John II, 533-535

Virgin Mary, Mother of God

[From epistle (3) "Olim quidem" to the senators of Constantinople, March, 534]

[Since] Justinian the Emperor, our son, as you have learned from the tenor or his epistle, has signified that arguments have arisen with regard to these three questions, whether one of the Trinity can be called Christ and our God, that is, one holy person of the three persons of the Holy Trinity whether the God Christ incapable of suffering because of deity endured [suffering in] the flesh; whether properly and truly (the Mother of God and the Mother of God's Word become incarnate from her) the Mother of our Lord God Christ ought to be called Mary ever Virgin. In these matters we have recognized the Catholic faith of the Emperor, and we show that this is clearly so from the examples of the prophets, and of the Apostles, or of the Fathers. For in these examples we clearly point out that one of the Holy Trinity is Christ, that is, one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity is a holy person or substance, which the Greeks call (Greek text deleted) [various witnesses are brought forward, as Gen. 3:22; 1 Cor. 8:6; the Nicene Creed; Proclus' letter to the Westerners, etc.]; but let us confirm by these examples that God truly endured in the flesh [Deut. 28:66; John 14:6; Matt. 3:8; Acts 3:15,: 20, 28; 1 Cor. 2:8; Cyrilli anath. 12; LEO ad Flavium etc.].

We rightly teach that the glorious Holy ever Virgin Mary is acknowledged by Catholic men [to be] both properly and truly the one who bore God, and the Mother of God's Word, become incarnate from her. For He Himself deigned from earliest times properly and truly to become incarnate and likewise to be born of the holy and glorious Virgin Mother. Therefore, because the Son of God was properly and truly made flesh from her and born of her, we confess that she was properly and truly the Mother of God made incarnate and born from her, and (properly indeed), lest it be believed that the Lord Jesus received the name of God through honor or grace, as the foolish Nestorius thinks; but truly for this reason, lest it be believed that He took flesh in a phantasm or some other manner, not true flesh from the virgin, just as the impious Eutyches has asserted.