Testimony of Jsus

According to the Bible:
1) Jsus is the Messiah, the divine Son of Gd, and the eternal Word of Gd;
2) Jsus has one flesh, one nature, one mind, one will, one energy, and one activity, which are all human-divine;
3) The human-divine Jsus suffered and died on the cross, was buried, and then rose from the dead on the third day;
4) Jsus is the image of Gd the Father, is one with Gd the Father, is equal to Gd the Father, and all the fullness of the divine nature dwells in Jsus bodily;
5) Jsus is subordinate to Gd the Father;
6) Jsus and Gd the Father have individual wills and minds.

Eternal Word of Gd

John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.

John 8:56-58 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore said unto him, Thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jsus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am.

Mic. 5:2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

Is. 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty Gd, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

One Human-Divine Flesh and Nature

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.

Rom. 8:3-4 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, Gd, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

John 6:50-51 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

John 3:31 He who cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh: he that cometh from heaven is above all.

Suffering and Death

1Pet. 2:21-23 For hereunto were ye called: because Chrst also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

1Cor. 15:3-4 For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Chrst died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;

Equality With Gd

Is. 7:14 Therefore the Lrd himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [Gd With Us].

Phil. 2:5-8 Have this mind in you, which was also in Chrst Jsus: who, being in the form of Gd, counted not the being on an equality with Gd a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in figure as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.

Col. 2:8-9 Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Chrst: for in him dwells all the fullness of the divine nature bodily.

Col. 1:15-19 who is the image of the invisible Gd, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it was the good pleasure that in him should all the fullness dwell;

Subordinate to Gd

John 14:28 Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I.

John 5:19 Jsus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.

John 20:17 Jsus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my Gd and your Gd.

Individual Wills and Minds

Matt. 26:39 And he went forward a little, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou will.

Luke 22:41-42 And he was parted from them about a stone’s cast; and he kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

John 5:30 I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

Matt. 24:34-36 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.

Apollinaris (c. 360-382 AD)

There is no division of the Word and his flesh brought forth at all in the divine Scriptures, but there is one nature, one hypostasis, one activity, one person, the same one wholly Gd and wholly man. (Apollinaris, De fide et incarnatione contra adversarios, Written c. 375)

But he [a person] falls away because of the body, and because of the suffering he changes our Savior and thinks of him as a man instead of as Gd. For whoever calls the one who was born of Mary a man and calls the one who was crucified a man makes him to be a man instead of Gd. And in a man you cannot find the life which is given by Gd. (Apollinaris, De fide et incarnatione contra adversarios, Written c. 375)

Those who claim that a union of the flesh and the addition of a man are the same thing are wrong. (Apollinaris, Demonstratio de divina incarnatione ad similitudinem hominis, Written c. 375)

Unless the Lrd is an enfleshed mind, Wisdom would be illuminating the mind of a man. And this is the case in all men. And if this were so, Chrst’s coming would not be the visitation of Gd but the birth of a man. (Apollinaris, Demonstratio de divina incarnatione ad similitudinem hominis, Written c. 375)

Because of this he was also a man. For a mind in flesh is a man according to Paul. (Apollinaris, Demonstratio de divina incarnatione ad similitudinem hominis, Written c. 375)

If the heavenly man is from all the things equal to us men of dust such that he also has the spirit equal to men of dust, he is not heavenly but a holder of a heavenly Gd. (Apollinaris, Demonstratio de divina incarnatione ad similitudinem hominis, Written c. 375)

It is lawless for there to be one and the same worship of one and another essence, that is, of Maker and made, Gd and man. The one worship is of Chrst. And according to this Gd and man are understood in the one name. Therefore Gd and man are not one and another essence but one essence according to the combination of Gd with the human body. (Apollinaris, Demonstratio de divina incarnatione ad similitudinem hominis, Written c. 375)

Therefore of necessity both what is bodily is spoken of as towards the whole person and what is divine is spoken of as towards the whole person. He who is not able to know in the united differences what is the property of each will unharmoniously fall into contradictions, but he who both knows their own properties and guards the union will neither falsify the nature nor fail to recognize the union. (Apollinaris, De unione corporis et divinitatis in Chrsto, Written c. 375)

Cyril of Alexandria (412-444 AD)

