Second Battle with Heresy : The Cuman War : First Crusade (1094-97)
I And now the notorious Nilus appeared, shortly after the condemnation of Italus’ dogmas, and sweeping over the church like a flood of wickedness, brought restlessness into many a soul, and plunged a number in the eddies of his heterodoxy. (This man sprung I know not whence, had learnt to impersonate virtue very cleverly, and frequented the capital for a while, and alone in a corner, I presume, with God and himself, he had devoted himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures.
He was quite uninitiated into Hellenic culture, and never even had a teacher who might from the start have explained to him the deep meanings of the Divine writings; and although he had studied the writings of the saints very closely, yet through never having learnt the art of reasoning he went astray about the meaning of the writings. He had seduced a far from ignoble body of followers, and insinuated himself into some of the big houses as self-elected teacher, partly because of his evident virtue and his austere morals, and partly because of the knowledge which seemed perhaps latent in him.
(Thus, for example, he knew nothing of our Church’s teaching of the ‘hypostatical union’ of the Mystery, he was unable to grasp clearly what ‘union’ meant, nor did he know clearly what ‘hypostasis’ is, and as he could not clearly conceive a union ‘ or ‘hypostasis’ separately, nor the combination ‘hypostatical union,’ and had not learnt from holy men how the assumption of human nature was made divine, he was carried far away from the truth and in his delusion he opined that it bad been made divine by nature.)
The Emperor was not unaware of all this and when he heard of the man, he purposed giving him speedy help and sent for him. He blamed him severely for his audacity and ignorance and, after censuring him on several points, he instructed him clearly in the doctrine of the hypostatical union of the divine and human word, and set before him the manner of the change and taught him how the assumption of human nature was made divine by grace from above.
But Nilus clung tenaciously to his own false doctrine, and was quite ready to suffer ill-treatment, torture and imprisonment, or even the maiming of his body, rather than refrain from teaching that the assumption of human nature had been made divine by nature. At that time there were also a number of Armenians in the capital and for them Nilus acted as an incentive to profaneness ; consequently there were frequent meetings with the notorious Ticranes and Arsaces whom Nilus’ doctrines incited to further impiety. What happened next?
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