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Against Beron and Helix (fragments)

Contra Beronem et Heliconem

Written in the fifth to seventh century; the place is not known. The date is disputed or rests on weak evidence.

It carries the name of Hippolytus of Rome, and it is not by that writer.

Eight pieces on the two natures of Christ; they carry the name of Hippolytus, and they were written long after he died.

Treatise · first written in Greek

Translated by S. D. F. Salmond (1886). Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (1886); first issued in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1867-1873) Public domain. Source and rights

About this text (1 note)

No source line in the file. The text, its translator line and its note numbers match the CCEL copy of this series.

How we know the date and place
Date written not sure
S. D. F. Salmond in ANF 5 (note): first quoted by Anastasius the Apocrisiarius about 665; J. Quasten, Patrology vol. 2, counts it not genuine, because its words belong to the debates after Chalcedon
The corpus gives no date. One catalog (bkv.unifr.ch, CPG 1916) still lists it as third century under Hippolytus.
Place written not known
Looked in ANF 5 and Quasten, Patrology vol. 2

3,106 words. 8 sections.

Contents
  1. Fragment I.
  2. Fragment II.
  3. Fragment III.
  4. Fragment IV.
  5. Fragment V.
  6. Fragment VI.
  7. Fragment VII.
  8. Fragment VIII.

Against Beron and Helix.

Fragments of a discourse, alphabetically divided, [1711] on the Divine Nature [1712] and the Incarnation, against the heretics Beron and Helix, [1713] the beginning of which was in these words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, with voice never silent the seraphim exclaim and glorify God."

Fragment I.

§ 1›

By the omnipotent will of God all things are made, and the things that are made are also preserved, being maintained according to their several principles in perfect harmony by Him who is in His nature the omnipotent God and maker of all things,1714 His divine will remaining unalterable by which He has made and moves all things, sustained as they severally are by their own natural laws.1715 For the infinite cannot in any manner or by any account be susceptible of movement, inasmuch as it has nothing towards which and nothing around which it shall be moved. For in the case of that which is in its nature infinite, and so incapable of being moved, movement would be conversion.1716 Wherefore also the Word of God being made truly man in our manner, yet without sin, and acting and enduring in man's way such sinless things as are proper to our nature, and assuming the circumscription of the flesh of our nature on our behalf, sustained no conversion in that aspect in which He is one with the Father, being made in no respect one with the flesh through the exinanition.1717 But as He was without flesh,1718 He remained without any circumscription. And through the flesh He wrought divinely1719 those things which are proper to divinity, showing Himself to have both those natures in both of which He wrought, I mean the divine and the human, according to that veritable and real and natural subsistence,1720 (showing Himself thus) as both being in reality and as being understood to be at one and the same time infinite God and finite man, having the nature1721 of each in perfection, with the same activity,1722 that is to say, the same natural properties;1723 whence we know that their distinction abides always according to the nature of each, and without conversion. But it is not (i.e., the distinction between deity and humanity), as some say, a merely comparative (or relative) matter,1724 that we may not speak in an unwarrantable manner of a greater and a less in one who is ever the same in Himself.1725 For comparisons can be instituted only between objects of like nature, and not between objects of unlike nature. But between God the Maker of all things and that which is made, between the infinite and the finite, between infinitude and finitude, there can be no kind of comparison, since these differ from each other not in mere comparison (or relatively), but absolutely in essence. And yet at the same time there has been effected a certain inexpressible and irrefragable union of the two into one substance,1726 which entirely passes the understanding of anything that is made. For the divine is just the same after the incarnation that it was before the incarnation; in its essence infinite, illimitable, impassible, incomparable, unchangeable, inconvertable, self-potent,1727 and, in short, subsisting in essence alone the infinitely worthy good.