But when we are conceiving of the Only-Begotten Word, as united to His flesh, we do not take it as being like a garment nor do we say that He cast it upon Him like cloaks which are external, as though it were alien: but it is rather a demonstration of the declaration that He was made flesh, i. e. man. The Word therefore had a natural presence in the body which was united to Him and is His, just as also the soul of man is his, albeit the nature is alien. (Cyril of Alexandria, Against Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Book 1, Written 430 AD)

For we who hold the Right and Immaculate Faith, and ever cleave to the Divine Scriptures, and follow the tracks of the Faith of the Fathers, when we hear ‘JSUS,’ we understand the Only-Begotten Word made Man. (Cyril of Alexandria, Against Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Book 1, Written 430 AD)

For scripture does not say that the Word united the person of a man to himself, but that he became flesh. The Word’s becoming flesh means nothing else than that he partook of flesh and blood like us; he made our body his own, and came forth a man from woman without casting aside his deity, or his generation from Gd the Father, but rather in his assumption of flesh remaining what he was. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Second Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, Written 430 AD)

We confess the Word to have been made one with the flesh hypostatically, and we adore one Son and Lrd, Jsus Chrst. We do not divide him into parts and separate man and Gd in him, as though the two natures were mutually united only through a unity of dignity and authority; that would be an empty expression and nothing more. Nor do we give the name Chrst in one sense to the Word of Gd and in another to him who was born of woman, but we know only one Chrst, the Word from Gd the Father with his own flesh. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, Written 430 AD)

This we receive not as ordinary flesh, heaven forbid, nor as that of a man who has been made holy and joined to the Word by union of honour, or who had a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and real flesh of the Word. For being life by nature as Gd, when he became one with his own flesh, he made it also to be life-giving, as also he said to us: “Amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood.” For we must not think that it is the flesh of a man like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?), but as being made the true flesh of the one who for our sake became the son of man and was called so. For we do not divide up the words of our Saviour in the gospels among two hypostases or persons. For the one and only Chrst is not dual, even though he be considered to be from two distinct realities, brought together into an unbreakable union. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, Written 430 AD)

For if it is necessary to believe that being Gd by nature he became flesh, that is man ensouled with a rational soul, whatever reason should anyone have for being ashamed at the expressions uttered by him should they happen to be suitable to him as man? For if he should reject words suitable to him as man, who was it that forced him to become a man like us? Why should he who submitted himself to voluntary self-emptying for our sake, reject expressions that are suitable for such self-emptying? All the expressions, therefore, that occur in the gospels are to be referred to one person, the one enfleshed hypostasis of the Word. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, Written 430 AD)

If anyone distributes between the two persons or hypostases the expressions used either in the gospels or in the apostolic writings, whether they are used by the holy writers of Chrst or by him about himself, and ascribes some to him as to a man, thought of separately from the Word from Gd, and others, as befitting God, to him as to the Word from Gd the Father, let him be anathema. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Twelve Anathemas, Written 430 AD)

If anyone dares to say that Chrst was a Gd-bearing man and not rather Gd in truth, being by nature one Son, even as “the Word became flesh”, and is made partaker of blood and flesh precisely like us, let him be anathema. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Twelve Anathemas, Written 430 AD)

If anyone does not confess that the flesh of the Lrd is life-giving and belongs to the Word from Gd the Father, but maintains that it belongs to another besides him, united with him in dignity or as enjoying a mere divine indwelling, and is not rather life-giving, as we said, since it became the flesh belonging to the Word who has power to bring all things to life, let him be anathema. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Twelve Anathemas, Written 430 AD)

If anyone does not confess that the Word of Gd suffered in the flesh and was crucified in the flesh and tasted death in the flesh and became the first born of the dead, although as Gd he is life and life-giving, let him be anathema. (Cyril of Alexandria, Council of Ephesus, Twelve Anathemas, Written 430 AD)

Severus of Antioch (512-538 AD)

Therefore we do not condemn those who confess the properties of the natures of which the one Chrst consists, but those who separate the properties, and apportion them to each nature apart. When the one Chrst has once been divided (and he is divided by the fact that they speak of two natures after the union), with the natures which have been cut asunder into a duality and separated into a distinct diversity go the operations and properties which are the offspring of this division, as the words of Leo’s impious letter state in what he said: “For each of the forms effects in partnership with the other that which belongs to itself, the Word doing that which belongs to the Word, and the body performing the things which belong to the body.” (Severus of Antioch, Letter 1, Written 510 AD)

