28. But now, Venerable Brethren, let us examine more deeply those points of doctrine which the Synod of Ephesus, by the very fact of its condemnation of Nestorius, openly professed and sanctioned by its authority. Now, apart from the rejection of the Pelagian heresy and the condemnation of those who favoured it-one of whom, without doubt, was Nestroius-there was one matter mainly in question, and it was solemnly and almost unanimously confirmed by the Fathers, that is to say that the opinion of this heresiarch was wholly impious and repugnant to the Sacred Scriptures; and that, therefore, that which he denied was altogether certain, namely, that there is one Person in Christ, and that the same is Divine. For when Nestorius, as We have said, obstinately contended that the Divine Word was not united to the human nature in Christ substantially and hypostatically, but by a certain accidental and moral bond, the Fathers of Ephesus, in condemning Nestorius, openly professed the right doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which must be firmly held by all. And indeed, Cyril in the letters and chapters already addressed to Nestorius beforehand, and inserted in the acts of this Ecumenical Synod, in wonderful agreement with the Roman Church, maintained these things in eloquent and reiterated words: "In no wise, therefore, is it lawful to divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two Sons.... For the Scripture does not say that the Word associated the person of a man with Himself, but that He was made flesh. But when it is said that the Word was made flesh, that means nothing else but that He partook of flesh and blood, even as we do; wherefore, He made our body His own, and came forth man, born of a woman, at the same time without laying aside His Godhead, or His birth from the Father; for in assuming flesh He still remained what He was." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 891.)
29. For we are taught, by Holy Scripture and by Divine Tradition, that the Word of God the Father did not join Himself to a certain man already subsisting in Himself, but that Christ the Word of God is one and the same, enjoying eternity in the bosom of the Father, and made man in time. For, indeed, that the Godhead and Manhood in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, are bound together by that wondrous union which is justly and deservedly called hypostatic, is luminously evident from the fact that in the Sacred Scriptures the same one Christ is not only called God and man, but it is also clearly declared that He works as God and also as man, and again that He dies as man and as God He arises from the dead. That is to say, He who is conceived in the Virgin's womb by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who is born, who lies in a manger, who calls Himself the son of man, who suffers and dies, fastened to the cross, is the very same who, in a solemn and marvellous manner, is called by the Eternal Father "my beloved Son" (Matthew iii. 17; xvii. 5; 2 Peter i. 17), who pardons sins by His divine authority (Matt. ix. 2-6; Luke v. 20-24; vii. 48; and elsewhere), and likewise by His own power recalls the sick to health (Matt. viii. 3; Mark i. and 41; Luke v. 13; John ix; and elsewhere). As all these things show clearly that in Christ there are natures by which both divine and human works are performed, so do they bear witness no less clearly that the one Christ is at once both God and man because of that unity of person from which He is called "Theanthropos" (God-Man).
30. Moreover, this doctrine which has ever been handed down may be proved and con firmed, as all can see, from the dogma of man's Redemption. For how indeed could Christ be
called "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans viii. 29), or be wounded because of our iniquities (Isaias liii. 5; Matt. viii. 17), and redeem us from the servitude of sin, unless He had a human nature like as we have? And so, too, how could He make perfect satisfaction to the justice of the Heavenly Father which had been violated by mankind, unless He possessed an immense and infinite dignity by reason of His Divine Person?
31. Nor can this point of Catholic truth be disputed on the ground that, if our Redeemer had no human person, then it would seem that some perfection would be wanting to His human nature, which would make Him as man less than we are. For as it is acutely and sagaciously observed by Aquinas, "personality pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing in so far as it pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing that it should exist by itself, which is what we understand by the name of personality; but there is more dignity in any thing if it exists in another of greater dignity than itself, than if it existed by itself, and therefore there is more dignity in the human nature of Christ than in ours, on this very ground, that in us it has its own personality, as existing by itself, but in Christ it exists in the person of the Word; even as it pertains to the dignity of a form to be completive of the species; nevertheless, the sensitive is more noble in man, because of the conjunction with the more noble completive form, than it can be in a brute animal, in which it is itself the completive form." (Summ. Theol., III. ii. 2.)
32. Moreover, it may be worth while to remark here that, just as Arius, that most crafty subverter of Catholic unity, attacked the Word's Divine nature consubstantial to the Eternal Father, so Nestorius, taking quite another way, namely by rejecting the Redeemer's hypostatic union, denied the full and perfect divinity of Christ, though not of the Word. For if, as he wrongly imagined, it was only by a moral union that the divine and human nature were joined together in Christ-to which, indeed, as We have said, the prophets, also, and the other heroes of Christian sanctity, have in some manner attained, according to their respective union with God-the Saviour of mankind would differ but little, or not at all, from those whom He redeemed by His grace and by His precious blood. Thus, when once the doctrine of the hypostatic union is abandoned, whereon the dogmas of the Incarnation and of man's Redemption rest and stand firm, the whole foundation of the Catholic religion falls and comes to ruin. Wherefore, we do not wonder that, when the peril of the Nestorian heresy arose, the whole Catholic world was shaken: We do not wonder that, when the Bishop of Constantinople rashly and wrongly opposed the faith of the fathers, the Synod of Ephesus keenly contended against him, and carrying out the sentence of the Roman Pontiff, struck him down with a dire anathema.
