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ST. ATHANASIUS
DE SYNODIS
[Oxford translation of J. H. Newman, slightly revised by Rev. Archibald
Robertson, Principal of Bishop Hatfield's Hall, Durham, late fellow of
Trinity College, Oxford.]
COUNCILS OF ARIMINUM AND SELEUCIA
PART I: HISTORY OF THE COUNCILS.
Reason why two Councils were called. Inconsistency and folly of calling
any; and of the style of the Arian formularies; occasion of the Nicene
Council; proceedings at Ariminum; Letter of the Council to Constantius; its
decree. Proceedings at Seleucia; reflections on the conduct of the Arians.
1. PERHAPS news has reached even yourselves concerning the Council,
which is at this time the subject of general conversation; for letters both
from the Emperor and the Prefects(1) were circulated far and wide for its
convocation. However, you take that interest in the events which have
occurred, that I have determined upon giving you an account of what I have
seen myself, and accurately ascertained, which may save you from the
suspense attendant on the reports of others; and this the more, because
there are parties who are in the habit of misrepresenting what has
happened. At Nicaea then, which had been fixed upon, the Council has not
met, but a second edict was issued, convening the Western Bishops at
Ariminum in Italy, and the Eastern at Seleucia the Rugged, as it is called,
in Isauria. The professed reason of such a meeting was to treat of the
faith touching our Lord Jesus Christ; and those who alleged it, were
Ursacius, Valens, and one Germinius(2) from Pannonia; and from Syria,
Acacius, Eudoxius, and Patrophilus(3) of Scythopolis. These men who had
always been of the Arian party, and 'understood neither how they believe or
whereof they affirm,' and were silently deceiving first one and then
another, and scattering the second sowing(4) of their heresy, influenced
some who seemed to be somewhat, and the Emperor Constantius among them,
being a heretic(5), on some pretence about the Faith, to call a Council;
under the idea that they should be able to put into the shade the Nicene
Council, and prevail upon all to turn round, and to establish irreligion
everywhere instead of the Truth.
2. Now here I marvel first, and think that I shall carry every sensible
man whatever with me, that, whereas a General Council had been fixed, and
all were looking forward to it, it was all of a sudden divided into two, so
that one part met here, and the other there. However, this was surely the
doing of Providence, in order in the respective Councils to exhibit the
faith without guile or corruption of the one party, and to expose the
dishonesty and duplicity of the other. Next, this too was on the mind of
myself and my true brethren here, and made us anxious, the impropriety of
this great gathering which we saw in progress; for what pressed so much,
that the whole world was to be put in confusion, and those who at the time
bore the profession of clergy, should run about far and near, seeking how
best to learn to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ? Certainly if they were
believers already, they would not have been seeking, as though they were
not. And to the catechumens, this was no small scandal; but to the heathen,
it was something more than common, and even furnished broad merriment(1),
that Christians, as if waking out of sleep at this time of day, should be
enquiring how they were to believe concerning Christ; while their professed
clergy, though claiming deference from their flocks, as teachers, were
unbelievers on their own shewing, in that they were seeking what they had
not. And the party of Ursacius, who were at the bottom of all this, did not
understand what wrath they were storing up (Rom. ii. 5) against themselves,
as our Lord says by His saints, 'Woe unto them, through whom My Name is
blasphemed among the Gentiles' (Is. lii. 5; Rom. ii. 24); and by His own
mouth in the Gospels (Matt. xviii. 6), 'Whoso shall offend one of these
little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his
neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea, than,' as Luke adds,
'that he should offend one of these little ones' (Luke xvii. 2).
3. What defect of teaching was there for religious truth in the
Catholic Church(2), that they should enquire concerning faith now, and
should prefix this year's Consulate to their profession of faith? For
Ursacius and Valens and Germinius and their friends have done what never
took place, never was heard of among Christians. After putting into writing
what it pleased them to believe, they prefix to it the Consulate, and the
month and the day of the current year(3); thereby to shew all sensible men,
that their faith dates, not from of old, but now, from the reign of
Constantius(4); for whatever they write has a view to their own heresy.
Moreover, though pretending to write about the Lord, they nominate another
master for themselves, Constantius, who has bestowed on them this reign of
irreligion(5); and they who deny that the Son is everlasting, have called
him Eternal Emperor; such foes of Christ are they in addition to
irreligion. But perhaps the dates in the holy Prophets form their excuse
for the Consulate; so bold a pretence, however, will serve but to publish
more fully their ignorance of the subject. For the prophecies of the saints
do indeed specify their times (for instance, Isaiah and Hosea lived in the
days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; Jeremiah in the days of Josiah;
Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied under Cyrus and Darius; and others in other
times); yet they were not laying the foundations of divine religion; it was
before them, and was always, for before the foundation of the world God
prepared it for us in Christ. Nor were they, signifying the respective
dates of their own faith; for they had been believers before these dates.
But the dates did but belong to their own preaching. And this preaching
spoke beforehand of the Saviour's coming, but directly of what was to
happen to Israel and the nations; and the dates denoted not the
commencement of faith, as I said before, but of the prophets themselves,
that is, when it was they thus prophesied. But our modern sages, not in
historical narration, nor in prediction of the future, but, after writing,
'The Catholic Faith was published,' immediately add the Consulate and the
month and the day, that, as the saints specified the dates of their
histories, and of their own ministries, so these may mark the date of their
own faith. And would that they had written, touching 'their own(6)' (for it
does date from today); and had not made their essay as touching 'the
Catholic,' for they did not write, 'Thus we believe,' but 'the Catholic
Faith was published.'
4. The boldness then of their design shews how little they understand
the subject; while the novelty of their phrase matches the Arian heresy.
For thus they shew, when it was they began their own faith, and that from
that same time present they would have it proclaimed. And as according to
the Evangelist Luke, there 'was made a decree' (Luke ii. 1) concerning the
taxing, and this decree before was not, but began from those days in which
it was made by its framer, they also in like manner, by writing, 'The Faith
is now published,' shewed that the sentiments of their heresy are novel,
and were not before. But if they add 'of the Catholic Faith,' they fall
before they know it into the extravagance of the Phrygians, and say with
them, 'To us first was revealed,' and 'from us dates the Faith of
Christians.' And as those inscribe it with the names of Maximilla and
Montanus(7), so do these with 'Constantius, Master,' instead of Christ. If,
however, as they would have it, the faith dates from the present Consulate,
what will the Fathers do, and the blessed Martyrs? nay, what will they
themselves do with their own catechumens, who departed to rest before this
Consulate? how will they wake them up, that so they may obliterate their
former lessons, and may sow in turn the seeming discoveries which they have
now put into writing(8)? So ignorant they are on the subject; with no
knowledge but that of making excuses, and those unbecoming and unplausible,
and carrying with them their own refutation.
5. As to the Nicene Council, it was not a common meeting, but convened
upon a pressing necessity, and for a reasonable object. The Syrians,
Cilicians, and Mesopotamians, were out of order in celebrating the Feast,
and kept Easter with the Jews(9); on the other hand, the Arian heresy had
risen up against the Catholic Church, and found supporters in Eusebius and
his fellows, who were both zealous for the heresy, and conducted the attack
upon religious people. This gave occasion for an Ecumenical Council, that
the feast might be everywhere celebrated on one day, and that the heresy
which was springing up might be anathematized. It took place then; and the
Syrians submitted, and the Fathers pronounced the Arian heresy to be the
forerunner of Antichrist(10), and drew up a suitable formula against it.
And yet in this, many as they are, they ventured on nothing like the
proceedings(11) of these three or four men(12). Without pre-fixing
Consulate, month, and day, they wrote concerning Easter, 'It seemed good as
follows,' for it did then seem good that there should be a general
compliance; but about the faith they wrote not, 'It seemed good,' but,
'Thus believes the Catholic Church;' and thereupon they confessed how they
believed, in order to shew that their own sentiments were not novel, but
Apostolical; and what they wrote down was no discovery of theirs, but is
the same as was taught by the Apostles
6. But the Councils which they are now setting in motion, what
colourable pretext have they(1)? If any new heresy has risen since the
Arian, let them tell us the positions which it has devised, and who are its
inventors? and in their own formula, let them anathematize the heresies
antecedent to this Council of theirs, among which is the Arian, as the
Nicene Fathers did, that it may appear that they too have some cogent
reason for saying what is novel. But if no such event has happened, and
they have it not to shew, but rather they themselves are uttering heresies,
as holding Arius's irreligion, and are exposed day by day, and day by day
shift their ground(2), what need is there of Councils, when the Nicest is
sufficient, as against the Arian heresy, so against the rest, which it has
condemned one and all by means of the sound faith? For even the notorious
Aetius, who was surnamed godless(3), vaunts not of the discovering of any
mania of his own, but under stress of weather has been wrecked upon
Arianism, himself and the persons whom he has beguiled. Vainly then do they
run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith's
sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council
be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the
Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrine so
exactly, that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be reminded
by them of the religion towards Christ announced in divine Scripture(4).
7. Having therefore no reason on their side, but being in difficulty
whichever way they turn, in spite of their pretences, they have nothing
left but to say; 'Forasmuch as we contradict our predecessors, and
transgress the traditions of the Fathers, therefore we have thought good
that a Council should meet(5); but again, whereas we fear lest, should it
meet at one place, our pains will be thrown away, therefore we have thought
good that it be divided into two; that so when we put forth our documents
to these separate portions, we may overreach with more effect, with the
threat of Constantius the patron of this irreligion, and may supersede the
acts of Nicaea, under pretence of the simplicity of our own documents.' If
they have not put this into words, yet this is the meaning of their deeds
and their disturbances. Certainly, many and frequent as have been their
speeches and writings in various Councils, never yet have they made mention
of the Arian heresy as objectionable; but, if any present happened to
accuse the heresies, they always took up the defence of the Arian, which
the Nicene Council had anathematized; nay, rather, they cordially welcomed
the professors of Arianism. This then is in itself a strong argument, that
the aim of the present Councils was not truth, but the annulling of the
acts of Nicaea; but the proceedings of them and their friends in the
Councils themselves, make it equally clear that this was the case:--For now
we must relate everything as it occurred.
8. When all were in expectation that they were to assemble in one
place, whom the Emperor's letters convoked, and to form one Council, they
were divided into two; and, while some betook themselves to Seleucia called
the Rugged, the others met at Ariminum, to the number of those four hundred
bishops and more, among whom were Germinius, Auxentius, Valens, Ursacius,
Demophilus, and Gains(6). And, while the whole assembly was discussing the
matter from the Divine Scriptures, these men produced(7) a paper, and,
reading out the Consulate, they demanded that it should be preferred to
every Council, and that no questions should be put to the heretics beyond
it, nor inquiry made into their meaning, but that it should be sufficient
by itself;--and what they had written ran as follows:--
The Catholic Faith[8] was published in the presence of our Master the
most religious and gloriously victorious Emperor, Constantius, Augustus,
the eternal and august, in the Consulate of the most illustrious Flavii,
Eusebius and Hypatius, in Sirmium on the 11th of the Calends of June 9.
We believe in one Only and True God, the Father Almighty, Creator and
Framer of all things:
And in one Only-begotten Son of God, who, before all ages, and before
all origin, and before all conceivable time, and before all comprehensible
essence, was begotten impassibly from God: through whom the ages were
disposed and all things were made; and Him begotten as the Only-begotten,
Only from the Only Father, God from God, like to the Father who begat Him,
according to the Scriptures; whose origin no one knoweth save the Father
alone who begat Him. We know that He, the Only- begotten Son of God, at the
Father's bidding came from the heavens for the abolishment of sin, and was
born of the Virgin Mary, and conversed with the disciples, and fulfilled
the Economy according to the Father's will, and was crucified, and died and
descended into the parts beneath the earth, and regulated the things there,
Whom the gate-keepers of hell saw (Job xxxviii. 17, LXX.) and shuddered;
and He rose from the dead the third day, and conversed with the disciples,
and fulfilled all the Economy, and when the forty days were full, ascended
into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and is
coming in the last day of the resurrection in the glory of the Father, to
render to every one according to his works.
And in the Holy Ghost, whom the Only-begotten of God Himself, Jesus
Christ, had promised to send to the race of men, the Paraclete, as it is
written, 'I go to My Father, and I will ask the Father, and He shall send
unto you another Paraclete, even the Spirit of Truth He shall take of Mine
and shall teach and bring to your remembrance all things' (Job. xiv. 16,
17, 26; xvi. 14).
But whereas the term 'essence,' has been adopted the Fathers in
simplicity, and gives offence as being misconceived by the people, and is
not contained in the Scriptures, it has seemed good to remove it, that it
be never in any case used of God again, because the divine Scriptures
nowhere use it of Father and Son. But we say that the Son is like the
Father in all things, as also the Holy Scriptures say and teach(1).
9. When this had been read, the dishonesty of its framers was soon
apparent. For on the Bishops proposing that the Arian heresy should be
anathematized together with the other heresies too, and all assenting,
Ursacius and Valens and those with them refused; till in the event the
Fathers condemned them, on the ground that their confession had been
written, not in sincerity, but for the annulling of the acts of Nicaea, and
the introduction instead of their unhappy heresy. Marvelling then at the
deceitfulness of their language and their unprincipled intentions, the
Bishops said: 'Not as if in need of faith have we come hither; for we have
within us faith, and that in soundness: but that we may put to shame those
who gainsay the truth and attempt novelties. If then ye have drawn up this
formula, as if now beginning to believe, ye are not so much as clergy, but
are starting with school; but if you meet us with the same views with which
we have come hither, let there be a general unanimity, and let us
anathematize the heresies, and preserve the teaching of the Fathers. Thus
pleas for Councils will not longer circulate about, the Bishops at Nicaea
having anticipated them once for all, and done all that was needful for the
Catholic Church(2).' However, even then, in spite of this general agreement
of the Bishops, still the above-mentioned refused. So at length the whole
Council, condemning them as ignorant and deceitful men, or rather as
heretics, gave their suffrages in behalf of the Nicene Council, and gave
judgment all of them that it was enough; but as to the forenamed Ursacius
and Valens, Germinius, Auxentius, Gaius, and Demophilus, they pronounced
them to be heretics, deposed them as not really Christians, but Arians, and
wrote against them in Latin what has been translated in its substance into
Greek, thus:--
10. Copy of an Epistle from the Council to Constantius Augustus(3).
We believe that what was formerly decreed was brought about both by
God's command and by order of your piety. For we the bishops, from all the
Western cities, assembled together at Ariminum, both that the Faith of the
Catholic Church might be made known, and that gainsayers might be detected.
