Boethius (480-524)

A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius

Translated by H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand

Chapter 5

I must now pass to Eutyches who, wandering from the path of primitive doctrine, has rushed into the opposite error and asserts that so far from our having to believe in a twofold Person in Christ, we must not even confess a double Nature; humanity, he maintains, was so assumed that the union with Godhead involved the disappearance of the human nature. His error springs from the same source as that of Nestorius. For just as Nestorius deems there could not be a double Nature unless the Person were doubled, and therefore, confessing the double Nature in Christ, has perforce believed the Person to be double, so also Eutyches denied that the Nature was not double unless the Person was double and since he did not confess a double Person, he thought it a necessary consequence that the Nature should be regarded as single. Thus Nestorius, rightly holding Christ’s Nature to be double, sacrilegiously professes the Persons to be two; whereas Eutyches, rightly believing the Person to be single, impiously believes that the Nature also is single. And being confuted by the plain evidence of facts, since it is clear that the Nature of God is different from that of man, he declares his belief to be: two Natures in Christ before the union and only one after the union. Now this statement does not express clearly what he means. However, let us scrutinize his extravagance. It is plain that this union took place either at the moment of conception or at the moment of resurrection. But if it happened at the moment of conception Eutyches seems to think that even before conception He had human flesh, not taken from Mary but prepared in some other way, while the Virgin Mary was brought in to give birth to flesh that was not taken from her; that this flesh, which already existed, was apart and separate from the substance of divinity, but that when He was born of the Virgin it was united to God, so that the Nature seemed to be made one. Or if this be not his opinion, since he says that there were two Natures before the union and one after, supposing the union to be established by conception, an alternative view may be that Christ indeed took a body from Mary but that before He took it the Natures of Godhead and manhood were different: but the Nature assumed became one with that of Godhead into which it passed. But if he thinks that this union was effected not by conception but by resurrection, we shall have to assume that this too happened in one of two ways; either Christ was conceived and did not assume a body from Mary or He did assume flesh from her, and there were (until indeed He rose) two Natures which became one after the Resurrection. From these alternatives a dilemma arises which we will examine as follows: Christ who was born of Mary either did or did not take human flesh from her. If Eutyches does not admit that He took it from her, then let him say what manhood He put on to come among us—that which had fallen through sinful disobedience or another? If it was the manhood of that man from whom all men descend, what manhood did divinity invest? For if that flesh in which He was born came not of the seed of Abraham and of David and finally of Mary, let Eutyches show from what man’s flesh he descended, since, after the first man, all human flesh is derived from human flesh. But if he shall name any child of man beside Mary the Virgin as the cause of the conception of the Saviour, he will both be confounded by his own error, and, himself a dupe, will stand accused of stamping with falsehood the very Godhead for thus transferring to others the promise of the sacred oracles made to Abraham and David that of their seed salvation should arise for all the world, especially since if human flesh was taken it could not be taken from any other but Him of whom it was begotten. If, therefore, His human body was not taken from Mary but from any other, yet that was engendered through Mary which had been corrupted by disobedience, Eutyches is confuted by the argument already stated. But if Christ did not put on that manhood which had endured death in punishment for sin, it will result that of no man’s seed could ever one have been born who should be, like Him, without punishment for original sin. Therefore flesh like His was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new-formed for the purpose. But did this flesh then either so appear to human eyes that the body was deemed human which was not really human, because it was not subject to any primal penalty, or was some new true human flesh formed as a makeshift, not subject to the penalty for original sin? If it was not a truly human body, the Godhead is plainly convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body which was not real and thus deceived those who thought it real. But if flesh had been formed new and real and not taken from man, to what purpose was the tremendous tragedy of the conception? Where the value of His long Passion? I cannot but consider foolish even a human action that is useless. And to what useful end shall we say this great humiliation of Divinity was wrought if ruined man has not been saved by the conception and the Passion of Christ—for they denied that he was taken into Godhead? Once more then, just as the error of Eutyches took its rise from the same source as that of Nestorius, so it hastens to the same goal inasmuch as according to Eutyches also the human race has not been saved, since man who was sick and needed health and salvation was not taken into Godhead. Yet this is the conclusion he seems to have drawn, if he erred so deeply as to believe that Christ’s body was not taken really from man but from a source outside him and prepared for the purpose in heaven, for He is believed to have ascended with it up into heaven. Which is the meaning of the text: none hath ascended into heaven save Him who came down from heaven.

Chapter 4

Chapter 6