Gelasius to Laurentius, Bishop of Lignido.
The Custom of the Roman Church: A Newly Established Pope Prescribes the Formula of Faith to All the Holy Churches
In the length of your charity’s letter you have filled us with great joy — in that part where it was said that in the Church of Thessalonica, and likewise in the other churches where the letter of our predecessor concerning the offenses of Acacius was read, all pronounced anathema against him, and no one mingled himself with the communion of the transgressor. Since, therefore, you admonish us with fraternal charity to administer, as it were, a certain medicine of faith to the bishops throughout Illyricum and to others — although this was done most copiously by our predecessor of blessed memory — and since it is the custom of the Roman Church that a newly established priest prescribe the formula of his faith to the holy Churches, we have sought to renew these same things in the most compendious brevity, so that the reader may recognize in this letter of Ours, for the sake of brevity, under what faith he must live, according to the statutes of the Fathers.
The Christological Formula: Two Natures, One Person, Without Confusion or Conversion
We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God — born before all ages, without beginning, from the Father according to His divinity; and in the last days incarnate from the most holy Virgin Mary, and made perfect man by the assumption of a rational soul and body — homoousios with the Father according to His divinity, and homoousios with us according to His humanity. For the unity of the two perfect natures was accomplished ineffably, on account of which we confess one and the same Christ, the same Son, only-begotten of the Father and firstborn from the dead — knowing that He is indeed coeternal with His Father according to His divinity, according to which He is the maker of all things, and that after the consent of the most holy Virgin He deigned, when she said to the angel: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to your word (Luke 1:38), to build ineffably from her a temple for Himself, and to unite it to Himself.
He did not bring down from heaven a body coeternal with Himself from His own substance, but received one from the mass of our substance — that is, from the Virgin — and united it to Himself. It is not that God the Word was turned into flesh, nor that He appeared as a phantom, but that He inconvertibly and immutably preserved His own essence, taking up the first-fruits of our nature and uniting them to Himself. For in the beginning God the Word deigned in His great goodness to unite to Himself these first-fruits of our nature — not mingled, but in each substance one and the same, as it is written: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). For Christ Jesus is dissolved according to the mere substance which He assumed, and He alone raises up His own temple — He Himself according to His divine substance, according to which He is also the maker of all things.
Never, moreover, after the Resurrection did He depart from the union with our nature, from His own temple, nor can He depart, on account of His ineffable goodness; but He is Himself the Lord Jesus Christ, both passible and impassible — passible according to His humanity, impassible according to His divinity. He raised up, therefore, His own temple — God the Word — and in Himself He accomplished the resurrection and renewal of our nature. And this our Lord Christ God, after He rose from the dead, showed to His disciples, saying: Handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me to have (Luke 24:39). He did not say “as you say I am” but “as you see me to have” — so that, considering both the one who has and the one who is had, you should recognize not confusion, not conversion, not mutation, but the unity that was made. Therefore He showed the marks of the nails and the wound of the lance, and ate with His disciples, so that through all things He might teach that the nature which was ours has been renewed in Himself.
And because according to the blessed substance of His divinity He is inconvertible, immutable, impassible, immortal, needing nothing, accomplishing all passions — He permitted Himself to be brought to His own temple, which He raised by His own power, and through the perfection of His own temple accomplished the renewal of our nature. But those who say that Christ was a subtle man, or that God was passible, or that He was turned into flesh, or that He did not possess a real body, or that He brought this body down from heaven, or — saying that God the Word was mortal — that He was unworthy to be raised by the Father, or that He assumed a body without a soul, or a man without understanding, or two substances of Christ confused according to a mingling into one substance, and who do not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ possesses two natures without confusion and one person — all of these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.
Closing: The Antidote Sent; Hope for the Emperor’s Support
These, then, are the things, most beloved brother, which as an antidote you have demanded that we send. Do not shrink from anything in them as bitter, nor look upon anything sweet in them as harmful. For we had arranged to send some persons from our assembly, if circumstances had permitted — which we believe we shall do at the opportune time, when the correction of those regions has been reported to us, with the Lord’s help, by a fuller delegation, as we trust will happen. We hope also in the mercy of our God that the most clement and most Christian emperor will join his unanimity and assistance to this preaching of Ours — so that by the faith in which he excels he may restrain those in those regions from their petty disputes and their arguments according to the elements of this world, as the vessel of election foretold, who are unwilling to be contained by wholesome disciplines: but as the same Apostle says, you have not so learned Christ (Col. 2:20; Eph. 4:20), if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus — which he will surely be able to apprehend who has observed the institutions of the orthodox Fathers, as has so often been said.
May God keep you safe, dearest brother.
Footnotes
- ↩ Laurentius was Bishop of Lignido (modern Ohrid region, North Macedonia), in the province of New Epirus within the Illyrian vicariate. The editorial note in the PL explains that this is an encyclical letter sent to all the Macedonian bishops in the first year of Gelasius’s pontificate, occasioned by the need for the Thessalonican church and its suffragans to adhere firmly to the Apostolic See against the schism over Acacius. Gelasius sent these circular letters through the bishops of the province.
- ↩ The predecessor is Felix III (483–492), who had excommunicated Acacius in 484 and spent the remainder of his pontificate enforcing the sentence. Gelasius’s reference to Felix’s prior instruction — copiosissime factum sit, “done most copiously” — is the continuity claim: Gelasius is not initiating a new policy but renewing what Felix already established.
- ↩ The Latin is mos est Romanae Ecclesiae noviter constituto sacerdoti formam fidei suae ad sanctas Ecclesias praerogare. The verb praerogare means to prescribe or deliver in advance — the Roman bishop sends his faith formula out to the Churches as a matter of established custom (mos). This is not a request for agreement or a submission for review; it is a prescription.
Historical Commentary