For, as we have found after long deliberation, it appeared desirable to
adhere to and maintain to the end, that faith which, enduring from
antiquity, we have received as preached by the prophets, the Gospels, and
the Apostles through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is Keeper of your Kingdom
and Patron of your power. For it appeared wrong and unlawful to make any
change in what was rightly and justly defined, and what was resolved upon
in common at Nicaea along with the Emperor your father, the most glorious
Constantine,- -the doctrine and spirit of which [definition] went abroad
and was proclaimed in the hearing and understanding of all men. For it
alone was the conqueror and destroyer of the heresy of Arius, by which not
that only but the other heresies(4) also were destroyed, to which of a
truth it is perilous to add, and full of danger to diminish aught from it,
since if either be done, our enemies will be able with impunity to do
whatever they will. Accordingly Ursacius and Valens, since they had been
from of old abettors and sympathisers of the Arian dogma, were properly
declared separate from our communion, to be admitted to which they asked to
be allowed a place of repentance and pardon for the transgressions of which
they were conscious, as the documents drawn up by them testify. By which
means forgiveness and pardon on all charges has been obtained. Now the time
of these transactions was when the council was assembled at Milan(4a), the
presbyters of the Roman Church being also present. But knowing at the same
time that Constantine of worthy memory had with all accuracy and
deliberation published the Faith then drawn up; when he had been baptized
by the hands of men, and had departed to the place which was his due, [we
think it] unseemly to make a subsequent innovation and to despise so many
saints, confessors, martyrs, who compiled and drew up this decree; who
moreover have continued to hold in all matters according to the ancient law
Church; whose faith God has imparted even to the times of your reign
through our Master Jesus Christ, through whom also it is yours to reign and
rule over the world in our day(5). Once more then the pitiful men of
wretched mind with lawless daring have announced themselves as the heralds
of an impious opinion, and are attempting to upset every summary of truth.
For when according to your command the synod met, those men laid bare the
design of their own deceitfulness. For they attempted in a certain
unscrupulous and disorderly manner to propose to us an innovation, having
found as accomplices in this plot Germinius, Auxentius(5a), and Gaius, the
stirrers up of strife and discord, whose teaching by itself has gone beyond
every pitch of blasphemy. But when they perceived that we did not share
their purpose, nor agree with their evil mind, they transferred themselves
to our council, alleging that it might be advisable to compile something
instead. But a short time was enough to expose their plans. And lest the
Churches should have a recurrence of these disturbances, and a whirl of
discord and confusion throw everything into disorder, it seemed good to
keep undisturbed the ancient and reasonable institutions, and that the
above persons should be separated from our communion. For the information
therefore of your clemency, we have instructed our legates to acquaint you
with the judgment of the Council by our letter, to whom we have given this
special direction, to establish the truth by resting their case upon the
ancient and just decrees; and they will also assure your piety that peace
would not be accomplished by the removal of those decrees as Valens and
Ursacius alleged. For how is it possible for peace-breakers to bring peace?
on the contrary, by their means strife and confusion will arise not only in
the other cities, but also in the Church of the Romans. On this account we
ask your clemency to regard our legates with favourable ears and a serene
countenance and not to suffer aught to be abrogated to the of the dead; but
allow us to abide by what has been defined and laid down by our
forefathers, who, we venture to say, we trust in all things acted with
prudence and wisdom and the Holy Spirit; because by these novelties not
only are the faithful made to disbelieve, but the infidels also are
embittered(5b). We pray also that you would give orders that so many
Bishops who are detained abroad, among whom are numbers who are broken with
age and poverty, may be enabled to return to their own country, lest the
Churches suffer, as being deprived of their Bishops. This, however, we ask
with earnestness, that nothing be innovated upon existing creeds, nothing
withdrawn; but that all remain incorrupt which has continued in the times
of your Father's piety and to the present time; and that you will not
permit us to be harassed, and estranged from our sees; but that the Bishops
may in quiet give themselves always to prayers and worship, which they do
always offer for your own safety and for your reign, and for peace, which
may the Divinity bestow on you for ever. But our legates are conveying the
subscriptions and titles of the Bishops, and will also inform your piety
from the Holy Scriptures themselves.
11. Decree of the Council(6).
As far as it was fitting and possible, dearest brethren, the general
Council and the holy Church have had patience, and have generously
displayed the Church's forbearance towards Ursacius and Valens, Gaius,
Germinius, and Auxentius; who by so often changing what they had believed,
have troubled all the Churches, and still are endeavouring to foist their
heretical spirit upon the faith of the orthodox. For they wish to annul the
formulary passed at Nicaea, which was framed against the Arian heresy. They
have presented to us besides a creed drawn up by themselves from without,
and utterly alien to the most holy Church; which we could not lawfully
receive. Even before this, and now, have they been pronounced heretics and
gainsayers by us, whom we have not admitted to our communion, but condemned
and deposed them in their presence by our voices. Now then, what seems good
to you, again declare, that each one's vote may be ratified by his
subscription.
The Bishops answered with one accord, It seems good that the aforenamed
heretics should be condemned, that the Catholic faith may remain in peace.
Matters at Ariminum then had this speedy issue; for there was no
disagreement there, but all of them with one accord both put into writing
what they decided upon, and deposed the Arians(7).
12. Meanwhile the transactions in Seleucia the Rugged were as follows:
it was in the month called by the Romans September, by the Egyptians Thoth,
and by the Macedonians Gorpi'us, and the day of the month according to the
Egyptians the 16th(8), upon which all the members of the Council assembled
together. And there were present about a hundred and sixty; and whereas
there were many who were accused among them, and their accusers were crying
out against them, Acacius, and Patrophilus, and Uranius of Tyre, and
Eudoxius, who usurped the Church of Antioch, and Leontius(8a), and
Theodotus(8b), and Evagrius, and Theodulus, and George who has been driven
from the whole world(9), adopt an unprincipled course. Fearing the proofs
which their accusers had to shew against them, they coalesced with the rest
of the Arian party(who were mercenaries in the cause of irreligion for this
purpose, and were ordained by Secundus, who had been deposed by the great
Council), the Libyan Stephen, and Seras, and Polydeuces, who were under
accusation upon various charges, next Pancratius, and one Ptolemy a
Meletian(10). And they made a pretence(11) of entering upon the question of
faith, but it was clear they were doing so from fear of their accusers; and
they took the part of the heresy, till at length they were divided among
themselves. For, whereas those with Acacius and his fellows lay under
suspicion and were very few, the others were the majority; therefore
Acacius and his fellows, acting with the boldness of desperation,
altogether denied the Nicene formula, and censured the Council, while the
others, who were the majority, accepted the whole proceedings of the
Council, except that they complained of the word 'Coessential,' as obscure
and so open to suspicion. When then time passed, and the accusers pressed,
and the accused put in pleas, and thereby were led on further by their
irreligion and blasphemed the Lord thereupon the majority of Bishops became
indignant(12), and deposed Acacius, Patrophilus, Uranius, Eudoxius, and
George the contractor(1), and others from Asia, Leontius, and Theodosius,
Evagrius and Theodulus, and excommunicated Asterius, Eusebius, Augarus,
Basilicus, Phoebus, Fidelius, Eutychius, and Magnus. And this they did on
their non-appearance, when summoned to defend themselves on charges which
numbers preferred against them. And they decreed that so they should
remain, until they made their defence and cleared themselves of the
offences imputed to them And after despatching the sentence pronounced
against them to the diocese of each, they proceeded to Constantius, the
most irreligious(2) Augustus, to report to him their proceedings, as they
had been ordered. And this was the termination of the Council in Seleucia.
13. Who then but must approve of the conscientious conduct of the
Bishops at Ariminum? who endured such labour of journey and perils of sea,
that by a sacred and canonical resolution they might depose the Arians, and
guard inviolate the definitions of the Fathers. For each of them deemed
that, if they undid the acts of their predecessors, they were affording a
pretext to their successors to undo what they themselves then were
enacting(3). And who but must condemn the fickleness of Eudoxius, Acacius,
and their fellows, who sacrifice the honour due to their own fathers to
partizanship and patronage of the Ariomaniacs(4)? for what confidence can
be placed in their acts, if the acts of their fathers be undone? or how
call they them fathers and themselves successors, if they set about
impeaching their judgment? and especially what can Acacius say of his own
master, Eusebius, who not only gave his subscription in the Nicene Council,
but even in a letters signified to his flock, that that was true faith,
which the Council had declared? for, if he explained himself in that letter
in his own way(6), yet he did not contradict the Council's terms, but even
charged it upon the Arians, that their position that the Son was not before
His generation, was not even consistent with His being before Mary. What
then will they proceed to teach the people who are under their teaching?
that the Fathers erred? and how are they themselves to be trusted by those,
whom they teach to disobey their Teachers? and with what eyes too will they
look upon the sepulchres of the Fathers whom they now name heretics? And
why do they defame the Valentinians, Phrygians, and Manichees, yet give the
name of saint to those whom they themselves suspect of making parallel
statements? or how can they any longer be Bishops, if they were ordained by
persons whom they accuse of heresy(7)? But if their sentiments were wrong
and their writings se- dated the world, then let their memory perish
altogether; when, however, you east out their books, go and east out their
remains too from the cemeteries, so that one and all may know that they are
seducers, and that you are parricides.
14. The blessed Apostle approves of the Corinthians because, he says,
'ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I delivered them
to you' (1 Cor. xi. 2); but they, as entertaining such views of their
predecessors, will have the daring to say just the reverse to their flocks:
'We praise you not for remembering your fathers, but rather we make much of
you, when you hold not their traditions.' And let them go on to accuse
their own unfortunate birth, and say, 'We are sprung not of religious men
but of heretics.' For such language, as I said before, is consistent in
those who barter their Fathers' fame and their own salvation for Arianism,
and fear not the words of the divine proverb, 'There is a generation that
curseth their father' (Prov. xxx. 11; Ex. xxi. 17), and the threat lying in
the Law against such. They then, from zeal for the heresy, are of this
obstinate temper; you, however, be not troubled at it, nor take their
audacity for truth. For they dissent from each other, and, whereas they
have revolted from their Fathers, are not of one and the same mind, but
float about with various and discordant changes. And, as quarrelling with
the Council of Nicaea, they have held many Councils themselves, and have
published a faith in each of them, and have stood to none(8), nay, they
will never do otherwise, for perversely seeking, they will never find that
Wisdom which they hate. I have accordingly subjoined portions both of
Arius's writings and of whatever else I could collect, of their
publications in different Councils; whereby you will learn to your surprise
with what object they stand out against an Ecumenical Council and their own
Fathers without blushing.
PART II: HISTORY OF ARIAN OPINIONS.
Arius's own sentiments; his Thalia and Letter to S. Alexander; corrections
by Eusebius and others; extracts from the works of Asterius; letter of the
Council of Jerusalem; first Creed of Arians at the Dedication of Antioch;
second, Lucian's on the same occasion; third, by Theophronius; fourth, sent
to Constans in Gaul; fifth, the Macrostich sent into Italy; sixth, at
Sirmium; seventh, at the same place; and eighth also, as given above in 8;
ninth, at Seleucia; tenth, at Constantinople; eleventh, at Antioch.
15. Arius and those with him thought and professed thus: 'God made the
Son out of nothing, and called Him His Son; Word of God is one of the
creatures;' and 'Once He was not;' and 'He is alterable; capable, when it
is His Will, of altering.' Accordingly they were expelled from the Church
by the blessed Alexander. However, after his expulsion, when he was with
Eusebius and his fellows, he drew up his heresy upon paper, and imitating
in the Thalia no grave writer, but the Egyptian Sotades, in the dissolute
tone of his metre(1), he writes at great length, for instance as follows:--
Blasphemies of Arius.
God Himself then, in His own nature, is ineffable by all men. Equal or
like Himself He alone has none, or one in glory. And Ingenerate we call
Him, because of Him who is generate by nature. We praise Him as without
beginning because of Him who has a beginning. And adore Him as everlasting,
because of Him who in time has come to he. The Unbegun made the Son a
beginning of things originated; and advanced Him as a Son to Himself by
adoption. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence. For He is not
equal, no, nor one in essence(2) with Him. Wise is God, for He is the
teacher of Wisdom(3). There is full proof that God is invisible to all
beings; both to things which are through the Son, and to the Son He is
invisible. I will say it expressly, how by the Son is seen the Invisible;
by that power by which God sees, and in His own measure, the Son endures to
see the Father, as is lawful. Thus there is a Triad, not in equal glories.
Not intermingling with each other(4) are their subsistences. One more
glorious than the other in their glories unto immensity. Foreign from the
Son in essence is the Father, for He is without beginning. Understand that
the Monad was; but the Dyad was not, before it was in existence. It follows
at once that, though the Sire was not, the Father was God. Hence the Son,
not being (for He existed at the will of the Father), is God Only-
begotten(4a), and He is alien from either. Wisdom existed as Wisdom by the
will of the Wise God. Hence He is conceived in numberless conceptions(5):
Spirit, Power, Wisdom, God's glory, Truth, Image, and Word. Understand that
He is conceived to be Radiance and Light. One equal to the Son, the
Superior is able to beget; but one more excellent, or superior, or greater,
He is not able. At God's will the Son is what and whatsoever He is. And
when and since He was, from that time He has subsisted from God. He, being
a strong God, praises in His degree the Superior. To speak in brief, God is
ineffable to His Son. For He is to Himself what He is, that is,
unspeakable. So that nothing which is called comprehensible(6) does the Son
know to speak about; for it is impossible for Him to investigate the
Father, who is by Himself. For the Son does not know His own essence, For,
being Son, He really existed, at the will of the Father. What argument then
allows, that He who is from the Father should know His own parent by
comprehension? For it is plain that for that which hath a beginning to
conceive how the Unbegun is, or to grasp the idea, is not possible.
