2561

Late 1246 / early 1247. Latin version of the Confession of Primate Johannes of the Eastern Jacobitae: ‘I, Johannes, feeble primate of the Eastern Jacobitae, say that my confession and my faith is from the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, namely the person of the eternal Son born of the Father before times: that by His, His Father’s, and the Holy Spirit’s will, He descended from the high dwelling place of the heavens, and He has not withdrawn from the lordship of His majesty, and He dwelled essentially in Mary the Virgin His maid, and He received from her a body animated with a rational intellective soul. And He was united with it with the aforesaid soul mediating, but in an inseparable union. And we do not say that He was first formed as a man and afterwards divinity dwelled in Him, but rather we say that no part of His humanity sprung into being without divinity being united, without mixture, without confusion, in a union, I say, perpetual, inseparable, indivisible. And because of this we confess that He is the one God incarnate; the one Son born of the Father, first by an eternal birth and at last of the Virgin Mary by a temporal birth; one person, one substance from two substances, not that divinity was converted into humanity or humanity into divinity, nor that a third substance was composed from these two substances, but it was united according to a pattern (norma) of union of non-accidental life. And although the union excludes duality, yet the evidence of two natures and their properties remains in Him and are they distinguished by the intellect alone. And we do not attribute miracles and magnificent works to divinity abstracted from humanity, nor do we attribute natural things and the lowest (weakest) works to humanity abstracted from divinity. But we say that He made miracles by virtue of divinity and He tasted suffering and voluntary death because of the nature of humanity; and yet He is one Son of God and man. And we say that, when He underwent suffering and voluntary death for the salvation of His creation, His divinity was not separated from His body at the hour of death, but it was always united both with the body that underwent suffering and with the separated soul; nor did suffering reach it, since the divine substance, because of its excellence, is immune from every accident and passion. But since each of the three persons is called ‘God’, and it is the case that the Son is one of the three persons and is called ‘God’, we must call the Virgin Mary His mother the ‘bearer of God’. And if someone should say to us that this name ‘God’ is a name common to three persons, and thus perhaps this statement will pass over to a person other than the Son, or to three at once, we say that this name is common unless there is something distinctive and proper. If there is something distinctive and proper – because each of the three persons has a proper notion by which He is distinguished from the others, and this because the Father is distinguished from the Son and the Holy Spirit by paternity, and the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit by filiation, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son by procession – therefore, if we call the Father ‘God’ and we make known paternity, it does not follow that it crosses over to the Son and the Holy Spirit, and similarly with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when we say, ‘The Virgin Mary begot God’, this is only understood of the Son, because this name is restricted by the notion of birth and filiation, nor must that statement cross over to another. And if someone should say to us, “Why does it not suffice for her to be called the ‘bearer of Christ?’”, we respond that this name does not suffice for making known the truth of the essence in the Bearer, since the noun is derived from unction and requires a long explanation and departs from the first explanation, and perhaps the foolish will reckon that she was called this name just as David, and just as Saul, or this sort. But if the name derived from divinity and humanity, it would suffice in brief to call Mary the ‘mother of Christ’. Since, therefore, in truth God was born from her, we call her the ‘bearer of God’, and in this we follow in the steps of the holy Fathers.’