Apollinarius was born ca. 310–315 at Laodicea in Syria. He was the son of an Alexandrian native, also named Apollinarius, who was a grammarian by profession. The elder Apollinarius came to Laodicea to serve the church as a presbyter, and eventually the younger Apollinarius served the same church as a reader. At some point between 328 and 335 both father and son were excommunicated by their bishop, Theodotus of Laodicea, who was a member of the Eusebian alliance and a supporter of Arius, for listening against Christian custom to the recitation of a pagan hymn. Both were soon, however, readmitted to communion after the appropriate penance. In 346 Apollinarius was again excommunicated, this time by the new Laodicean bishop, George, another member of the Eusebian alliance (and later a guiding spirit of the Homoiousian movement), for meeting with Athanasius of Alexandria. It is unclear, however, whether the sentence could be or ever was put into effect. It was probably at this point that Apollinarius and the Alexandrian bishop began a lifelong friendship and sharing of theological sympathies.

This letter, written in 430, represents Nestorius’s reply to Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius,1 and so marks the first occasion in which the bishop of Constantinople directly set out his views on the topic of the debate to his Alexandrian counterpart. Although it maintains the degree of formality and graciousness expected of such communications, the letter exhibits a striking sarcasm over Cyril’s long-windedness and a clear rebuke to his meddling in the affairs of the church in the imperial capital. The “actions” threatened at the outset of the letter likely refer to Nestorius’s intention to consider the complaints against Cyril brought to him by the persons expelled from Alexandria who had fled to Constantinople for refuge, also referred to in Cyril’s second letter.

The ecclesiastical condemnation of Apollinarius of Laodicea (ca. 315–392) resulted in few of his writings surviving intact, unless they had been transmitted under the names of church fathers of unimpeachable orthodoxy such as Gregory Thaumaturgus, Julius of Rome, and Athanasius of Alexandria.1 However, fifth- and sixth-century writers such as Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Leontius of Byzantium, Emperor Justinian, and others still had access to more texts than we do today, and in works of Christological polemics they excerpted passages from the writings of Apollinarius to demonstrate his problematic views. Thus more than 150 fragments of Apollinarius are extant, preserved mainly in these polemical tracts. A selection of these fragments is translated here. Though they derive from various writings of Apollinarius about which little or nothing is known, these fragments have been selected because they bring out the most distinctive features of his Christology.2 And yet, since these fragments were quoted by those who preserved them precisely because they were deemed to reveal the most controversial aspects of Apollinarius’s Christology, they must be interpreted with care and caution (particularly 111 and 113).

John of Damascus remains the most significant theologian of the eighth century for those churches of both East and West that accepted the Council of Chalcedon. Although the precise dates of his birth and death are unknown, his lifespan was roughly contemporaneous with the Umayyad caliphate (651–750). Unfortunately, very little is known about him, and what is put forth is complicated by over a dozen late fictional vitae. The most prominent for the tradition is the Life of our Holy Father, John Damascene (BHG 884). Nevertheless, some details of John’s life are consistent. John’s grandfather was commissioned by the Byzantine emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) to collect the taxes for the entire region of Syria; this commission was renewed under the emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641), after a brief period of Persian occupation (614–628). John’s family was somehow involved – accounts vary – in the surrender of Damascus to the Arabs (in 634). John’s father retained his position and is even reported to have been a very close friend of the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705). John followed his father in the Arab administration. John was well educated and became a monk and a priest.

The Lateran synod of 649 was a deliberate rebuke of imperially backed monothelitism. As the Typos was still in force, the decrees of the synod were thus in direct contravention of imperial policy, a contributing factor to the eventual arrest, exile, and mistreatment of Martin of Rome and Maximus the Confessor. In the aftermath of this persecution, successive bishops of Rome kept silent on the Lateran synod, undoubtedly wishing to avoid further outbreaks of imperial wrath. Tensions between the sees of Rome and Constantinople simmered, as each refused to acknowledge the other.