16. And what they wrote by letter to the blessed Alexander, the Bishop,
runs as follows:--
To Our Blessed Pope(7) and Bishop, Alexander, the Presbyters and Deacons
send health in the Lord.
Our faith from our forefathers, which also we have learned from thee,
Blessed Pope, is this:--We acknowledge One God, alone Ingenerate, alone
Everlasting, alone Unbegun, alone True, alone having Immortality, alone
Wise, alone Good, alone Sovereign; Judge, Governor, and Providence of all,
unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of Law and Prophets and
New Testament; who begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through
whom He has made both the ages and the universe; and begat Him, not in
semblance, but in truth; and that He made Him subsist at His own will,
unalterable and unchangeable; perfect creature of God, but not as one of
the creatures; offspring, but not as one of things begotten; nor as
Valentinus pronounced that the offspring of the Father was an issue(8); nor
as Manichaeus taught that the offspring was a portion of the Father, one in
essence(9); or as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, speaks of a Son-and-
Father(10); nor as Hieracas, of one torch from another, or as a lamp
divided into two(11); nor that He who was before, was afterwards generated
or new-created into a Son(12), as thou too thyself, Blessed Pope, in the
midst of the Church and in session hast often condemned; but, as we say, at
the will of God, created before times and before ages, and gaining life and
being from the Father, who gave subsistence to His glories together with
Him. For the Father did not, in giving to Him the inheritance of all
things, deprive Himself of what He has ingenerately in Himself; for He is
the Fountain of all things. Thus there are Three Subsistences. And God,
being the cause of all things, is Unbegun and altogether Sole, but the Son
being begotten apart from time by the Father, and being created and founded
before ages, was not before His generation, but being begotten apart from
time before all things, alone was made to subsist by the Father. For He is
not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has He His
being together with the Father, as some speak of relations(1), introducing
two ingenerate beginnings, but God is before all things as being Monad and
Beginning of all. Wherefore also He is before the Son; as we have learned
also from thy preaching in the midst of the Church. So far then as from God
He has being, and glories, and life, and all things are delivered unto Him,
in such sense is God His origin. For He is above Him, as being His God and
before Him. But if the terms 'from Him,' and 'from the womb,' and 'I came
forth from the Father, and I am come(2)' (Rom. xi. 36; Ps. cx. 3; John xvi.
28), be understood by some to mean as if a part of Him, one in essence or
as an issue, then the Father is according to them compounded and divisible
and alterable and material, and, as far as their belief goes, has the
circumstances of a body, Who is the Incorporeal God.
This is a part of what Arius and his fellows vomited from their
heretical hearts.
17. And before the Nicene Council took place, similar statements were
made by Eusebius and his fellows, Narcissus, Patrophilus, Maris, Paulinus,
Theodotus, and Athanasius. of [A]nazarba(3). And Eusebius of Nicomedia
wrote over and above to Arius, to this effect, 'Since your sentiments ire
good, pray that all may adopt them; for it is plain to any one, that what
has been made was not before its origination; but what came to be has a
beginning of being.' And Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, in a letter to
Euphration the Bishop(3a), did not scruple to say plainly that Christ was
not true God(4). And Athanasius of [A]nazarba uncloked the heresy still
further, saying that the Son of God was one of the hundred sheep. For
writing to Alexander the Bishop, he had the extreme audacity to say: 'Why
complain of Arius and his fellows, for saying, The Son of God is made as a
creature out of nothing, and one among others? For all that are made being
represented in parable by the hundred sheep, the Son is one of them. If
then the hundred are not created and originate, or if there be beings
beside that hundred, then may the Son be not a creature nor one among
others; but if those hundred are all originate, and there is nothing
besides the hundred save God alone, what absurdity do Arius and his fellows
utter, when, as comprehending and reckoning Christ in the hundred, they say
that He is one among others?' And George who now is in Laodicea, and then
was presbyter of Alexandria, and was staying at Antioch, wrote to Alexander
the Bishop; 'Do not complain of Arius and his fellows, for saying, "Once
the Son of God was not," for Isaiah came to be son of Amos, and, whereas
Amos was before Isaiah came to be, Isaiah was not before, but came to be
afterwards.' And he wrote to the Arians, 'Why complain of Alexander the
Pope, saying, that the Son is from the Father? for you too need not fear to
say that the Son was from God. For if the Apostle wrote (1 Cor. xi. 12),
'All things are from God,' and it is plain that all things are made of
nothing, though the Son too is a creature and one of things made, still He
may be said to be from God in that sense in which all things are said to be
'from God.' From him then those who hold with Arius learned to simulate the
phrase 'from God,' and to use it indeed, but not in a good meaning. And
George himself was deposed by Alexander for certain reasons, and among them
for manifest irreligion; for he was himself a presbyter, as has been said
before.
18. On the whole then such were their statements, as if they all were
in dispute and rivalry with each other, which should make the heresy more
irreligious, and display it in a more naked form. And as for their letters
I had them not at hand, to dispatch them to you; else I would have sent you
copies; but, if the Lord will, this too I will do, when I get possession of
them. And one Asterius(5) from Cappadocia, a many-headed Sophist, one of
the fellows of Eusebius, whom they could not advance into the Clergy, as
having done sacrifice in the former persecution in the time of
Constantius's grandfather, writes, with the countenance of Eusebius and his
fellows, a small treatise, which was on a par with the crime of his
sacrifice, yet answered their wishes; for in it, after comparing, or rather
preferring, the locust and the caterpillar to Christ, and saying that
Wisdom in God was other than Christ, and was the Framer as well of Christ
as of the world, he went round the Churches in Syria and elsewhere, with
introductions from Eusebius and his fellows, that as he once made trial of
denying, so now he might boldly oppose the truth. The bold man intruded
himself into forbidden places, and seating himself in the place of
Clergy(6), he used to read publicly this treatise of his, in spite of the
general indignation. The treatise is written at great length, but portions
of it are as follows:--
For the Blessed Paul said not that he preached Christ, His, that is,
God's, 'own Power' or 'Wisdom,' but without the article, 'God's Power and
God's Wisdom' (1 Cor. i. 24), preaching that the own power of God Himself
was distinct, which was con-natural and co-existent with Him unoriginately,
generative indeed of Christ, creative of the whole world; concerning which
he teaches in his Epistle to the Romans, thus, 'The invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things which are made, even His eternal power and divinity' (Rom. i. 20).
For as no one would say that the Deity there mentioned was Christ, but the
Father Himself, so, as I think, His eternal power is also not the Only-
begotten God (Joh. i. 18), but the Father who begat Him. And he tells us
of another Power and Wisdom of God, namely, that which is manifested
through Christ, and made known through the works themselves of His
Ministry.
And again:--
Although His eternal Power and Wisdom, which truth argues to be Unbegun
and Ingenerate, would appear certainly to be one and the same, yet many are
those powers which are one by one created by Him, of which Christ is the
First-born and Only- begotten. All however equally depend upon their
Possessor, and all His powers are rightly called His, who created and uses
them; for instance, the Prophet says that the locust, which became a divine
punishment of human sin, was called by God Himself, not only a power of
God, but a great power (Joel ii. 25). And the blessed David too in several
of the Psalms, invites, not Angels alone, but Powers also to praise God.
And while he invites them all to the hymn, he presents before us their
multitude, and is not unwilling to call them ministers of God, and teaches
them to do His will.
19. These bold words against the Saviour did not content him, but he
went further in his blasphemies, as follows:
The Son is one among others; for He is first of things originate, and
one among intellectual natures; and as in things visible the sun is one
among phenomena, and it shines upon the whole world according to the
command of its Maker. so the Son, being one of the intellectual natures,
also enlightens and shines upon all that are in the intellectual world.
And again he says, Once He was not, writing thus:-- 'And before the
Son's origination, the Father had pro-existing knowledge how to generate;
since a physician too, before he cured, had the science of curing(7).' And
he says again: 'The Son was created by God's beneficent earnestness; and
the Father made Him by the superabundance of His Power' And again: 'If the
will of God has pervaded all the works in succession, certainly the Son
too, being a work, has at His will come to be and been made.' Now though
Asterius was the only person to write all this, Eusebius and his fellows
felt the like in common with him.
20. These are the doctrines for which they are contending; for these
they assail the ancient Council, because its members did not propound the
like, but anathematized the Arian heresy instead, which they were so eager
to recommend. This was why they put forward, as an advocate of their
irreligion, Asterius who sacrificed, a sophist too, that he might not spare
to speak against the Lord, or by a show of reason to mislead the simple.
And they were ignorant, the shallow men, that they were doing harm to their
own cause. For the ill savour of their advocate's idolatrous sacrifice
betrayed still more plainly that the heresy is Christ's foe. And now again,
the general agitations and troubles which they are exciting, are in
consequence of their belief, that by their numerous murders and their
monthly Councils, at length they will undo the sentence which has been
passed against the Arian heresy(8). But here too they seem ignorant, or to
pretend ignorance, that even before Nichaea that heresy was held in
detestation, when Artemas(9) was laying its foundations, and before him
Caiaphas's assembly and that of the Pharisees his contemporaries. And at
all times is this gang of Christ's foes detestable, and will not cease to
be hateful, the Lord's Name being full of love, and the whole creation
bending the knee, and confessing 'that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father' (Phil. ii. 11).
21. Yet so it is, they have convened successive Councils against that
Ecumenical One, and are not yet tired. After the Nicene, Eusebius and his
fellows had been deposed; however, in course of time they intruded them
selves without shame upon the Churches, and began to plot against the
Bishops who withstood them, and to substitute in the Church men of their
own heresy. Thus they thought to hold Councils at their pleasure, as having
those who concurred with them, whom they hail ordained on purpose for this
very object. Accordingly, they assemble at Jerusalem, and there they write
thus:--
The Holy Council assembled in Jerusalem(1) by the grace of God, &c
.... their orthodox teaching in writing(2), which we all confessed to be
sound and ecclesiastical. And he reasonably recommended that they should be
received and united to the Church of God, as you will know yourselves from
the transcript of the same Epistle, which we have transmitted to your
reverences. We believe that yourselves also, as if recovering [the very
members of your own body, will experience great joy and gladness, in
acknowledging and recovering [your own bowels, your own brethren anti
lathers; since not only the Presbyters, Arius and his fellows, are given
back to you, but also the whole Christian people and the entire multitude,
which on occasion of the aforesaid men have a long time been in dissension
among you. Moreover it were fitting, now that you know for certain what has
passed, and that the men have communicated with us and have been received
by so great a Holy Council, that you should with all readiness hail this
your coalition and peace with your own members, specially since the
articles of the faith which they have published preserve indisputable the
universally confessed apostolical tradition and teaching.
22. This was the beginning of their Councils, and in it they were
speedy in divulging their views, and could not conceal them. For when they
said that they had banished all jealousy, and, after the expulsion of
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, recommended the reception of Arius and
his friends, they showed that their measures against Athanasius himself
then, and before against all the other Bishops who withstood them, had for
their object their receiving Arius and his fellows, and introducing the
heresy into the Church. But although they had approved in this Council all
Arius's malignity, and had ordered to receive his party into communion, as
they had set the example, yet feeling that even now they were short of
their wishes, they assembled a Council at Antioch under colour of the so-
called Dedications and, since they were in general and lasting odium for
their heresy, they publish different letters, some of this sort, and some
of that and what they wrote in one letter was as follows:
We have not been followers of Arius,--how could Bishops, such as we,
follow a Presbyter?--nor did we receive any other faith beside that which
has been handed down from the beginning. But, after taking on ourselves to
examine and to verify his faith, we admitted him rather than followed him;
as you will understand from our present avowals.
For we have been taught from the first, to believe(4) in one God, the
God of the Universe, the Framer and Preserver of all things both
intellectual and sensible.
And in One Son of God, Only-begotten, who existed before all ages, and
was with the Father who had begotten Him, by whom all things were made,
both visible and invisible, who in the last days according to the good
pleasure of the Father came down; and has taken flesh of the Virgin, and
jointly fulfilled all His Father's will, and suffered and risen again, and
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and
cometh again to judge quick and dead, and remaineth King and God unto all
ages.
And we believe also in the Holy Ghost; and if it be necessary to add,
we believe concerning the resurrection of the flesh, and the life
everlasting.
23. Here follows what they published next at the same Dedication in
another Epistle, being dissatisfied with the first, and devising something
newer and fuller:
We believe(5), conformably to the evangelical and apostolical
tradition, in One God, the Father Almighty, the Framer, and Maker, and
Provider of the Universe, from whom are all things.
And in One Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, Only-begotten God (Joh. i. 18),
by whom are all things, who was begotten before all ages from the Father,
God from God, whole from whole, sole from sole(6), perfect from perfect,
King from King, Lord from Lord, Living Word, Living Wisdom, true Light,
Way, Truth, Resurrection, Shepherd, Door, both unalterable and(7)
unchangeable; exact Image(1) of the Godhead, Essence, Will, Power and Glory
of the Father; the first born of every creature, who was in the beginning
with God, God the Word, as it is written in the Gospel, and the Word was
God' (John i. I); by whom all things were made, and in whom all things
consist; who in the last days descended from above, and was born of a
Virgin according to the Scriptures, and was made Man, Mediator(2) between
God and man, and Apostle of our faith, and Prince of life, as He says, 'I
came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that
sent Me' (John vi. 38); who suffered for us and rose again on the third
day, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the
Father, and is coming again with glory and power, to judge quick and dead.
And in the Holy Ghost, who is given to those who believe for comfort,
and sanctification, and initiation, as also our Lord Jesus Christ enjoined
His disciples, saying, 'Go ye, teach all nations, baptizing them in the
Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost' Matt. xxviii. 19);
namely of a Father who is truly Father, and a Son who is truly Son, and of
the Holy Ghost who is truly Holy Ghost, the names not being given without
meaning or effect, but denoting accurately the peculiar subsistence, rank,
and glory of each that is named, so that they are three in subsistence, and
in agreement one(3).