But we must condemn those who confine the one Chrst in two natures and say that each of the natures performs its own acts. Between the things performed and done by the one Chrst the difference is great. Some of them are acts befitting the divinity, while others are human. For example, to walk and travel in bodily form upon the earth is without contention human; but to bestow on those who are maimed in the feet and cannot walk upon the ground at all the power of walking like sound persons is Gd-befitting. Yet the one Word incarnate performed the latter and the former, and the one nature did not perform the one, and the other the other; nor, because the things performed are different, shall we on this account rightly define two natures or forms as operating. Again the Tome of Leo says: “For each of the natures preserves its own property without diminution,” distributing the properties to the two natures severally, as one who divides the one and only Chrst into two natures. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 1, Written 510 AD)

We must condemn those who divide the one Chrst: and they divide him by speaking of two natures after the union, and consequently apportioning the operations and properties between the natures. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 1, Written 510 AD)

But, if we speak of two natures after the union, which necessarily exist in singleness and separately, as if divided into a duality, but united by a conjunction of brotherhood (if we ought to call such a thing unity), the notion of difference reaches to the extent of division, and does not stop at natural characteristics. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 10, Written 517 AD)

For we must confess the one our Lrd Jsus Chrst, out of two natures the Godhead and the manhood, to be one and the same invariably and unconfusedly Gd and man, since not being again divided after the union; for duality is a dissolver of unity, although it is obscured by countless devices. For he who has been united is fixedly one, and does not become again two. For Chrst is not divided, but is one person, one hypostasis, one incarnate nature of God the Word. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 18, Written 515 AD)

We confess that flesh possessing an intelligent soul was taken by Gd the Word, and he united this to him hypostatically, but not so that anything should be added to his divine essence, as if it were deficient (for he is truly complete in everything), but that from the unmixed union of the Incarnation, and the composition out of two elements, the Godhead and the manhood, Emmanuel should be made up, who in one hypostasis is ineffably composite; not simple, but composite: as the soul of a man like us, which by nature is bodiless and rational, which is naturally intertwined with the body, remains in its suprasensual and bodiless nature, but by reason of the composition with the body makes up one composite animal, man. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 25, Written 515 AD)

But you say that the synod at Chalcedon also placed the faith of the 318 before its definition. But in that case the innovation is obvious. First it says in plain words, and that twice and three times, that it is itself making a definition; secondly, because it said that our one Lrd Jsus Chrst is made known in two natures; thirdly, to omit the other points, because it called Leo’s letter, which is full of the blasphemies of Nestorius, ‘a pillar of orthodoxy.’ (Severus of Antioch, Letter 36, Written 510 AD)

But this you may keep firmly and fixedly in your mind, that no one shall be our fellow-communicant, nor will we consent to greet by letter any man who at the same time receives the wicked synod at Chalcedon contrary to the law, and does not condemn the Tome of Leo. But, if any concession is necessary, I will stand within the ordinances of the holy Timothy, considering the general benefit of a union of the holy churches, and demanding an open condemnation of the things done at Chalcedon against the orthodox faith, and of the wicked Tome of Leo, and of those who speak of two natures after the union, and the operations of these and their properties. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 47, Written 516 AD)

But perhaps it is good to say, both to our people and to all strangers, that, if the time of concession call, to catch one who is separated and to gain him, I prescribe a formula that does not exceed what is right, but goes in the middle of the king’s highway, a formula which condemns by name the things done at Chalcedon against the orthodox faith, and against those who contended on behalf of this, and the wicked Tome of Leo, who became chief of the church of the Romans, and those who call our one Lrd and Gd Jsus Chrst two natures after the divine and ineffable union, there being also expressly joined with these things the right confession contained in the edict of Zeno of pious ending, for the rejection of the wicked synod at Chalcedon. If the things blasphemously and unlawfully done at that synod, and the polluted Tome of Leo, and those who after the union divide the one Chrst into a duality of natures, are not condemned, though the edict or Henotikon is taken as a rejection of these things, I do not consider this sufficient for persuasion, as was also declared in the proceedings held among you. (Severus of Antioch, Letter 49, Written 516 AD)