17 notes
  1. 1711 kata stoicheion. The Latin title in the version of Anastasius renders it "ex sermone qui est per elementum."
  2. 1712 peri theologias.
  3. 1713 For Elikosthe Codex Regius et Colbertinus of Nicephorus prefers "Elikionos. Fabricius conjectures that we should read elikioto hairetikon, so that the title would be, Against Beron and his fellow-heretics. [N.B. Beron = "Vero".]
  4. 1714 auto to...Theo.
  5. 1715 tois hekasta phusikois diexagomena nomois. Anastasius makes it naturalibus producta legibus; Capperonnier, suis quæque legibus temperata vel ordinata.
  6. 1716 trope gar tou kata phusin apeirou, kineisthai me pephukotos , he kinesis; or may the sense be, "for a change in that which is in its nature infinite would just be the moving of that which is incapable of movement?"
  7. 1717 med' heni pantelos ho tauton esti to Patri genomenos tauton te sarki dia ten kenosin. Thus in effect Combefisius, correcting the Latin version of Anastasius. Baunius adopts the reading in the Greek Codex Nicephori, viz., henosin for kenosin, and renders it, "In nothing was the Word, who is the same with the Father, made the same with the flesh through the union:" nulla re Verbum quod idem est cum Patre factum est idem cum carne propter unionem.
  8. 1718 dicha sarkos, i.e., what He was before assuming the flesh, that He continued to be in Himself, viz., independent of limitation.
  9. 1719 theikos.
  10. 1720 Or existence, huparxin. Anastasius makes it substantia.
  11. 1721 ousian.
  12. 1722 energeias.
  13. 1723 phusikes idiotetos.
  14. 1724 kata sunkrisin. Migne follows Capperonnier in taking sunkrisis in this passage to mean not "comparison" or "relation," but "commixture," the "concretion and commixture" of the divine and human, which was the error of Apollinaris and Eutyches in their doctrine of the incarnation, and which had been already refuted by Tertullian, Contra Praxeam, c. xxvii.
  15. 1725 Or, "for that would be to speak of the same being as greater and less than Himself."
  16. 1726 upostasin.
  17. 1727 autosthenes.

Fragment II.

‹§ 2›

The God of all things therefore became truly, according to the Scriptures, without conversion, sinless man, and that in a manner known to Himself alone, as He is the natural Artificer of things which are above our comprehension. And by that same saving act of the incarnation1728 He introduced into the flesh the activity of His proper divinity, yet without having it (that activity) either circumscribed by the flesh through the exinanition, or growing naturally out of the flesh as it grew out of His divinity,1729 but manifested through it in the things which He wrought in a divine manner in His incarnate state. For the flesh did not become divinity in nature by a transmutation of nature, as though it became essentially flesh of divinity. But what it was before, that also it continued to be in nature and activity when united with divinity, even as the Saviour said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."1730 And working and enduring in the flesh things which were proper to sinless flesh, He proved the evacuation of divinity (to be) for our sakes, confirmed as it was by wonders and by sufferings of the flesh naturally. For with this purpose did the God of all things become man, viz., in order that by suffering in the flesh, which is susceptible of suffering, He might redeem our whole race, which was sold to death; and that by working wondrous things by His divinity, which is unsusceptible of suffering, through the medium of the flesh He might restore it to that incorruptible and blessed life from which it fell away by yielding to the devil; and that He might establish the holy orders of intelligent existences in the heavens in immutability by the mystery of His incarnation,1731 the doing of which is the recapitulation of all things in himself.1732 He remained therefore, also, after His incarnation, according to nature, God infinite, and more,1733 having the activity proper and suitable to Himself,—an activity growing out of His divinity essentially, and manifested through His perfectly holy flesh by wondrous acts economically, to the intent that He might be believed in as God, while working out of Himself1734 by the flesh, which by nature is weak, the salvation of the universe.

7 notes
  1. 1728 soterion sarkosin.
  2. 1729 oud' hosper tes autou theotetos houto kai autes phusikos ekphuomenen.
  3. 1730 Matt. xxvi. 41.
  4. 1731 somatoseos.
  5. 1732 Referring probably to Eph. i. 10.
  6. 1733 huperapeiros.
  7. 1734 autourgon.

Fragment III.

‹§ 3›

Now, with the view of explaining, by means of an illustration, what has been said concerning the Saviour, (I may say that) the power of thought1735 which I have by nature is proper and suitable to me, as being possessed of a rational and intelligent soul; and to this soul there pertains, according to nature, a self-moved energy and first power, ever-moving, to wit, the thought that streams from it naturally. This thought I utter, when there is occasion, by fitting it to words, and expressing it rightly in signs, using the tongue as an organ, or artificial characters, showing that it is heard, though it comes into actuality by means of objects foreign to itself, and yet is not changed itself by those foreign objects.1736 For my natural thought does not belong to the tongue or the letters, although I effect its utterance by means of these; but it belongs to me, who speak according to my nature, and by means of both these express it as my own, streaming as it does always from my intelligent soul according to its nature, and uttered by means of my bodily tongue organically, as I have said, when there is occasion. Now, to institute a comparison with that which is utterly beyond comparison, just as in us the power of thought that belongs by nature to the soul is brought to utterance by means of our bodily tongue without any change in itself, so, too, in the wondrous incarnation1737 of God is the omnipotent and all-creating energy of the entire deity1738 manifested without mutation in itself, by means of His perfectly holy flesh, and in the works which He wrought after a divine manner, (that energy of the deity) remaining in its essence free from all circumscription, although it shone through the flesh, which is itself essentially limited. For that which is in its nature unoriginated cannot be circumscribed by an originated nature, although this latter may have grown into one with it1739 by a conception which circumscribes all understanding:1740 nor can this be ever brought into the same nature and natural activity with that, so long as they remain each within its own proper and inconvertible nature.1741 For it is only in objects of the same nature that there is the motion that works the same works, showing that the being1742 whose power is natural is incapable in any manner of being or becoming the possession of a being of a different nature without mutation.1743

