Letter 1020: Returning from the city of Lyon, where he had remained after we left the council to attend to some private business,...

Bishop Avitus to the lord King Gundobad. The holy bishop Cartenius, returning from the city of Lyon, where he had stayed behind after we departed from the council to settle certain private affairs, reported that you had put a question to him — or rather to all of us. If it had been laid out while we were present in person, then, with the Holy Spirit supplying the answer, the points pertaining to the matter could easily have been furnished to your inquiry. But because we ought not to cheat so holy a concern by any delay of reply, knowing that my own judgment agrees — by Christ's favor — with the faith of my brothers, I presume to answer your questions through the service of this present page. You ask, then, that there be shown to you the reasoning, or rather the authority, by which it may be made plain that the Son of God possessed substance in the divinity before he took nature from the incarnation; and that by this means that most pernicious heresy may be overcome which, contending that our Lord took his beginning from Mary, even blasphemes God the Father by deposing the Son [from his eternal divine status]. For it must follow, so far as they are concerned, that something has been added to a divine imperfection, if — having remained without a Son through so many ages past, now almost at the end of a collapsing world — at the same time he should begin to have offspring with Mary, and he should begin to have fatherhood. And once bound by the necessity of this very assertion of theirs, the one whom they name Son they deny to be God. For they perceive that sound ears cannot bear that God should be believed to have begun, not many years ago, from a man. But I do not know to what effect our redemption has arisen, if God did not stand forth as the price of his own creature. For a man alone could not redeem a man — a man who, in the realm above, if he is not God, would himself have needed redemption. You command, therefore, that the things we gather by reason we should also teach by authority. Let a small number of examples, then, suffice for your keenness — examples which, though drawn from many, are abundant for those who desire to learn. As for the rest, if some proofs do not satisfy minds that resist and persist in their unbelief, then no proofs at all will profit them. Isaiah, therefore, the most loud-voiced of the prophets, foreseeing by the Spirit's revelation the nativity of Christ, says: 'A little one is born to us, a son is given to us, and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, father of the age to come, prince of peace' [Isaiah 9:6]. Consider, I beg you, the force of the word: 'A little one is born, a son is given' — the son of man is born to us, the son of God is given. 'He shall be called mighty God' — as if he said God and man: God who had created life, mighty who would conquer death. The prophet Jeremiah, displaying his divinity under the words of a scribe and of his own disciple, speaks thus: 'This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him; he found out every way of discipline and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. And after this he was seen upon the earth and dwelt among men' [Baruch 3:36-38]. But if there be perchance someone to whom these passages, which we set down from the ancients, seem obscure, let him read the apostle Paul, who, when he recalled the bodily forebears of the Lord, says: 'Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever' [Romans 9:5]. For the apostle Thomas also, when with a probing finger he had touched the marks of the nails in the body of the risen mediator and the gaping sign of the pierced side, gathering the proofs of his power amid the tokens of his weakness, cried out thus: 'My Lord and my God' [John 20:28]. Behold by what testimonies the heretics themselves, neighbors to the Jews in perdition, are — whether they will or no — overcome concerning the divinity of the Son; for by their word you would believe the Jews who, in the Gospel of John, disputed with the Lord, saying: 'You are not yet forty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' But he said: 'Amen I say to you, before Abraham was, I am' [John 8:57-58]. Is there here, I ask, anything that one could obscure even if he wished? What now remains, except that he who is known to be older than Abraham should be called younger even than the world? And this too, however contentious it may be, can be overcome by the Lord himself proclaiming amid the insults of his passion: 'Father, glorify me with that glory which I had with you before the world was made' [John 17:5]. But perhaps it is thought that this also should be added: that we teach by the authority of some example that he was named 'Son of God.' In the psalm he says: 'The Lord said to me: you are my son, this day have I begotten you' [Psalm 2:7]. 