leader, Juvenal of Jerusalem, who had travelled to the Council as a devout
supporter of Dioscorus.
203 The crucial point was to establish that there was nothing in Leo’s doctrinal exposition
that was incompatible with the views of Cyril. Evagrius has deliberately quoted these
passages of Leo’s Tome, which Monophysites used to prove his Nestorianism, along with
the contrary assertion in the acta of their compatibility with Cyril’s writings. The problem
for Chalcedonians was that the formulation of Cyril’s doctrinal expositions changed in the
course of his long life, and that there were di¡erences between his earlier writings and his
more conciliatory pronouncements after First Ephesus: defenders of Chalcedon urged that
the later statements were authoritative, Monophysites the opposite.
204 Hebrews 2.9.
205 ACO II.i.2, p. 82:12^22.