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As for John the glory of the Episcopate of Constantinople, whose holy
life obtained the reward of martyrdom without any show of Gentile
persecution, hear what he thought and taught on the Incarnation of the Son
of God: "And Him," he says, "whom if He had come in unveiled Deity neither
the heaven nor the earth nor the sea nor any other creature could have
contained, the pure womb of a Virgin bore." This man's faith and
doctrine then, even if you ignore that of others, you ought to follow and
hold, as out of love and affection for him the pious people chose you as
their Bishop. For when it took you for its priest from the Church of
Antioch, from which it had formerly chosen him, it believed that it would
receive in you all that it had lost in him. Did not, I ask you, all
these almost with prophetic spirit say all these things in order to
confound your blasphemies. For you declare that our Lord and Saviour Christ
is not God: they declare that Christ the Lord is Very God. You
blasphemously assert that Mary is Christotocos not Theotocos: they do not
deny that she is Christotocos, while they acknowledge her as Theotocos. Not
merely the substance but the words also are opposed to your blasphemies:
that we may clearly see that an impregnable bulwark was formerly prepared
by God against your blasphemies, to break on the wall of truth ready
prepared, the force of the heretical attack which was at some time or other
to come. And you, O you most wicked and shameless contaminator of an
illustrious city, you disastrous and deadly plague of a Catholic and holy
people, do you, dare to stand and teach in the Church of God, and with your
wild and blasphemous words slander the priests of an ever unbroken faith
and Catholic confession, and say that the people of the city of
Constantinople are in error through the fault of their earlier teachers?
Are you then the corrector of former Bishops, the accuser of ancient
priests, are you better than Gregory, more approved than Nectarius, greater
than John, and all the other Bishops of Eastern cities who, though not
of the same renown as those whom I have enumerated, were yet of the same
faith? which, as far as the matter in hind is concerned, is enough: for
when it is a question of the faith, all are as good as the best in so far
as they agree with the best.
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