'This day' here signifies eternity, which alike lacks an end and a beginning — for which tomorrows do not bring forth a future, nor do yesterdays carry off the past. With us, therefore, these things change through the alternations of darkness; but with God, for whom there is no night, it is always today. Yet if the heretics themselves wish to understand this otherwise, it does not concern us. For since we are dealing only with the name 'Son of God,' let them take 'this day' in whatever sense they wish — they will be obliged to grant that the Father begot the Son before the mother brought him forth. Certainly Solomon at least, whom his singular wisdom makes the greatest authority in the ancient scriptures, names the Son most plainly and most clearly in the Proverbs, saying: 'Who has bound up the waters as in a garment? Who has raised up all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son, if you know?' [Proverbs 30:4]. Let these passages about the past suffice. The apostle, moreover, says: 'But after the fullness of times had come, God sent his Son' [Galatians 4:4]. Indeed, he who is sent existed before he was sent. And if he had not existed before Mary, then adoption — not nature — would have made him a son of God, like the rest. Nor would he himself have said in the gospels: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son' [John 3:16]. He was therefore not chosen by that ineffable fatherhood, but begotten — being faithfully proper to his own in each nature, as true God and as true man: in the divinity he has remained from the Father, in the body he took his beginning from the mother. These, then, since you commanded it, are certain small tokens of our reply, and a few seeds of testimonies sent to bring the truth to light, which your keenness and eloquence may indeed nurture into a harvest of salvation, with Christ giving the increase. But if there be any one of those against whom we contend whom you judge to have answered these arguments on the spot — though they be most vigilant and most faithful expositors within the Catholic faith — God will nonetheless grant that I too may be able, taking advantage of leisure for writing, to furnish you both with a more numerous set of examples and with reasoning that may satisfy.

Avitus episcopus domno Gundobado regi. Rediens ab urbe Lugdunensi sanctus Cartenius episcopus, in qua nobis de conci- lio discedentibus ad privata quaedam negotia expedienda resederat, quaestionem sibi, immo magis omnibus nobis proppsuisse vos retulit. Quae si fuisset coram positis in- dicata, subministrante sancto spiritu facile sciscitationi vestrae, quae ad causam per- tinebant, suggeri potuerant. Sed quia tam sanctam sollicitudinem nulla debemus responsi dilatione fraudare, sciens mihi Christo propitio in fide fratrum meorum con- cordare sententiam, praesentis paginae famulatu respondere ad consulta praesumo. lubetis igitur ostendi vobis rationem vel potius auctoritatem, qua pateat dei filium habuisse in divinitate substantiam, priusquam sumeret de incarnatione naturam: et per hoc perniciosissima haeresis illa vincatur, quae dominum nostrum ex Maria coe- pisse contendens etiam deum patrem in filii exauctoratione blasphemat. Necesse est enim, quantum ad illos, inperfectioni divinae aliquid adcrevisse, si tantis retro saeculis sine filio manens paene iam in termino mundi labentis cum Maria prolem tum ille habere inciperet paternitatem. Ac semel ipsius adsertionis suae necessitate constricti quem nominant filium, denegant deum. Sentiunt enim sanas aures ferre non posse, ut ante non multos adhuc annos deus coepisse credatur ex homine. Sed nescio in quem effectum redemptio nostra surrexit, si non creaturae suae pretium deus extitit. Nec