9 notes
  1. 1735 logos.
  2. 1736 The text is, dia ton anomoion men uparchonta. Anastasius reads me for men.
  3. 1737 somatoseos.
  4. 1738 tes holes theotetos.
  5. 1739 sunephu.
  6. 1740 Kata sullepsin panta perigraphousan noun.
  7. 1741 oute men eis t' auton auto pheresthai phuseos pote kai phusikes energeias , heos an hekateron tes idias entos menei phusikes atrepsias. To pheresthai we supply again pephuke.
  8. 1742 ousian.
  9. 1743 The sense is extremely doubtful here. The text runs thus: homophuon gar monon he tautourgos esti kinesis semainousa ten ousian, hes phusike kathesteke dunamis, heterophuous idiotetos ousias einai kat' oudena logon, e genesthai dicha tropes dunamenen. Anastasius renders it: Connaturalium enim tantum per se operans est motus, manifestans substantiam, cujus naturalem constat esse virtutem: diversæ naturæ proprietatis substantia nulla naturæ esse vel fieri sine convertibilitate valente.

Fragment IV.

‹§ 4›

For, in the view of apostles and prophets and teachers, the mystery of the divine incarnation has been distinguished as having two points of contemplation natural to it,1744 distinct in all things, inasmuch as on the one hand it is the subsistence of perfect deity, and on the other is demonstrative of full humanity. As long, therefore,1745 as the Word is acknowledged to be in substance one, of one energy, there shall never in any way be known a movement1746 in the two. For while God, who is essentially ever-existent, became by His infinite power, according to His will, sinless man, He is what He was, in all wherein God is known; and what He became, He is in all wherein man is known and can be recognised. In both aspects of Himself He never falls out of Himself,1747 in His divine activities and in His human alike, preserving in both relations His own essentially unchangeable perfection.

4 notes
  1. 1744 ditten kai diaphoran echon diegnostai ten en pasi phusiken theorian.
  2. 1745 The text goes, heos an ouch, which is adopted by Combefisius. But Capperonnier and Migne read oun for ouch, as we have rendered it.
  3. 1746 Change, kinesis.
  4. 1747 menei anekptotos.

Fragment V.

‹§ 5›

For lately a certain person, Beron, along with some others, forsook the delusion of Valentinus, only to involve themselves in deeper error, affirming that the flesh assumed to Himself by the Word became capable of working like works with the deity1748 by virtue of its assumption, and that the deity became susceptible of suffering in the same way with the flesh1749 by virtue of the exinanition;1750 and thus they assert the doctrine that there was at the same time a conversion and a mixing and a fusing1751 of the two aspects one with the other. For if the flesh that was assumed became capable of working like works with the deity, it is evident that it also became God in essence in all wherein God is essentially known. And if the deity by the exinanition became susceptible of the same sufferings with the flesh, it is evident that it also became in essence flesh in all wherein flesh essentially can be known. For objects that act in like manner,1752 and work like works, and are altogether of like kind, and are susceptible of like suffering with each other, admit of no difference of nature; and if the natures are fused together,1753 Christ will be a duality;1754 and if the persons1755 are separated, there will be a quaternity,1756 —a thing which is altogether to be avoided. And how will they conceive of the one and the same Christ, who is at once God and man by nature? And what manner of existence will He have according to them, if He has become man by a conversion of the deity, and if he has become God by a change of the flesh? For the mutation1757 of these, the one into the other, is a complete subversion of both. Let the discussion, then, be considered by us again in a different way.

10 notes
  1. 1748 genesthai tautourgon te theoteti.
  2. 1749 tautopathe te sarki.
  3. 1750 kenosin.
  4. 1751 sunchusin.
  5. 1752 homoerge.
  6. 1753 sunkechumenon. [Vol. iii. p. 623].
  7. 1754 duas.
  8. 1755 prosopon.
  9. 1756 tetras, i.e., instead of Trinity [the Trias].
  10. 1757 metaptosis. [Compare the Athanasian Confession].