Holding then this faith, and holding it in the presence of God and
Christ, from beginning to end, we anathematize every heretical
heterodoxy(4). And if any teaches, beside the sound and right faith of the
Scriptures, that time, or season, or age(5), either is or has been before
the generation of the Son, be he anathema. Or if any one says, that the Son
is a creature as one of the creatures, or an offspring as one of the
offsprings, or a work as one of the works, and not the aforesaid articles
one after another, as the divine Scriptures have delivered, or if he
teaches or preaches beside what we received, be he anathema. For all that
has been delivered in the divine Scriptures, whether by Prophets or
Apostles, do we truly and reverentially both believe and follow(6).
24. And one Theophronius(7), Bishop of Tyana, put forth before them all
the following statement of his personal faith. And they subscribed it,
accepting the faith of this man:--
God knows, whom I call as a witness upon my sold, that so I believe:--
in God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of the Universe, from
whom are all things.
And in His Only-begotten Son, Word, Power, and Wisdom, our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things; who has been begotten from the Father
before the ages, perfect God from perfect God(9), and was with God in
subsistence, and in the last days descended, and was born of the Virgin
according to the Scriptures, and was made man, and suffered, and rose again
from the dead, and ascended into the heavens, and sat down on the right
hand of His Father, and cometh again with glory and power to judge quick
and dead, and remaineth for ever:
And in the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth (Joh. xv.
26), which also God promised by His Prophet to pour out (Joel ii. 28) upon
His servants, and the Lord promised to send to His disciples: which also He
sent, as the Acts of the Apostles witness.
But if any one teaches, or holds in his mind, aught beside this faith,
be he anathema; or with Marcellus of Ancyra(10), or Sabellius, or Paul of
Samosata, be he anathemas both himself and those who communicate with him.
25. Ninety Bishops met at the Dedication under the Consulate of
Marcellinus and Probinus, in the 14th of the Indiction(1), Constantius the
most irreligious being present. Having thus conducted matters at Antioch at
the Dedication, thinking that their composition was deficient still, and
fluctuating moreover in their own opinions, again they draw up afresh
another formulary, after a few months, professedly concerning the faith,
and despatch Narcissus, Maris, Theodorus, and Mark into Gaul(2). And they,
as being sent from the Council, deliver the following document to Constans
Augustus of blessed memory, and to all who were there:
We believes in One God, the Father Almighty, Creator and Maker of all
things; from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named. (Eph.
iii. 15.)
And in this Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who before all
ages was begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, by whom
all things were made in the heavens and on the earth, visible and
invisible, being Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and True Light; who
in the last days was made man for us, and was born of the Holy Virgin; who
was crucified, and dead, and buried, and rose again from the dead the third
day, and was taken up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the
Father; and is coming at the consummation of the age, to judge quick and
dead, and to render to every one according to his works; whose Kingdom
endures indissolubly into the infinite ages(4); for He shall be seated on
the fight hand of the Father, not only in this age but in that which is to
come.
And in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete; which, having promised
to the Apostles, He sent forth after His ascension into heaven, to teach
them and to remind of all things; through whom also shall be sanctified the
souls of those who sincerely believe in Him.
But those who say, that the Son was from nothing, or from other
subsistence and not from God, and, there was time when He was not, the
Catholic Church regards as aliens(5).
26. As if dissatisfied with this, they hold their meeting again after
three years, and dispatch Eudoxius, Martyrius, and Macedonius of
Cilicia(6), and some others with them, to the parts of Italy, to carry with
them a faith written at great length, with numerous additions over and
above those which have gone before. They went abroad with these, as if they
had devised something new.
We believe(7) in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of
all things, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.
And in His Only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who before all ages
was begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, by whom all
things were made, in heaven and on the earth, visible and invisible, being
Word and Wisdom and Power and Life and True Light, who in the last days was
made man for us, and was born of the Holy Virgin, crucified and dead and
buried, and rose again from the dead the third day, and was taken up into
heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and is coming at the
consummation of the age to judge quick and dead, and to render to every one
according to his works, whose Kingdom endures unceasingly unto the infinite
ages; for He sitteth on the right hand of the Father not only in this age,
but also in that which is to come.
And we believe in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete, which, having
promised to the Apostles, He sent forth after the ascension into heaven, to
teach them and to remind of all things: through whom also shall be
sanctified the souls of those who sincerely believe in Him.
But those who say,(1) that the Son was from nothing, or from other
subsistence and not from God;(2) and that there was a time or age when He
was not, the Catholic and Holy Church regards as aliens. Likewise those who
say,(3) that there are three Gods:(4) or that Christ is not God;(5) or that
before the ages He was neither Christ nor Son of God;(6) or that Father and
Son, or Holy Ghost, are the same;(7) or that the Son is Ingenerate; or that
the Father begat the Son, not by choice or will; the Holy and Catholic
Church anathematizes.
(1.) For neither is safe to say that the Son is from nothing, (since
this is no where spoken of Him in divinely inspired Scripture,) nor again
of any other subsistence before existing beside the Father, but from God
alone do we define Him genuinely to be generated. For the divine Word
teaches that the Ingenerate and Un-begun, the Father of Christ, is One (8).
(2.) Nor may we, adopting the hazardous position, 'There was once when
He was not,' from unscriptural sources, imagine any interval of time before
Him, but only the God who has generated Him apart from time; for through
Him both times and ages came to be. Yet we must not consider the Son to be
co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with the Father; for no one can be properly
called Father or Son of one who is co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with
Him(9). But we acknowledge(10) that the Father who alone is Unbegun and
Ingenerate, hath generated inconceivably and incomprehensibly to all: and
that the Son hath been generated before ages, and in no wise to be
ingenerate Himself like the Father, but to have the Father who generated
Him as His beginning; for 'the Head of Christ is God.' (1 Cor. xi. 3.)
(3.) Nor again, in confessing three realities and three Persons, of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost according to the Scriptures, do we
therefore make Gods three; since we acknowledge the Self-complete and
Ingenerate and Unbegun and Invisible God to be one only(1), the God and
Father (Joh. xx. 17) of the Only-begotten, who alone hath being from
Himself, and alone vouchsafes this to all others bountifully.
(4.) Nor again, in saying that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is
one only God, the only Ingenerate, do we therefore deny that Christ also is
God before ages: as the disciples of Paul of Samosata, who say that after
the incarnation He was by advance(2) made God, from being made by nature a
mere man. For we acknowledge, that though He be subordinate to His Father
and God, yet, being before ages begotten of God, He is God perfect
according to nature and true(3), and not first man and then God, but first
God and then becoming man for us, and never having been deprived of being.
(5.) We abhor besides, and anathematize those who make a pretence of
saying that He is but the mere word of God and unexisting, having His being
in another,--now as if pronounced, as some speak, now as mental(4),--
holding that He was not Christ or Son of God or mediator or image of God
before ages; but that He first became Christ and Son of God, when He took
our flesh from the Virgin, not quite four hundred years since. For they
will have it that then Christ began His Kingdom, and that it will have an
end after the consummation of all and the judgment(5). Such are the
disciples of Marcellus and Scotinus(6) of Galatian Ancyra, who, equally
with Jews, negative Christ's existence before ages, and His Godhead, and
unending Kingdom, upon pretence of supporting the divine Monarchy. We, on
the contrary, regard Him not as simply God's pronounced word or mental, but
as Living God and Word, existing in Himself, and Son of God and Christ;
being and abiding with His Father before ages, and that not in
foreknowledge only(7), and ministering to Him for the whole framing whether
of things visible or invisible. For He it is, to whom the Father said, 'Let
Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness s, (Gen. i. 26), who also was
seen in His own Person(9) by the patriarchs, gave the law, spoke by the
prophets, and at last, became man, and manifested His own Father to all
men, and reigns to never-ending ages. For Christ has taken no recent
dignity, but we have believed Him to be perfect from the first, and like in
all things to the Father(1).
(6.) And those who say that the Father and Son and Holy Ghost are the
same, and irreligiously take the Three Names of one and the same Reality
and Person, we justly proscribe from the Church, because they suppose the
illimitable and impassible Father to be limitable withal and passible
through His becoming man: for such are they whom Romans call Patripassians,
and we Sabellians(2). For we acknowledge that the Father who sent, remained
in the peculiar state of His unchangeable Godhead, and that Christ who was
sent fulfilled the economy of the Incarnation.
(7.) And at the same time those who irreverently say that the Son has
been generated not by choice or will, thus encompassing God with a
necessity which excludes choice and purpose, so that He begat the Son
unwillingly, we account as most irreligious and alien to the Church; in
that they have dared to define such things concerning God, beside the
common notions concerning Him, nay, beside the purport of divinely inspired
Scripture. For we, knowing that God is absolute and sovereign over Himself,
have a religious judgment that He generated the Son voluntarily and freely;
yet, as we bare a reverent belief in the Son's words concerning Himself
(Prov. viii. 22), 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways for His
works,' we do not understand Him to have been originated like the creatures
or works which through Him came to be. For it is irreligious and alien to
the ecclesiastical faith, to compare the Creator with handiworks created by
Him, and to think that He has the same manner of origination with the rest.
For divine Scripture teaches us really and truly that the Only-begotten Son
was generated sole and solely"(2a). Yet(3), in saying that the Son is in
Himself, and both lives and exists like the Father, we do not on that
account separate Him from the Father, imagining place and interval between
their union in the way of bodies. For we believe that they are united with
each other without mediation or distance(4), and that they exist
inseparable; all the Father embosoming the Son, and all the Son hanging and
adhering to the Father, and alone resting on the Father's breast
continually(4a). Believing then in the All-perfect Triad, the most Holy,
that is, in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and calling the
Father God, and the Son God, yet we confess in them, not two Gods, but one
dignity of Godhead, and one exact harmony of dominion the Father alone
being Head over the whole universe wholly, and over the Son Himself, and
the Son subordinated to the Father; but, excepting Him, ruling over all
things after Him which through Himself have come to be, and granting the
grace of the Holy Ghost an-sparingly to the saints at the Father's will.
For that such is the account of the Divine Monarchy towards Christ, the
sacred oracles have delivered to us.
Thus much, in addition to the faith before published in epitome, we
have been compelled to draw forth at length, not in any officious display,
but to clear away all unjust suspicion concerning our opinions, among those
who are ignorant of our affairs: and that all in the West may know, both
the audacity of the slanders of the heterodox, and as to the Orientals,
their ecclesiastical mind in the Lord, to which the divinely inspired
Scriptures bear witness without violence, where men are not perverse.
27. However they did not stand even to this; for again at Sirmium(5)
they met together(5a) against Photinus(6) and there composed a faith again,
not drawn out into such length, not so full in words; but subtracting the
greater part and adding in its place, as if they had listened to the
suggestions of others, they wrote as follows:--
We believe(7) in One God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of
all things, 'from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named(8);
And in His Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus the Christ, who before all
the ages was begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, by
whom all things were made, in heaven and on the earth, visible and
invisible, being Word and Wisdom and True Light and Life, who in the last
of days was made man for us, and was born of the Holy Virgin, and crucified
and dead and buried, and rose again from the dead the third day, and was
taken up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and is
coming at the consummation of the age, to judge quick and dead, and to
render to every one according to his works; whose Kingdom being unceasing
endures unto the infinite ages; for He shall sit on the fight hand of the
Father, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
And in the Holy Ghost, that is, the Paraclete; which, having promised
to the Apostles to send forth after His ascension into heaven, to teach and
to remind them of all things, He did send; through whom also are sanctified
the souls of those who sincerely believe in Him.
(1.) But those who say that the Son was from nothing or from other
subsistence(9) and not from God, and that there was time or age when He was
not, the Holy and Catholic Church regards as aliens.
(2.) Again we say, Whosoever says that the Father and the Son are two
Gods, be he anathema(10).
(3.) And whosoever, saying that Christ is God, before ages Son of God,
does not confess that He has sub-served the Father for the framing of the
universe, be he anathema(11).
(4.) Whosoever presumes to say that the Ingenerate, or a part of Him,
was born of Mary, be he anathema.
(5.) Whosoever says that according to foreknowledge(1) the Son is
before Mary and not that, generated from the Father before ages, He was
with God, and that through Him all things were originated, be he anathema.
(6.) Whosoever shall pretend that the essence of God is dilated or
contracted(2), be he anathema.
(7.) Whosoever shall say that the essence of God being dilated made the
Son, or shall name the dilation of His essence Son, be he anathema.
(8.) Whosoever calls the Son of God the mental or pronounced Word(3),
be he anathema.
(9.) Whosoever says that the Son from Mary is man only, be he anathema.
(10.) Whosoever, speaking of Him who is from Mary God and man, thereby
means God the Ingenerate(4), be he anathema.
(11.) Whosoever shall explain 'I God the First and I the Last, and
besides Me there is no God,' (Is. xliv. 6), which is said for the denial of
idols and of gods that are not, to the denial of the Only-begotten, before
ages God, as Jews do, be he anathema.
(12.) Whosoever hearing 'The Word was made flesh,' (John i. 14), shall
consider that the Word has changed into flesh, or shall say that He has
undergone alteration by taking flesh, be he anathema(5).
(13.) Whosoever hearing the Only-begotten Son of God to have been
crucified, shall say that His Godhead has undergone corruption, or passion.
or alteration, or diminution, or destruction, be he anathema.
(14.) Whosoever shall say that Let Us make man' (Gen. i. 26), was not
said by the Father to the Son, but by God to Himself, be he anathema(6).
(15.) Whosoever shall say that Abraham saw, not the Son, but the
Ingenerate God or part of Him, be he anathema(7).
(16.) Whosoever shall say that with Jacob, not the Son as man, but the
Ingenerate God or part of Him, has wrestled, be anathema(8).
(17.) Whosoever shall explain, 'The Lord rained fire from the Lord'
(Gen. xix. 24), not of the Father and the Son, and says that He rained from
Himself, be he anathema. For the Son, being Lord, rained from the Father
Who is Lord.