enim redimere homo solus hominem poterat, qui in supernis, si deus non est, eguit redemptione. Iubetis ergo, ut haec, quae ratione colligimus, auctoritate docea- mus. Sufficiat ergo acrimoniae vestrae paucitas exemplorum, quae sumpta de pluribus abundant cognoscere desiderantibus. Ceterum renitentibus animis et in sua increduli- tate durantibus si aliqua non satisfecerint, cuncta non proderunt. Isaias ergo concla- mantissimus prophetarum nativitatem Christi spiritu revelante prospiciens: Parvulus, inquit, natus est nobis, filius datus est nobis, et vocabitur nomen eius admirabilis, consiliarius, deus fortis, pater futuri saeculi, princeps pacis. Intuemini quaeso verbi vigorem: Parvulus natus est, filius datus: natus est nobis hominis filius, datus est dei. Vocabitur deus fortis: ac si diceret deus et homo; deus qui creaverat vitam, fortis qui vinceret mortem. Cuius divinitatem sub verbis scribae ac discipuli sui propheta Iheremias ostendens sic ait: Hic est deus noster, non aestimabitur alius ad eum; hic invenit omnem viam disci- plinae et dedit Iacob puero suo et Israel dilecto suo. Et post haec in terra visus est et inter homines conversatus. Quod si est forte, cui haec, quae de antiquis ponimus, obscura videantur, legat apostolum Paulum, qui cum cor- poreos parentes domini commemoraret: Quorum patres, inquit, et ex quibus Christus secundum carnem, qui est super omnia deus benedictus in saecula. Nam et Thomas apostolus, cum in resuscitati mediatoris corpore fixuras clavorum et hiulcum transpuncti lateris signum digito temptante palpasset, virtutis experimenta inter infirmitatis indicia colligens sic clamavit: Dominus meus et deus meus. Ecce quibus testimoniis velint nolint haeretici ipsi Iudaeorum in perditione confines de filii divinitate vincuntur, quorum verbo credas Iudaeos in evangelio Iohannis dominum discussisse dicentes: Quadraginta annos nondum habes et Abraham vidisti? At ille inquit: Amen dico vobis, ante Abraham ego sum. Est hic, rogo, quod obscurare vel volens queat? Quid nunc restat, nisi ut, qui senior Abraham cognoscitur, iunior vel mundo dicatur? Et istud, quamlibet contentiosum sit, vinci potest ipso domino inter passionum contumelias proclamante: Pater, clari- fica me ea claritate, quam habui apud te, antequam mundus fieret. Sed forte et hoc putatur addendum, ut dei filium nominatum cuiuscumque exempli auctoritate doceamus. In psalmo ait: Dominus dixit ad me: filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te. Hodie hic aeternitas significatur, quae termino atque principio perinde caret: cui non pariunt crastina tempora futurum, non rapiunt hesterna transactum. Penes nos ergo per tenebrarum vices ista mutantur; apud deum vero, cui nox non est, semper hodie est. Quod tamen si haeretici ipsi aliter volunt intelle- gere, nostra non refert. Nam cum de solo nomine filii dei agamus, quale volunt hodie accipiant, concessuri sunt, ut ante genuerit filium pater, quam mater ediderit. Certe vel Salomon, cui maximam in scripturis veteribus auctoritatem singularis sapientia facit, planissime filium in proverbiis et lucidissime nominat dicens: Quis colligavit aquas quasi in vestimento? quis suscitavit omnes terminos terrae? quod nomen eius et quod nomen filii eius, si nosti? De praeteritis ista sufficiant; apostolus autem dicit: Postquam vero venit plenitudo temporum, misit deus filium suum. Enimvero qui mittitur, erat antequam mitteretur. Qui si ante Mariam non fuisset, hunc similem ceteris adoptio fecerat dei filium, non natura. Nec in evangeliis ipse dixisset: Tantum dilexit deus mundum, ut filium suum unicum daret Non electum ergo ab ipsa ineffabili paternitate, sed geni- tum, cui tam deo quam homini vero, in utraque natura fideliter proprio, in divinitate mansisse de patre, in corpore coepisse de matre est. Haec ergo, quia iussistis, quae- dam nostrae responsionis indicula et ad dilucidandam veritatem pauca testimoniorum semina transmisi. Quae possit quidem acrimonia vestra vel eloquentia in frugem salutis Christo irrigante nutrire. Sed si sit quisquam de his, contra quos agimus, quem his vestro iudicio ad thorum respondisse credatis, licet sint vigilantissimi in catholica et fidelissimi tractatores, dabit tamen deus, ut ego quoque possim vobis et numerosiorum exemplorum numerum et rationem, quae satisfaciat, praesumpta scribendi vacatione suggerere.