Fragment VI.

‹§ 6›

Among Christians it is settled as the doctrine of piety, that, according to nature itself, and to the activity and to whatever else pertains thereunto, God is equal and the same with Himself,1758 having nothing that is His unequal to Himself at all and heterogeneous.1759 If, then, according to Beron, the flesh that He assumed to Himself became possessed of the like natural energy with them, it is evident that it also became possessed of the like nature with Him in all wherein that nature consists,—to wit, non-origination, non-generation, infinitude, eternity, incomprehensibility, and whatever else in the way of the transcendent the theological mind discerns in deity; and thus they both underwent conversion, neither the one nor the other preserving any more the substantial relation of its own proper nature.1760 For he who recognises an identical operation1761 in things of unlike nature, introduces at the same time a fusion of natures and a separation of persons,1762 their natural existence1763 being made entirely undistinguishable by the transference of properties.1764

7 notes
  1. 1758 hison heauto kai tauton.
  2. 1759 akatallelon.
  3. 1760 tes idias phuseos ousiode logon.
  4. 1761 tautourgian.
  5. 1762 diairesin prosopiken.
  6. 1763 huparxeos.
  7. 1764 hidiomaton.

Fragment VII.

‹§ 7›

But if it (the flesh) did not become of like nature with that (the deity), neither shall it ever become of like natural energy with that; that He may not be shown to have His energy unequal with His nature, and heterogeneous, and, through all that pertains to Himself, to have entered on an existence outside of His natural equality and identity,1765 which is an impious supposition.

1 note
  1. 1765 phusikes exo gegonos isotetos kai tautoetos.

Fragment VIII.

ܤ 8

Into this error, then, have they been carried, by believing, unhappily, that that divine energy was made the property of the flesh which was only manifested through the flesh in His miraculous actions; by which energy Christ, in so far as He is apprehended as God, gave existence to the universe, and now maintains and governs it. For they did not perceive that it is impossible for the energy of the divine nature to become the property1766 of a being of a different nature1767 apart from conversion; nor did they understand that that is not by any means the property of the flesh which is only manifested through it, and does not spring out of it according to nature; and yet the proof thereof was clear and evident to them. For I, by speaking with the tongue and writing with the hand, reveal through both these one and the same thought of my intelligent soul, its energy (or operation) being natural; in no way showing it as springing naturally out of tongue or hand; nor yet (showing) even the spoken thought as made to belong to them in virtue of its revelation by their means. For no intelligent person ever recognised tongue or hand as capable of thought, just as also no one ever recognised the perfectly holy flesh of God, in virtue of its assumption, and in virtue of the revelation of the divine energy through its medium, as becoming in nature creative.1768 But the pious confession of the believer is that, with a view to our salvation, and in order to connect the universe with unchangeableness, the Creator of all things incorporated with Himself1769 a rational soul and a sensible1770 body from the all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness: the same was perfect God, and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at once perfect God and man. In His deity He wrought divine things through His all-holy flesh,—such things, namely, as did not pertain to the flesh by nature; and in His humanity He suffered human things,—such things, namely, as did not pertain to deity by nature, by the upbearing of the deity.1771 He wrought nothing divine without the body;1772 nor did the same do anything human without the participation of deity.1773 Thus He preserved for Himself a new and fitting method1774 by which He wrought (according to the manner of) both, while that which was natural to both remained unchanged;1775 to the accrediting1776 of His perfect incarnation,1777 which is really genuine, and has nothing lacking in it.1778 Beron, therefore, since the case stands with him as I have already stated, confounding together in nature the deity and the humanity of Christ in a single energy,1779 and again separating them in person, subverts the life, not knowing that identical operation1780 is indicative of the connatural identity only of connatural persons.1781

16 notes
  1. 1766 idioma.
  2. 1767 heterophanous ousias.
  3. 1768 demiourgon.
  4. 1769 enousiosas.
  5. 1770 Or sensitive, aisthetikou.
  6. 1771 anoche paschon theotetos.
  7. 1772 gumnon somatos.
  8. 1773 amoiron drasas theotetos.
  9. 1774 kainoprepe tropon.
  10. 1775 to kat' ampho phusikos analloioton.
  11. 1776 eis pistosin.
  12. 1777 enanthropeseos. [See Athanasian Creed, in Dutch Hymnal.]
  13. 1778 meden echouses phaulotetos.
  14. 1779 energeias monadi.
  15. 1780 tautourgian.
  16. 1781 mones tes ton homophuon prosopon homophuous tautotetos.