(18.) Whosoever, hearing that the Father is Lord and the Son Lord and
the Father and Son Lord, for there is Lord from Lord, says there are two
Gods, be he anathema. For we do not place the Son in the Father's Order,
but as subordinate to the Father; for He did not descend upon Sodom without
the Father's will, nor did He rain from Himself, but from the Lord, that
is, the Father authorising it. Nor is He of Himself set down on the fight
hand, but He hears the Father saying, 'Sit Thou on My right hand' (Ps. cx.
I).
(19.) Whosoever says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one
Person, be he anathema.
(20.) Whosoever, speaking of the Holy Ghost as Paraclete, shall mean
the Ingenerate God, be he anathema(9).
(21.) Whosoever shall deny, what the Lord taught us, that the Paraclete
is other than the Son, for He hath said, 'And another Paraclete shall the
Father send to you, whom I will ask,' (John xiv. 16) be he anathema.
(22.) Whosoever shall say that the Holy Ghost is part of the Father or
of the Soul be he anathema.
(23.) Whosoever shall say that the Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost are three Gods, be he anathema.
(24.) Whosoever shall say that the Son of God at the will of God has
come to be, as one of the works, be he anathema.
(25.) Whosoever shall say that the Son has been generated, the Father
not wishing it(2), be he anathema. For not by compulsion, led by physical
necessity, did the Father, as He wished not, generate the Son, but He at
once willed, and, after generating Him from Himself apart from time and
passion, manifested Him.
(26.) Whosoever shall say that the Son is without beginning and
ingenerate, as if speaking of two un-begun and two ingenerate, and making
two Gods, be he anathema. For the Son is the Head, namely the beginning of
all: and God is the Head, namely the beginning of Christ; for thus to one
unbegun beginning of the universe do we religiously refer all things
through the Son.
(27.) And in accurate delineation of the idea of Christianity we say
this again; Whosoever shall not say that Christ is God, Son of God, as
being before ages, and having subserved the Father in the framing of the
Universe, but that from the time that He was born of Mary, from thence He
was called Christ and Son, and took an origin of being God, be he anathema.
28. Casting aside the whole of this, as if they had discovered
something better, they propound another faith, and write at Sirmium in
Latin what is here translated into Greek(3).
Whereas(4) it seemed good that there should be some discussion
concerning faith, all points were carefully investigated and discussed at
Sirmium in the presence of Valens, and Ursacius, and Germinius, and the
rest.
It is held for certain that there is one God, the Father Almighty, as
also is preached in all the world.
And His One Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, generated from
Him before the ages; and that we may not speak of two Gods, since the Lord
Himself has said, 'I go to My Father and your Father, and My God and your
God' (John xx. 17). On this account He is God of all, as also the Apostle
taught: 'Is He God of the Jews only, is He not also of the Gentiles? yea of
the Gentiles also: since there is one God who shall justify the
circumcision from faith, and the uncircumcision through faith' (Rom. iii.
29, 30); and every thing else agrees, and has no ambiguity.
But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is
called in Latin 'Substantia,' but in Greek 'Usia,' that is, to make it
understood more exactly, as to 'Coessential,' or what is called, 'Like-in-
Essence,' there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor
exposition of them in the Church, for this reason and for this
consideration, that in divine Scripture nothing is written about them, and
that they are above men's knowledge and above men's understanding; and
because no one can declare the Son's generation, as it is written, 'Who
shall declare His generation' (Is. till. 8)? for it is plain that the
Father only knows how He generated the Son, and again the Son how He has
been generated by the Father. And to none can it be a question that the
Father is greater for no one can doubt that the Father is greater in honour
and dignity and Godhead, and in the very name of Father, the Son Himself
testifying, The Father that sent Me is greater than I' (John x. 29, Ib.
xiv. 28). And no one is ignorant, that it is Catholic doctrine, that there
are two Persons of Father and Son, and that the Father is greater, and the
Son subordinated to the Father together with all things which the Father
has subordinated to Him, and that the Father has no beginning, and is
invisible, and immortal, and impassible; but that the Son has been
generated from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, and that His
origin, as aforesaid, no one knows, but the Father only. And that the Son
Himself and our Lord and God, took flesh, that is, a body, that is, man,
from Mary the Virgin, as the Angel preached beforehand; and as all the
Scriptures teach, and especially the Apostle himself, the doctor of the
Gentiles, Christ took man of Mary the Virgin, through which He has
suffered. And the whole faith is summed up(5), and secured in this, that a
Trinity should ever be preserved, as we read in the Gospel, 'Go ye and
baptize all the nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost' (Matt. xxviii. 19). And entire and perfect is the number of the
Trinity; but the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, sent forth through the Son,
came according to the promise, that He might teach and sanctify the
Apostles and all believers(6).
29. After drawing up this, and then becoming dissatisfied, they
composed the faith which to their shame they paraded with ' the Consulate.'
And, as is their wont, condemning this also, they caused Martinian the
notary to seize it from the parties who had the copies of it(7). And having
got the Emperor Constantius to put forth an edict against it, they form
another dogma afresh, and with the addition of certain expressions,
according to their wont, they write thus in Isauria.
We declines not to bring forward the authentic faith published at the
Dedication at Antioch(9); though certainly our fathers at the time met
together for a particular subject under investigation. But since
'Coessential' and 'Like-in-essence,' have troubled many persons in times
past and up to this day, and since moreover some are said recently to have
devised the Son's 'Unlikeness' to the Father, on their account we reject
'Coessential' and 'Like-in-essence,' as alien to the Scriptures, but
'Unlike' we anathematize, and account all who profess it as aliens from the
Church. And we distinctly confess the 'Likeness' of the Son to the Father,
according to the Apostle, who says of the Son, 'Who is the Image of the
Invisible God' (Col. i. 15).
And we confess and believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker
of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
And we believe also in our Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, generated from
Him impassibly before all the ages, God the Word, God from God, Only-
begotten, light, life, truth, wisdom, power, through whom all things were
made, in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible. He, as
we believe, at the end of the world, for the abolishment of sin, took flesh
of the Holy Virgin, and was made man, and suffered for our sins, and rose
again, and was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the
Father, and is coming again in glory, to judge quick and dead.
We believe also in the Holy Ghost, which our Saviour and Lord named
Paraclete, having promised to send Him to the disciples after His own
departure, as He did send; through whom He sanctifieth those in the Church
who believe, and are baptized in the Name of Father and Son and Holy Ghost.
But those who preach aught beside this faith the Catholic Church
regards as aliens. And that to this faith that is equivalent which was
published lately at Sirmium, under sanction of his religiousness the
Emperor, is plain to all who read it.
30. Having written thus in Isauria, they went up to Constantinople(1),
and there, as if dissatisfied, they changed it, as is their wont, and with
some small additions against using even 'Subsistence' of Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, they transmitted it to those at Ariminum, and compelled even
those in the said parts to subscribe, and those who contradicted them they
got banished by Constantius. And it runs thus:--
We believe(2) in One God, Father Almighty, from whom are all things;
And in the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten from God before all ages
and before every beginning, by whom all things were made, visible and
invisible, and begotten as only-begotten, only from the Father only(3), God
from God, like to the Father that begat Him according to the Scriptures;
whose origin no one knows, except the Father alone who begat Him. He as we
acknowledge, the Only-begotten Son of God, the Father sending Him, came
hither from the heavens, as it is written, for the undoing of sin and
death, and was born of the Holy Ghost, of Mary the Virgin according to the
flesh, as it is written, and convened with the disciples, and having
fulfilled the whole Economy according to the Father's will, was crucified
and dead and buried and descended to the parts below the earth; at whom
hades itself shuddered: who also rose from the dead on the third day, and
abode with the disciples, and, forty days being fulfilled, was taken up
into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, to come in
the last day of the resurrection in the Father's glory, that He may render
to every man according to his works.
And in the Holy Ghost, whom the Only-begotten Son of God Himself,
Christ, our Lord and God, promised to send to the race of man, as
Paraclete, as it is written, 'the Spirit of truth' (Joh. xvi. 13), which He
sent unto them when He had ascended into the heavens.
But the name of 'Essence,' which was set down by the Fathers in
simplicity, and, being unknown by the people, caused offence, because the
Scriptures contain it not, it has seemed good to abolish, and for the
future to make no mention of it at all; since the divine Scriptures have
made no mention of the Essence of Father and Son. For neither ought
Subsistence to be named concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost But, we say
that the Son is Like the Father, as the divine Scriptures say and teach;
and all the heresies, both those which have been afore condemned already,
and whatever are of modern date, being contrary to this published
statement, be they anathema(4).
31. However, they did not stand even to this: for coming down from
Constantinople to Antioch, they were dissatisfied that they had written at
all that the Son was 'Like the Father, as the Scriptures say;' and putting
their ideas upon paper(5), they began reverting to their first doctrines,
and said that 'the Son is altogether unlike the Father,' and that the 'Son
is in no manner like the Father,' and so much did they change, as to admit
those who spoke the Arian doctrine nakedly and to deliver to them the
Churches with licence to bring forward the words of blasphemy with
impunity(6). Because then of the extreme shamelessness of their blasphemy
they were called by all Anomoeans, having also the name of Exucontian(7),
and the heretical Constantius for the patron of their irreligion, who
persisting up to the end in irreligion, and on the point of death, thought
good to be baptized(8); not however by religious men, but by Euzoius(9),
who for his Arianism had been deposed, not once, but often, both when he
was a deacon, and when he was in the see of Antioch.
32. The forementioned parties then had proceeded thus far, when they
were stopped and deposed. But well I know, not even under these
circumstances will they stop, as many as have now dissembled(10) but they
will always be making parties against the truth, until they return to
themselves and say, 'Let us rise and go to our fathers, and we will say
unto them, We anathematize the Arian heresy, and we acknowledge the Nicene
Council;' for against this is their quarrel. Who then, with ever so little
understanding, will bear them any longer? who, on hearing in every Council
some things taken away and others added, but perceives that their mind is
shifty and treacherous against Christ? who on seeing them embodying to so
great a length both their professions of faith, and their own exculpation,
but sees that they are giving sentence against themselves, and studiously
writing much which may be likely by their officious display and abundance
of words to seduce the simple and hide what they are in point of heresy?
But as the heathen, as the Lord said, using vain words in their prayers
(Mat. vi. 7), are nothing profited; so they too, after all this outpouring,
were not able to quench the judgment pronounced against the Arian heresy,
but were convicted and deposed instead; and rightly; for which of their
formularies is to be accepted by the hearer? or with what confidence shall
they be catechists to those who come to them? for if they all have one and
the same meaning, what is the need of many? But if need has arisen of so
many, it follows that each by itself is deficient, not complete; and they
establish this point better than we can, by their innovating on them all
and remaking them. And the number of their Councils, and the difference of
their statements is a proof that those who were present at them, while at
variance with the Nicene, are yet too feeble to harm the Truth.
PART III: ON THE SYMBOLS 'OF THE ESSENCE AND 'COESSENTIAL.'
We must look at the sense not the wording. The offence excited is at the
sense; meaning of the Symbols; the question of their not being in
Scripture. Those who hesitate only at 'coessential,' not to be considered
Arians. Reasons why 'coessential' is better than 'like- in-essence,' yet
the latter may be interpreted in a good sense. Explanation of the rejection
of 'coessential' by the Council which condemned the Samosatene; use of the
word by Dionysius of Alexandria; parallel variation in the use of
Unoriginate; quotation from Ignatius and another; reasons for using
'coessential;' objections to it; examination of the word itself; further
documents of the Council of Ariminum.
33. But since they are thus minded both towards each other and towards
those who preceded them, proceed we to ascertain from them what absurdity
they have seen, or what they complain of in the received phrases, that they
have proved 'disobedient to parents' (Rom. i. 30), and contend against an
Ecumenical Council(1)? 'The phrases "of the essence" and "coessential,"'
say they, 'do not please us, for they are an offence to some and a trouble
to many.' This then is what they allege in their writings; but one may
reasonably answer them thus: If the very words were by themselves a cause
of offence to them, it must have followed, not that some only should have
been offended, and many troubled, but that we also and all the rest should
have been affected by them in the same way; but if on the contrary all men
are well content with the words, and they who wrote them were no ordinary
persons but men who came together from the whole world, and to these
testify in addition the 400 Bishops and more who now met at Ariminum, does
not this plainly prove against those who accuse the Council, that the terms
are not in fault, but the perverseness of those who misinterpret them? How
many men read divine Scripture wrongly, and as thus conceiving it, find
fault with the Saints? such were the former Jews, who rejected the Lord,
and the present Manichees who blaspheme the Law(3); yet are not the
Scriptures the cause to them, but their own evil humours. If then ye can
shew the terms to be actually unsound, do so and let the proof proceed, and
drop the pretence of offence created, lest you come into the condition of
the Pharisees of old. For when they pretended offence at the Lord's
teaching, He said, 'Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted,
shall be rooted up' (Matt. xv. 13). By which He shewed that not the words
of the Father planted by Him were really an offence to them, but that they
misinterpreted what was well said, and offended themselves. And in like
manner they who at that time blamed the Epistles of the Apostle, impeached,
not Paul, but their own deficient learning and distorted minds.
34. For answer, what is much to the purpose, Who are they whom you
pretend are offended and troubled at these terms? of those who are
religious towards Christ not one; on the contrary they defend and maintain
them. But if they are Arians who thus feel, what wonder they should be
distressed at words which destroy their heresy? for it is not the terms
which offend them, but the proscription of their irreligion which afflicts
them. Therefore let us have no more murmuring against the Fathers, nor
pretence of this kind; or next(4) you will be making complaints of the
Lord's Cross, because it is 'to Jews an offence and to Gentiles
foolishness,' as said the Apostle (1 Cor. i. 23, 24). But as the Cross is
not faulty, for to us who believe it is 'Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God,' though Jews rave, so neither are the terms of the Fathers
faulty, but profitable to those who honestly read, and subversive of all
irreligion, though the Arians so often burst with rage as being condemned
by them. Since then the pretence that persons are offended does not hold,
tell us yourselves, why is it you are not pleased with the phrase 'of the
essence (this must first be enquired about), when you yourselves have
written that the Son is generated from the Father? If when you name the
Father, or use the word 'God,' you do not signify essence, or understand
Him according to essence, who is that He is, but signify something else
about Him(6), not to say inferior, then you should not have written that
the Son was from the Father, but from what is about Him or in Him(7); and
so, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making Him compound
who is simple, in a material way, you will be authors of a newer blasphemy.