Jacob of Serugh, who is known as “the Flute of the Holy Spirit and the Harp of the Church,” was an influential West Syriac poet. He was born ca. 451 in Kurtam on the Euphrates. At an unknown date Jacob was appointed regional bishop of Ḥawra, and then in 519 he was consecrated bishop of Baṭnan da-Serugh. He died shortly thereafter, perhaps on November 29, 521 (different dates are found in the sources). Jacob is best known as the author of a large number of metrical homilies: almost 400 survive out of the more than 760 that he is said to have written. These treat a variety of topics, with retellings of biblical passages being by far the most common. With some notable exceptions, such as his Metrical Homily on the Council of Chalcedon, Jacob’s metrical homilies do not in general address directly the tumultuous theological, especially Christological, controversies of his day. This is not, however, the case for the forty or so extant letters by Jacob (some of which are only partially preserved).

In the years following the death of Basil of Caesarea in 378, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–ca. 394) emerged as a leading Christian intellectual. Following his brother, Gregory wrote against Eunomius, the Pneumatomachians, and Apollinarius. He attended various synods, including the Council of Constantinople in 381. He was cited in a law of the emperor Theodosius dated July 30, 381 as one of the paragons of orthodoxy in the Eastern Roman Empire and was sent by the emperor on missions to supervise episcopal affairs as far as the province of Arabia. Dozens of his writings on various themes of Christian doctrine and practice have survived. As bishop, one of his roles was to preach at the annual feasts. The current sermon is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for a feast of the Nativity on December 25 separate from the Epiphany on January 6 – at the time this was a relatively recent distinction. We are uncertain as to which year Gregory delivered this Christmas homily, but a reasonable guess has been made that it was 386.

Soon after the deposition and excommunication of Eutyches at the Home Synod in Constantinople on November 22, 448, Bishop Leo of Rome was not only informed of the result by Emperor Theodosius II, but also received a letter from Eutyches himself, complaining of judicial impropriety and appealing to Leo to review the decision. Around the same time Bishop Flavian of Constantinople, who had presided over Eutyches’s trial, wrote a letter to Leo in which he informed him of the deposition of Eutyches and attached the minutes of the proceedings. For some reason, however, this letter did not reach Leo until May 21, 449. In the meantime, not having all the information he needed to respond to Eutyches, on February 18, 449 Leo wrote a letter to Flavian requesting a full account and asked that the minutes of the synod be sent to him. Upon receiving Flavian’s first letter on May 21, Leo quickly penned his response to the Eutychian affair and on June 13, 449 sent to Flavian the letter that would come to be known as the Tome to Flavian of Constantinople.

The Eranistes, or the Polymorphus, is Theodoret’s last extant Christological work, written in 447, shortly before the outbreak of the Eutychian controversy.1 It thus represents a statement of Theodoret’s mature Christological position. It is written in the form of dialogue between two anonymous characters, Orthodoxos and Eranistes. The main purpose of the work is to prove the real existence of both the divine and human natures in Christ after the union effected in the incarnation. It is clear from the text that Orthodoxos represents the doctrinal views of Theodoret, while Eranistes collects various “heretical” Christological opinions in his arguments – hence the name given to the imagined interlocutor, Eranistes, which in Greek means “beggar, collector.”

The Gospel of Peter is one of many non-canonical gospels produced in the early centuries of Christianity. Only a fragment is extant, containing an account of the trial, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. While having numerous parallels with the passion narratives in the canonical synoptic gospels, the Gospel of Peter departs from them in significant ways, such as by exonerating Pontius Pilate, by blaming Herod Antipas for the crucifixion of Jesus, and by making those soldiers who were guarding Jesus’s tomb witnesses of the resurrection. Most famously, the narrative features an enormous walking and talking cross. Scholars continue to debate whether the Gospel of Peter used one or more of the synoptic gospels as sources or was written independently of them by utilizing common sources. While the dating of the Gospel of Peter has been a heavily contested issue, the majority of scholars assign it to the years 150–190, making it one of the earliest non-canonical gospels to survive.