33. We, therefore, in full accordance with all the ages of Christian history, venerate the Redeemer of mankind not as "Elias . . . or one of the Prophets," in whom the heavenly Godhead dwelt by His grace, but together with the Prince of the Apostles, who knew this mystery by divine revelation, we make profession with one voice: "Thou are Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. xvi. 16.)
34. When once this dogma of the truth is securely established, it is easy to gather from it that by the mystery of the Incamation the whole creation of men and of mundane things has been endowed with a dignity than which, certainly, nothing greater can be imagined, and surely grander than that to which it was raised by the work of creation. For here in the race of Adam we have one, namely Christ, who has attained unto the eternal and infinite Godhead, and is joined thereto in a most close and mysterious manner; Christ, indeed, we call our brother, endowed with human nature, but also God with us, or Emmanuel, who by His grace and His merits, draws us all back to our divine Author and also recalls us to that heavenly beatitude from which we had miserably fallen away by original sin. Let us, therefore, turn to Him with a thankful heart; let us follow His precepts; let us imitate His examples. For thus shall we become sharers of His divinity "who deigned to become a partaker of our humanity" (Roman Missal).
35. But if, as We have said, at all times throughout the course of ages, the true Church of Christ has most diligently defended this genuine and uncorrupted doctrine concerning the personal unity and the divinity of her Founder, it has not been so, alas! with those who wander unhappily outside the one fold of Christ. For whenever anyone pertinaciously withdraws himself from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, We grieve to say that he gradually loses the true and certain doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. And, indeed, with regard to the many and various religious sects, especially those dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which still bear the Christian name, and which, at the beginning of their separation, firmly professed that Christ is God and man; if we ask them now what they hold about Him, we shall certainly receive diverse and contradictory answers. For a few among them, indeed, have kept the full doctrine and the full faith concerning the person of our Redeemer; but others, if in a manner they affirm something like it, yet they seem to savour of vaporous scents whose reality is departed. For they set Jesus Christ before us as a man endowed with divine gifts and in a mysterious manner united to the Divinity beyond all others and very near to God; but they are far removed from the full and sincere profession of the Catholic faith. Others again, recognising nothing of the Divine in Christ, profess that He is a mere man, adorned indeed with excellent gifts of soul and body, but subject to errors and to human infirmity. From which it is clearly seen that all these, no less than Nestorius, make a temerarious attempt to "dissolve Christ," and that, therefore, on the testimony of John the Evangelist, they are not of God (cf. 1 John iv. 3).
36. Wherefore, with a fatherly heart, from the summit of this Apostolic See, We exhort all those who glory in being the followers of Christ, and who place in Him their own hope and salvation and that of human society, that they should ever join themselves more firmly and more closely to this Roman Church, in which alone Christ is believed in with whole and perfect faith, is worshipped with the sincere worship of adoration, and is beloved with the perpetual flame of burning charity. Let them remember, and in particular those who preside over a flock separated from Us, that the faith which their fathers solemnly professed at Ephesus is preserved unchanged and is strenuously defended, as in past ages so also in the present, by this supreme Chair of Truth. Let them remember that the unity of this genuine faith rests and stands firm only on the one rock set by Christ, and can be preserved safe and intact by the supreme authority of the successors of Blessed Peter.
37. We spoke more fully, indeed, on this unity of the Catholic religion, a few years ago, in Our Encyclical letter Mortalium animos; still it may be useful to recall the matter briefly here; for the hypostatic union of Christ, solemnly confirmed in the Synod of Ephesus, bears and sets before us the image of that unity with which our Redeemer willed that His mystical body, that is to say the Church, should be adorned; "one body" (I Corinthians xii. 12) "compacted and fitly joined together" (Ephesians iv. 16). For if the personal unity of Christ is the mystical exemplar to which He Himself willed that the union of Christian society should be conformed, every wise man will see that this can only arise, not from any pretended conjunction of many disagreeing among themselves, but from one hierarchy, from one supreme teaching authority, from one law of believing, and from one faith of Christians. (See the Encyclical Letter Mortalium animos.) To this unity of the Church, consisting in communion with the Apostolic See, Philip, the Legate of the Roman Bishop, bore admirable testimony in the Synod of Ephesus; for when the Fathers of the Council, with one voice, were applauding the letters sent by Celestine, he addressed them in these memorable words: "We give thanks to the holy and venerable Synod that, when the letters of our holy Pope were recited, as holy members by your holy voices and exclamations, ye joined yourselves to the Holy Head. For your beatitude is not ignorant that the Blessed Peter is the head of the whole faith, as also of the Apostles." (Mans, I.c. IV 1290.)
38. But if at any time, now more than ever, does it behove all the good to bind themselves by a sincere profession of faith to Jesus Christ and to the Church, His mystical Bride, now when so many men everywhere are striving to cast off the sweet yoke of Christ, when they reject the light of His doctrine, spurn the streams of His grace, and repudiate the divine authority of Him who has become, according to the words of the Gospel, "a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke ii. 34). And now, since numberless and daily growing evils come forth from this lamentable falling away from Christ, let all seek an opportune remedy from Him who alone under heaven has been given to men whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). For it is in this way only, when the Sacred Heart of Jesus inspires the minds of mortal men, that happier times can arise for each of us one by one, for family life, and for civil society, at present so sadly disturbed.