And, with such ideas, you must needs consider the Word, and the title
'Son,' not as an essence but as a name(7a) only, and in consequence hold
your own views as far as names only, and be talking, not of what you
believe to exist, but of what you think not to exist.
35. But this is more like the crime of the Sadducees, and of those
among the Greeks who had the name of Atheists. It follows that you will
deny that even creation is the handy-work of God Himself that is; at least,
if 'Father' and 'God' do not signify the very essence of Him that is, but
something else, which you imagine: which is irreligious, and most shocking
even to think of. But if, when we hear it said, 'I am that I am,' and, 'In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' and, 'Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one Lord,' and, 'Thus saith the Lord Almighty' (Ex.
iii. 14; Gen. i. I; Deut. vi. 4), we understand nothing else than the very
simple, and blessed, and incomprehensible essence itself of Him that is,
(for though we be unable to master what He is, yet hearing 'Father,' and
'God,' and 'Almighty,' we understand nothing else to be meant than the very
essence of Him that is(8)); and if ye too have said, that the Son is from
God, it follows that you have said that He is from the 'essence' of the
Father. And since the Scriptures precede you which say, that the Lord is
Son of the Father, and the Father Himself precedes them, who says, 'This is
My beloved Son' (Matt. iii. 17), and a son is no other than the offspring
from his father, is it not evident that the Fathers have suitably said that
the Son is from the Father's essence? considering that it is all one to say
rightly 'from God,' and to say 'from the essence.' For all the creatures,
though they be said to have come into being from God, yet are not from God
as the Son is; for they are not offsprings in their nature, but works.
Thus, it is said,' in the beginning God,' not 'generated,' but 'made the
heaven and the earth, and all that is in them' (Gen. i. 1). And not, 'who
generates,' but 'who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame
of fire' (Ps. civ. 4). And though the Apostle has said,' One God, from whom
all things' (1 Cor. viii. 6), yet he says not this, as reckoning the Son
with other things; but, whereas some of the Greeks consider that the
creation was held together by chance, and from the combination of atoms
(9); and spontaneously from elements of similar structure (10), and has no
cause; and others consider that it came from a cause, but not through the
Word; and each heretic has imagined things at his will, and tells his
fables about the creation; on this account the Apostle was obliged to
introduce 'from God,' that he might thereby certify the Maker, and shew
that the universe was framed at His will. And accordingly he straightway
proceeds: And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things' (1 Cor. viii.
6), by way of excepting the Son from that 'all'(for what is called God's
work, is all done through the Son; and it is not possible that the things
framed should have one origin with their Framer), and by way of teaching
that the phrase 'of God,' which occurs in the passage, has a different
sense in the case of the works, from what it bears when used of the Son;
for He is offspring, and they are works: and therefore He, the Son, is the
proper offspring of His essence, but they are the handywork of his will.
36. The Council, then, comprehending this(1), and aware of the
different senses of the same word, that none should suppose, that the Son
was said to be 'from God' like the creation, wrote with greater
explicitness, that the Son was 'from the essence.' For this betokens the
true genuineness of the Son towards the Father; whereas, by the simple
phrase 'from God,' only the Creator's will in framing is signified. If then
they too had this meaning, when they wrote that the Word was 'from the
Father,' they had nothing to complain of in the Council; but if they meant
'of God,' in the instance of the Son, as it is used of the creation, then
as understanding it of the creation, they should not name the Son, or they
will be manifestly mingling blasphemy with religiousness; but either, they
have to cease reckoning the Lord with the creatures, or at least to refrain
from unworthy and unbecoming statements about the Son. For if He is a Son,
He is not a creature; but if a creature, then not a Son. Since these are
their views, perhaps they will be denying the Holy Layer also, because it
is administered into Father and into Son and not into Creator and Creature,
as they account it. 'But,' they say, 'all this is not written: and we
reject these words as unscriptural.' But this, again, is an unblushing
excuse in their mouths. For if they think everything must be rejected which
is not written, wherefore, when the Arian party invent such a heap of
phrases, not from Scripture(2), 'Out of nothing,' and 'the Son was not
before His generation,' and 'Once He was not,' and 'He is alterable,' and
'the Father is ineffable and invisible to the Son,' and 'the Son knows not
even His own essence;' and all that Arius has vomited in his light and
irreligious Thalia, why do not they speak against these, but rather take
their part, and on that account contend with their own Fathers? And, in
what Scripture did they on their part find 'Unoriginate,' and 'the term
essence,' and 'there are three subsistences,' and 'Christ is not very God,'
and 'He is one of the hundred sheep,' and 'God's Wisdom is ingenerate and
without beginning, but the created powers are many, of which Christ is
one?' Or how, when in the so-called Dedication, Acacius and Eusebius and
their fellows used expressions not in Scripture, and said that 'the First-
born of the creation' was 'the exact Image of the essence and power and
will and glory,' do they complain of the Fathers, for making mention of
unscriptural expressions, and especially of essence? For they ought either
to complain of themselves, or to find no fault with the Fathers.
37. Now, if certain others made excuses of the expressions of the
Council, it might perhaps have been set down, either to ignorance or to
caution. There is no question, for instance, about George of Cappadocia(3),
who was expelled from Alexandria; a man, without character in years past,
nor a Christian in any respect; but only pretending to the name to suit the
times, and thinking 'religion to be a' means of 'gain' (1 Tim. vi. 5). And
therefore there is no reason to complain of his making mistakes about the
faith, considering he knows neither what he says, nor whereof he affirms;
but, according to the text, 'goeth after all, as a bird' (1 Tim. 1. 7;
Prov. vii. 22, 23, not LXX.?) But when Acacius, and Eudoxius, and
Patrophilus say this, do not they deserve the strongest reprobation? for
while they write what is unscriptural themselves, and have accepted many
times the term 'essence' as suitable, especially on the ground of the
letter(3a) of Eusebius, they now blame their predecessors for using terms
of the same kind. Nay, though they say themselves, that the Son is 'God
from God,' and 'Living Word,' 'Exact Image of the Father's essence;' they
accuse the Nicene Bishops of saying, that He who was begotten is 'of the
essence' of Him who begat Him, and 'Coessential' with Him. But what marvel
if they conflict with their predecessors and their own Fathers, when they
are inconsistent with themselves, and fall foul of each other? For after
publishing, in the so-called Dedication at Antioch, that the Son is exact
Image of the Father's essence, and swearing that so they held and
anathematizing those who held otherwise, nay, in Isauria, writing down, 'We
do not decline the authentic faith published in the Dedication at
Antioch(4),' where the term 'essence' was introduced, as if forgetting all
this, shortly after, in the same Isauria, they put into writing the very
contrary, saying, We reject the words 'coessential,' and 'like-in-essence,'
as alien to the Scriptures, and abolish the term 'essence,' as not
contained therein(4a).
38. Can we then any more account such men Christians? or what sort of
faith have they who stand neither to word nor writing, but alter and change
every thing according to the times? For if, O Acacius and Eudoxius, you 'do
not decline the faith published at the Dedication,' and in it is written
that the Son is 'Exact Image of God's essence,' why is it ye write in
Isauria, 'we reject the Like in essence?' for if the Son is not like the
Father according to essence, how is He 'exact image of the essence?' But if
you are dissatisfied at having written' Exact Image of the essence,' how is
it that ye 'anathematize those who say that the Son is Unlike?' for if He
be not according to essence like, He is surely unlike: and the Unlike
cannot be an Image. And if so, then it does not hold that 'he that hath
seen the Son, hath seen the Father' (John xiv. 9), there being then the
greatest possible difference between Them, or rather the One being wholly
Unlike the Other. And Unlike cannot possibly be called Like. By what
artifice then do you call Unlike like, and consider Like to be unlike, and
pretend to say that the Son is the Father's Image? for if the Son be not
like the Father in essence, something is wanting to the Image, and it is
not a complete Image, nor a perfect radiance(5).
How then read you, 'In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily?'
and, 'from His fulness all we received' (Coloss. ii. 9; John i. 16)? how is
it that you expel the Arian Aetius as an heretic, though ye say the same
with him? for he is your companion, O Acacius, and he became Eudoxius's
master in this so great irreligion(6); which was the reason why Leontius
the Bishop made him deacon, that using the name of the diaconate as sheep's
clothing, he might be able with impunity to pour forth the words of
blasphemy.
39. What then has persuaded you to contradict each other, and to
procure to yourselves so great a disgrace? You cannot give any good account
of it; this supposition only remains, that all you do is but outward
profession and pretence, to secure the patronage of Constantius and the
gain from thence accruing. And ye make nothing of accusing the Fathers, and
ye complain outright of the expressions as being unscriptural; and, as it
is written, 'opened your legs to every one that passed by' (Ez. xvi. 25);
so as to change as often as they 'wish, in whose pay and keep you are. Yet,
though a man use terms not in Scripture, it makes no difference so that his
meaning be religious(6a). But the heretic, though he use scriptural terms,
yet, as being equally dangerous and depraved, shall be asked in the words
of the Spirit, 'Why dost thou preach My laws, and takest My covenant in thy
mouth' (Ps. 1. 16)? Thus whereas the devil, though speaking from the
Scriptures, is silenced by the Saviour, the blessed Paul, though he speaks
from profane writers, 'The Cretans are always liars,' and, 'For we are His
offspring,' and, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' yet has a
religious meaning, as being holy,--is 'doctor of the nations, in faith and
verity,' as having 'the mind of Christ' (Tit. i. 12; Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor.
xv. 33; 1 Tim. ii. 7; 1 Cor. ii. 16), and what he speaks, he utters
religiously. What then is there even plausible, in the Arian terms, in
which the 'caterpillar' (Joel ii. 25) and the 'locust' are preferred to the
Saviour, and He is reviled with 'Once Thou wast not,' and 'Thou wast
created,' and 'Thou art foreign to God in essence,' and, in a word, no
irreverence is unused among them? But what did the Fathers omit in the way
of reverence? or rather, have they not a lofty view and a Christ-loving
religiousness? And yet these, they wrote, 'We reject;' while those others
they endure in their insults towards the Lord, and betray to all men, that
for no other cause do they resist that great Council but that it condemned
the Arian heresy. For it is on this account gain that they speak against
the term Coessential, about which they also entertain wrong sentiments. For
if their faith was right, and they confessed the Father as truly Father,
believed the Son to be genuine Son, and by nature true Word and Wisdom of
the Father, and as to saying that the Son is 'from God,' if they did not
use the words of Him, as of themselves, but understood Him to be the proper
offspring of the Father's essence, as the radiance is from light, they
would not every one of them have found fault with the Fathers; but would
have been confident that the Council wrote suitably; and that this is the
fight faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.
40. 'But,' say they, 'the sense of such expressions is obscure to us;'
for this is another of their pretences,--'We reject theme(7),' say they,
'because we cannot master their meaning.' But if they were true in this
profession, instead of saying, 'We reject them,' they should ask
instruction from the well informed; else ought they to reject whatever they
cannot understand in divine Scripture, and to find fault with the writers.
But this were the venture of heretics rather than of us Christians; for
what we do not understand in the sacred oracles, instead of rejecting, we
seek 'from persons to whom the Lord has revealed it, and from them we ask
for instruction. But since they thus make a pretence of the obscurity of
such expressions, let them at least confess what is annexed to the Creed,
and anathematize those who hold that 'the Son is from nothing,' and 'He was
not before His generation,' and 'the Word of God is a creature and work,'
and 'He is alterable by nature,' and 'from another subsistence;' and in a
word let them anathematize the Arian heresy, which has originated such
irreligion. Nor let them say any more, 'We reject the terms,' but that 'we
do not yet understand them;' by way of having some reason to shew for
declining them. But I know well, and am sure, and they know it too, that if
they could confess all this and anathematize the Arian heresy, they would
no longer deny those terms of the Council. For on this account it was that
the Fathers, after declaring that the Son was begotten from the Father's
essence, and Co-essential with Him, thereupon added, 'But those who say'--
what has just been quoted, the symbols of the Arian heresy,--'we
anathematize;' I mean, in order to shew that the statements are parallel,
and that the terms in the Creed imply the disclaimers subjoined, and that
all who confess the terms, will certainly understand the disclaimers. But
those who both dissent from the latter and impugn the former, such men are
proved on every side to be foes of Christ.
41. Those who deny the Council altogether, are sufficiently exposed by
these brief remarks; those, however, who accept everything else that was
defined at Nicaea, and doubt only about the Coessential, must not be
treated as enemies; nor do we here attack them as Ario-maniacs, nor as
opponents of the Fathers, but we discuss the matter with them as brothers
with brothers(8), who mean what we mean, and dispute only about the word.
For, confessing that the Son is from the essence of the Father, and not
from other subsistence, and that He is not a creature nor work, but His
genuine and natural offspring, and that He is eternally with the Father as
being His Word and Wisdom they are not far from accepting even the phrase,
'Coessential.' Now such is Basil, who wrote from Ancyra concerning the
faith(9). For only to say 'like according to essence,' is very far from
signifying 'of the essence,' by which, rather, as they say themselves, the
genuineness of the Son to the Father is signified. Thus tin is only like to
silver, a wolf to a dog, and gilt brass to the true metal; but tin is not
from silver, nor could a wolf be accounted the offspring of a dog.(10) But
since they say that He is 'of the essence' and 'Like-in-essence,' what do
they signify by these but 'Coessential(11)?' For, while to say only "Like-
in-essence,' does not necessarily convey 'of the essence,' on the contrary,
to say 'Coessential,' is to signify the meaning of both terms, 'Like-in-
essence,' and 'of the essences' And accordingly they themselves in
controversy with those who say that the Word is a creature, instead of
allowing Him to be genuine Son, have taken their proofs against them from
human illustrations of son and father(12), with this exception that God is
not as man, nor the generation of the Son as issue of man, but such as may
be ascribed to God, and is fit for us to think. Thus they have called the
Father the Fount of Wisdom and Life, and the Son the Radiance of the
Eternal Light, and the Offspring from the Fountain, as He says, 'I am the
Life,' and, 'I Wisdom dwell with Prudence (John xiv. 6; Prov. viii. 12).
But the Radiance from the Light, and Offspring from Fountain, and Son from
Father, how can these be so fitly expressed as by 'Coessential?' And is
there any cause of fear, lest, because the offspring from men are
coessential, the Son, by being called Coessential, be Himself considered as
a human offspring too? perish the thought! not so; but the explanation is
easy. For the Son is the Father's Word and Wisdom; whence we learn the
impassibility and indivisibility of such a generation from the Father(1).
For not even man's word is part of him, nor proceeds from him according to
passion(2); much less God's Word; whom the Father has declared to be His
own Son, lest, on the other hand, if we merely heard of 'Word,' we should
suppose Him, such as is the word of man, impersonal; but that, hearing that
He is Son, we may acknowledge Him to be living Word and substantive Wisdom.
42. Accordingly, as in saying 'offspring, we have no human thoughts,
and, though we know God to be a Father, we entertain no material ideas
concerning Him, but while we listen to these illustrations and terms, we
think suitably of God, for He is not as man, so in like manner, when we
hear of 'coessential,' we ought to transcend all sense, and, according to
the Proverb, 'understand by the understanding what is set before us' (Prov.
xxiii.(1)); so as to know, that not by will, but in truth, is He genuine
from the Father, as Life from Fountain, and Radiance from Light. Else(3)
why should we understand 'offspring' and 'son,' in no corporeal way, while
we conceive of 'coessential' as after the manner of bodies? especially
since these terms are not here used about different subjects, but of whom
'offspring' is predicated, of Him is 'coessential' also.
And it is but consistent to attach the same sense to both expressions as
applied to the Saviour, and not to interpret 'offspring' in a good sense,
and 'coessential' otherwise; since to be consistent, ye who are thus minded
and who say that the Son is Word and Wisdom of the Father, should entertain
a different view of these terms also, and understand Word in another sense,
and Wisdom in yet another. But, as this would be absurd (for the Son is the
Father's Word and Wisdom, and the Offspring from the Father is one and
proper to His essence), so the sense of 'Offspring' and 'Coessential' is
one, and whoso considers the Son an offspring, rightly considers Him also
as 'coessential.'
43. This is sufficient to shew that the meaning of the beloved ones(4)
is not foreign nor far from the 'Coessential.' But since, as they allege(5)
(for I have not the Epistle in question), the Bishops who condemned the
Samosatene(6) have said in writing that the Son is not coessential with the
Father, and so it comes to pass that they, for caution and honour towards
those who have so said, thus feel about that expression, it will be to the
purpose cautiously to argue with them this point also. Certainly it is
unbecoming to make the one conflict with the others; for all are fathers;
nor is it religious to settle, that these have spoken well, and those ill;
for all of them fell asleep in Christ. Nor is it right to be disputations,
and to compare the respective numbers of those who met in the Councils,
lest the three hundred seem to throw the lesser into the shade; nor to
compare the dates, lest those who preceded seem to eclipse those that came
after. For all, I say, are fathers; and yet not even the three hundred laid
down nothing new, nor was it in any self-confidence that they became
champions of words not in Scripture, but they fell back upon fathers, as
did the others, and used their words. For there have been two of the name
of Dionysius, much older than the seventy who deposed the Samosatene, of
whom one was of Rome, and the other of Alexandria. But a charge had been
laid by some persons against the Bishop of Alexandria before the Bishop of
Rome, as if he had said that the Son was made, and not coessential with the
Father. And, the synod at Rome being indignant, the Bishop of Rome
expressed their united sentiments in a letter to his namesake. And so the
latter, in defence, wrote a book with the title 'of Refutation and
Defence;' and thus he writes to the other:
44. And(7) I wrote in another Letter a refutation of the false charge
which they bring against me, that I deny that Christ is coessential with
God. For though I say that I have not found or read this term anywhere in
holy Scripture, yet my remarks which follow, and which they have not
noticed, are not inconsistent with that belief. For I instanced a human
production, which is evidently homogeneous, and I observed that undeniably
fathers differed from their children, only in not being the same
individuals; otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. And my
Letter, as I said before, owing to present circumstances, I am unable to
produce, or I would have sent you the very words I used, or rather a copy
of it all; which, if I have an opportunity, I will do still. But I am sure
from recollection, that I adduced many parallels of things kindred with
each other, for instance, that a plant grown from seed or from root, was
other than that from which it sprang, and yet altogether one in nature with
it; and that a stream flowing from a fountain, changed its appearance and
its name, for that neither the fountain was called stream, nor the stream
fountain, but both existed, and that the fountain was as it were father,
but the stream was what was generated from the fountain.
45. Thus the Bishop. If then any one finds fault with those who met at
Nicaea, as if they contradicted the decisions of their predecessors, he
might reasonably find fault also with the seventy, because they did not
keep to the statements of their own predecessors; but such were the
Dionysii and the Bishops assembled on that occasion at Rome. But neither
these nor those is it pious to blame; for all were charged with the embassy
of Christ, and all have given diligence against the heretics, and the one
party condemned the Samosatene, while the other condemned the Arian heresy.
And rightly have both these and those written, and suitably to the matter
in hand. And as the blessed Apostle, writing to the Romans, said, 'The Law
is spiritual, the Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good'
(Rom. vii. 14, 12); and soon after, 'What the Law could not do, in that it
was weak' (Ib. viii. 3), but wrote to the Hebrews, 'The Law has made no one
perfect' (Heb. vii. 19); and to the Galatians, 'By the Law no one is
justified' (Gal. iii. 11), but to Timothy, 'The Law is good, if a man use
it lawfully' (1 Tim. i. 8); and no one would accuse the Saint of
inconsistency and variation in writing, but rather would admire how
suitably he wrote to each, to teach the Romans and the others to turn from
the letter to the spirit, but to instruct the Hebrews and Galatians to
place their hopes, not in the Law, but in the Lord who had given the Law;--
so, if the Fathers of the two Councils made different mention of the
Coessential, we ought not in any respect to differ from them, but to
investigate their meaning, and this will fully show us the agreement of
both the Councils. For they who deposed the Samosatene took Coessential in
a bodily sense, because Paul had attempted sophistry and said, 'Unless
Christ has of man become God, it follows that He is Coessential with the
Father; and if so, of necessity there are three essences, one the previous
essence, and the other two from it;' and therefore guarding against this
they said with good reason, that Christ was not Coessential(8). For the Son
is not related to the Father as he imagined. But the Bishops who
anathematized the Arian heresy, understanding Paul's craft, and reflecting
that the word 'Coessential' has not this meaning when used of things
immaterial(9), and especially of God, and acknowledging that the Word was
not a creature, but an offspring from the essence, and that the Father's
essence was the origin and root and fountain of the Son, and that he was of
very truth His Father's likeness, and not of different nature, as we are,
and separate from the Father, but that, as being from Him, He exists as Son
indivisible, as radiance is with respect to Light, and knowing too the
illustrations used in Dionysius's case, the 'fountain,' and the defence of'
Coessential' and before this the Saviour's saying, symbolical of unity(10),
I and the Father are one' and 'he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father'
(John x. 30, Ib. xiv. 9), on these grounds reasonably asserted on their
part, that the Son was Coessential. And as, according to a former remark,
no one would blame the Apostle, if he wrote to the Romans about the Law in
one way, and to the Hebrews in another; in like manner, neither would the
present Bishops find fault with the ancient, having regard to their
interpretation, nor again in view of theirs and of the need of their so
writing about the Lord, would the ancient censure their successors. Yes
surely, each Council has a sufficient reason for its own language; for
since the Samosatene held that the Son was not before Mary, but received
from her the origin of His being, therefore those who then met deposed him
and pronounced him heretic; but concerning the Son's Godhead writing in
simplicity, they arrived not at accuracy concerning the Coessential, but,
as they understood the word, so spoke they about it. For they directed all
their thoughts to destroy the device of the Samosatene, and to shew that
the Son was before all things, and that, instead of becoming God from man,
He, being God, had put on a servant's form, and being Word, had become
flesh, as John says (Phil. ii. 7; Joh. i. 14). This is how they dealt with
the blasphemies of Paul; but when Eusebius, Arius, and their fellows said
that though the Son was before time, yet was He made and one of the
creatures, and as to the phrase 'from God,' they did not believe it in the
sense of His being genuine Son from Father, but maintained it as it is said
of the creatures, and as to the oneness(1) of likeness(2) between the Son
and the Father, did not confess that the Son is like the Father according
to essence, or according to nature as a son resembles his father, but
because of Their agreement of doctrines and of teaching(3); nay, when they
drew a line and an utter distinction between the Son's essence and the
Father, ascribing to Him an origin of being, other than the Father, and
degrading Him to the creatures, on this account the Bishops assembled at
Nic'a, with a view to the craft of the parties so thinking, and as bringing
together the sense from the Scriptures, cleared up the point, by affirming
the 'Coessential;' that both the true genuineness of the Son might thereby
be known, and that to things originate might be ascribed nothing in common
with Him. For the precision of this phrase detects their pretence, whenever
they use the phrase 'from God,' and gets rid of all the subtleties with
which they seduce the simple. For whereas they contrive to put a
sophistical construction on all other words at their will, this phrase
only, as detecting their heresy, do they dread; which the Fathers set down
as a bulwark(4) against their irreligious notions one and all.
46. Let then all contention cease, nor let us any longer conflict,
though the Councils have differently taken the phrase 'Coessential,' for we
have already assigned a sufficient defence of them; and to it the following
may be added:--We have not derived the word 'Unoriginate' from Scripture,
(for no where does Scripture call God Unoriginate,) yet since it has many
authorities in its favour, I was curious about the term, and found that it
too has different senses(5). Some, for instance, call what is, but is
neither generated, nor has any personal cause at all, un-originate; and
others, the uncreate. As then a person, having in view the former of these
senses, viz. 'that which has no personal cause,' might say that the Son was
not unoriginate, yet would not blame any one whom he perceived to have in
view the other meaning, not a work or creature but an eternal offspring,'
and to affirm accordingly that the Son was unoriginate, (for both speak
suitably with a view to their own object); so, even granting that the
Fathers have spoken variously concerning the Coessential, let us not
dispute about it, but take what they deliver to us in a religious way, when
especially their anxiety was directed in behalf of religion.
47. Ignatius, for instance, who was appointed Bishop in Antioch after
the Apostles, and became a martyr of Christ, writes concerning the Lord
thus: 'There is one physician, fleshly and spiritual, originate and
unoriginate(6), God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from
God;(1) whereas some teachers who followed Ignatius, write in their turn,
'One is the Unoriginate, the Father, and one the genuine Son from Him, true
offspring, Word and Wisdom of the Father(7).' If therefore we have hostile
feelings towards these writers, then have we right to quarrel with the
Councils; but if, knowing their faith in Christ, we are persuaded that the
blessed Ignatius was right in writing that Christ was originate on account
of the flesh (for He became flesh), yet unoriginate, because He is not in
the number of things made and originated, but Son from Father; and if we
are aware too that those who have said that the Unoriginate is One, meaning
the Father, did not mean to lay down that the Word was originated and made,
but that the Father has no personal cause, but rather is Himself Father of
Wisdom, and in Wisdom has made all things that are originated; why do we
not combine all our Fathers in religious belief, those who deposed the
Samosatene as well as those who proscribed the Arian heresy, instead of
making distinctions between them and refusing to entertain a right opinion
of them? I repeat, that those, in view of the sophistical explanation of
the Samosatene, wrote, 'He is not coessentials(8);' and these, with an
apposite meaning, said that He was. For myself, I have written these brief
remarks, from my feeling towards persons who were religious to Christ-ward;
but were it possible to come by the Epistle which we are told that the
former wrote, I consider we should find further grounds for the aforesaid
proceeding of those blessed men. For it is right and meet thus to feel, and
to maintain a good conscience toward the Fathers, if we be not spurious
children, but have received the traditions from them, and the lessons of
religion at their hands.
48. Such then, as we confess and believe, being the sense of the
Fathers, proceed we even in their company to examine once more the matter,
calmly and with a kindly sympathy, with reference to what has been said
before, viz. whether the Bishops collected at Nicaea do not really prove to
have thought aright. For if the Word be a work and foreign to the Father's
essence, so that He is separated from the Father by the difference of
nature, He cannot be one in essence with Him, but rather He is homogeneous
by nature with the works, though He surpass them in grace(9). On the other
hand, if we confess that He is not a work but the genuine offspring of the
Father's essence, it would follow that He is inseparable from the Father,
being connatural, because He is begotten from Him. And being such, good
reason He should be called Coessential.
Next, if the Son be not such from participation, but is in His essence the
Father's Word and Wisdom, and this essence is the offspring of the Father's
essence(10), and its likeness as the radiance is of the light, and the Son
says, 'I and the Father are One,' and, 'he that hath seen Me, hath seen the
Father' (John x. 30; xiv. 9), how must we understand these words? or how
shall we so explain them as to preserve the oneness of the Father and the
Son? Now as to its consisting in agreement(1) of doctrines, and in the
Son's not disagreeing with the Father, as the Arians say, such an
interpretation is a sorry one; for both the Saints, and still more Angels
and Archangels, have such an agreement with God, and there is no
disagreement among them. For he who disagreed, the devil, was beheld to
fall from the heavens, as the Lord said. Therefore if by reason of
agreement the Father and the Son are one, there would be things originated
which had this agreement with God, and each of these might say, 'I and the
Father are One.' But if this be absurd, and so it truly is, it follows of
necessity that we must conceive of Son's and Father's oneness in the way of
essence. For things originate, though they have an agreement with their
Maker, yet possess it only by influence(2), and by participation, and
through the mind; the transgression of which forfeits heaven. But the Son,
being an offspring from the essence, is one by essence, Himself and the
Father that begat Him.
49. This is why He has equality with the Father by titles expressive of
unity(3), and what is said of the Father, is said in Scripture of the Son
also, all but His being called Father(4). For the Son Himself said, 'All
things that the Father hath are Mine' (John xvi. 15); and He says to the
Father, 'All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine' (John xvii. 10),- -as for
instance(4a), the name God; for 'the Word was God;'--Almighty, 'Thus saith
He that is, and that was, and that is to come, the Almighty' (John i. 1;
Apoc. i. 8):--the being Light, 'I am,' He says, 'the Light' (John viii.
12):--the Operative Cause, 'All things were made by Him,' and, 'whatsoever
I see the Father do, I do also' (John i. 3; v. 19):--the being Everlasting,
'His eternal power and godhead,' and, 'In the beginning was the Word,' and,
'He was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world;'--the being Lord, for, 'The Lord rained fire and brimstone from the
Lord,' and the Father says, 'I am the Lord,' and, 'Thus saith the Lord, the
Almighty God;' and of the Son Paul speaks thus, 'One Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom all things' (Rom. i. 20; John i. I; ib. 9; Gen xix. 24; Isa.
xlv. 5; Am. v. 16; I Cor. viii. 6). And on the Father Angels wait, and
again the Son too is worshipped by them, 'And let all the Angels of God
worship Him;' and He is said to be Lord of Angels, for 'the Angels
ministered unto Him,' and 'the Son of Man shall send His Angels.' The being
honoured as the Father, for 'that they may honour the Son,' He says, 'as
they honour the Father;'--being equal to God, 'He counted it not a prize to
be equal with God' (Heb. i. 6; Matt. iv. II; xxiv. 31; John v. 23; Phil.
ii. the being Truth from the True, and Life from the Living, as being truly
from the Fountain, even the Father;--the quickening and raising the dead as
the Father, for so it is written in the Gospel. And of the Father it is
written, 'The Lord thy God is One Lord,' and, 'The God of gods, the Lord,
hath spoken, and hath called the earth;' and of the Son, 'The Lord God hath
shined upon us,' and, 'The God of gods shall be seen in Sion.' And again of
God, Isaiah says, 'Who is a God like unto Thee, taking away iniquities and
passing over unrighteousness?' (Deut. vi. 4; Ps. 1. I; cxviii. 27; lxxxiv.
7, LXX.; Mic. vii. 18). But the Son said to whom He would, 'Thy sins are
forgiven thee;' for instance, when, on the Jews murmuring, He manifested
the remission by His act, saying to the paralytic, 'Rise, take up thy bed,
and go unto thy house.' And of God Paul says, 'To the King eternal;' and
again of the Son, David in the Psalm, 'Lift up your gates, O ye rulers, and
be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.'
And Daniel heard it said,' His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and His
Kingdom shall not be destroyed' (Matt. ix. 5; Mark ii. II; 1 Tim. i. x 17;
Ps. xxiv. 7; Dan. iv. 3; vii. 14). And in a word, all that you find said of
the Father, so much will you find said of the Son, all but His being
Father, as has been said.
50. If then any think of other beginning, and other Father, considering
the equality of these attributes, it is a mad thought. But if, since the
Son is from the Father, all that is the Father's is the Son's as in an
image and Expression, let it be considered dispassionately, whether an
essence foreign from the Father's essence admit of such attributes; and
whether such a one be other in nature and alien in essence, and not
coessential with the Father. For we must take reverent heed, lest
transferring what is proper to the Father to what is unlike Him in essence,
and expressing the Father's godhead by what is unlike in kind and alien in
essence, we introduce another essence foreign to Him, yet capable of the
properties of the first essence(5), and lest we be silenced by God Himself,
saying, 'My glory I will not give to another,' and be discovered
worshipping this alien God, and be accounted such as were the Jews of that
day, who said, 'Wherefore dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God?'
referring, the while, to another source the things of the Spirit, and
blasphemously saying, 'He casteth out devils through Beelzebub' (Isa. xlii.
8; John x. 33; Luke xi. 15). But if this is shocking, plainly the Son is
not unlike in essence, but coessential with the Father; for if what the
Father has is by nature the Son's, and the Son Himself is from the Father,
and because of this oneness of godhead and of nature He and the Father are
one, and He that hath seen the Son bath seen the Father reasonably is He
called by the Fathers 'Coessential;' for to what is other in essence, it
belongs not to possess such prerogatives.
51. And again, if, as we have said before, the Son is not such by
participation, but, while all things originated have by participation the
grace of God, He is the Father's Wisdom and Word of which all things
partake(6), it follows that He, being the deifying and enlightening power
of the Father, in which all things are deified and quickened, is not alien
in essence from the Father, but coessential. For by partaking of Him, we
partake of the Father; because that the Word is the Father's own. Whence,
if He was Himself too from participation, and not from the Father His
essential Godhead and Image, He would not deify(7), being deified Himself.
For it is not possible that He, who merely possesses from participation,
should impart of that partaking to others, since what He has is not His
own, but the Giver's; and what He has received, is barely the grace
sufficient for Himself. However, let us fairly examine the reason why some,
as is said, decline the 'Coessential,' whether it does not rather shew that
the Son is coessential with the Father. They say then, as you have written,
that it is not right to say that the Son is coessential with the Father,
because he who speaks of 'coessential' speaks of three, one essence pre-
existing, and that those who are generated from it are coessential: and
they add, 'If then the Son be coessential with the Father, then an essence
must be previously supposed, from which they have been generated; and that
the One is not Father and the Other Son, but they are brothers
togethers(8)' As to all this, though it be a Greek interpretation, and what
comes from them does not bind us(9), still let us see whether those things
which are called coessential and are collateral, as derived from one
essence presupposed, are coessential with each other, or with the essence
from which they are generated. For if only with each other, then are they
other in essence and unlike, when referred to that essence which generated
them; for other in essence is opposed to coessential; but if each be
coessential with the essence which generated them, it is thereby confessed
that what is generated from any thing, is coessential with that which
generated ill and there is no need of seeking for three essences, but
merely to seek whether it be true that this is from that(10). For should it
happen that there were not two brothers, but that only one had come of that
essence, he that was generated would not be called alien in essence, merely
because there was no other from the essence than he; but though alone, he
must be coessential with him that begat him. For what shall we say about
Jephtha's daughter; because she was only- begotten, and 'he had not,' says
Scripture, 'other child' (Jud. xi. 34); and again, concerning the widow's
son, whom the Lord raised from the dead, because he too had no brother, but
was only-begotten, was on that account neither of these coessential with
him that begat? Surely they were, for they were children, and this is a
property of children with reference to their parents. And in like manner
also, when the Fathers said that the Son of God was from His essence,
reasonably have they spoken of Him as coessential. For the like property
has the radiance compared with the light. Else it follows that not even the
creation came out of nothing. For whereas men beget with passion(1), so
again they work upon an existing subject matter, and otherwise cannot make.
But if we do not understand creation in a human way', when we attribute it
to God, much less seemly is it to understand generation in a human way, or
to give a corporeal sense to Coessential; instead of receding from things
originate, casting away human images, nay, all things sensible, and
ascending(3) to the Father(4), lest we rob the Father of the Son in
ignorance, and rank Him among His own creatures.
52. Further, if, in confessing Father and Son, we spoke of two
beginnings or two Gods as Marcion and Valentinus(5), or said that the Son
had any other mode of godhead, and was not the Image and Expression of the
Father, as being by nature born from Him, then He might be considered
unlike; for such essences are altogether unlike each other. But if we
acknowledge that the Father's godhead is one and sole, and that of Him the
Son is the Word and Wisdom; and, as thus believing, are far from speaking
of two Gods, but understand the oneness of the Son with the Father to be
not in likeness of their teaching, but according to essence and in truth,
and hence speak not of two Gods but of one God; there being but one Form(6)
of Godhead, as the Light is one and the Radiance; (for this was seen by the
Patriarch Jacob, as Scripture says,' The sun rose upon him when the Form of
God passed by,' Gen. xxxii. 31, LXX.); and be holding this, and
understanding of whom He was Son and Image, the holy Prophets say, 'The
Word of the Lord came to me;' and recognising the Father, who was beheld
and revealed in Him, they made bold to say, 'The God 'of our fathers hath
appeared unto me, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob' (Exod. iii.
(16)); this being so, wherefore scruple we to call Him coessential who is
one with the Father, and appears as doth the Father, according to likeness
and oneness of godhead? For if, as has been many times said, He has it not
to be proper to the Father's essence, nor to resemble, as a Son, we may
well scruple: but if this be the illuminating and creative Power, specially
proper to the Father, without Whom He neither frames nor is known (for all
things consist through Him and in Him); wherefore, perceiving the fact, do
we decline to use the phrase conveying it? For what is it to be thus
connatural with the Father, but to be one in essence with Him? for God
attached not to Him the Son from without(7), as needing a servant; nor are
the works on a level with the Creator, and honoured as He is, or to be
thought one with the Father. Or let a man venture to make the distinction,
that the sun and the radiance are two lights, or different essences; or to
say that the radiance accrued to it over and above, and is not a simple
and pure offspring from the sun; such, that sun and radiance are two, but
the light one, because the radiance is an offspring from the Sun. But,
whereas not more divisible, nay less divisible is the nature(8) of the Son
towards the Father, and the godhead not accruing to the Son, but the
Father's godhead being in the Son, so that he that hath seen the Son hath
seen the Father in Him; wherefore should not such a one be called
Coessential?
53. Even this is sufficient to dissuade you from blaming those who have
said that the Son was coessential with the Father, and yet let us examine
the very term 'Coessential,' in itself, by way of seeing whether we ought
to use it at all, and whether it be a proper term, and is suitable to apply
to the Son. For you know yourselves, and no one can dispute it, that Like
is not predicated of essence, but of habits, and qualities; for in the case
of essences we speak, not of likeness, but of identity. Man, for instance,
is said to be like man, not in essence, but according to habit and
character; for in essence men are of one nature. And again, man is not said
to be unlike dog, but to be of different nature. Accordingly while the
former are of one nature and coessential, the latter are different in both.
Therefore, in speaking of Like according to essence, we mean like by
participation; (for Likeness is a quality, which may attach to essence),
and this would be proper to creatures for they, by partaking, are made like
to God. For 'when He shall appear,' says Scripture, 'we shall be like Him'
(1 John iii. 2), like, that is, not in essence but in sonship, which we
shall partake from Him. If then ye speak of the Son as being by
participation, then indeed call Him Like-in-essence; but thus spoken of, He
is not Truth, nor Light at all, nor in nature God. For things which are
from participation, are called like, not in reality, but from resemblance
to reality; so that they may swerve, or be taken from those who share them.
And this, again, is proper to creatures and works. Therefore, if this be
out of place, He must be, not by participation, but in nature and truth
Son, Light, Wisdom, God; and being by nature, and not by sharing, He would
properly be called, not Like-in-essence, but Coessential. But what would
not be asserted, even in the case of others (for the Like has been shewn to
be inapplicable to essences), is it not folly, not to say violence, to put
forward in the case of the Son, instead of the 'Coessential?'
54. This is why the Nicene Council was, correct in writing, what it was
becoming to say, that the Son, begotten from the Father's essence, is
coessential with Him. And if we too have been taught the same thing, let us
not fight with shadows, especially as knowing, that they who have so
defined, have made this confession of faith, not to misrepresent the truth,
but as vindicating the truth and religiousness towards Christ, and also as
destroying the blasphemies against Him of the Ario-maniacs. For this must
be considered and noted carefully, that, in using unlike-in-essence, and
other-in- essence, we signify not the true Son, but some one of the
creatures, and an introduced and adopted Son, which pleases the heretics;
but when we speak uncontroversially of the Coessential, we signify a
genuine Son born of the Father; though at this Christ's enemies often burst
with rage(9). What then I have learned myself, and have heard men of
judgment say, I have written in few words; but do you, remaining on the
foundation of the Apostles, and holding fast the traditions of the Fathers,
pray that now at length all strife and rivalry may cease, and the futile
questions of the heretics may be condemned, and all logomachy(1); and the
guilty and murderous heresy of the Arians may disappear, and the truth may
shine again in the hearts of all, so that all every where may 'say the same
thing'(1 Cor. i. 10), and think the same thing(2), and that, no Arian
contumelies remaining, it may be said and confessed in every Church, 'One
Lord, one faith, one baptism' (Eph. iv. 5), in Christ Jesus our Lord,
through whom to the Father be the glory and the strength, unto ages of
ages. Amen.
Postscripts
55. After I had written my account of the Councils(3), I had
information that the most irreligious(4) Constantius had sent Letters to
the Bishops remaining in Ariminum; and I have taken pains to get copies of
them from true brethren and to send them to you, and also what the Bishops
answered; that you may know the irreligious craft of the Emperor, and the
firm and unswerving purpose of the Bishops towards the truth.
Interpretation of the Letter(5).
Constantius, Victorious and Triumphant, Augustus, to all Bishops who are
assembled at Ariminum.
That the divine and adorable Law is our chief care, your excellencies
are not ignorant; but as yet we have been unable to receive the twenty
Bishops sent by your wisdom, and charged with the legation from you, for we
are pressed by a necessary expedition against the Barbarians; and as ye
know, it beseems to have the soul clear from every care, when one handles
the matters of the Divine Law. Therefore we have ordered the Bishops to
await our return at Adrianople; that, when all public affairs are well
arranged, then at length we may hear and weigh their suggestions. Let it
not then be grievous to your constancy to await their return, that, when
they come back with our answer to you, ye may be able to bring matters to a
close which so deeply affect the well-being of the Catholic Church.
This was what the Bishops received at the hands of three emissaries.
Reply of the Bishops.
The letter of your humanity we have received, most God-beloved Lord
Emperor, which reports that, on account of stress of public affairs, as yet
you have been unable to attend to our deputies; and in which you command us
to await their return, until your godliness shall be advised by them of
what we have defined conformably to our ancestors. However, we now profess
and aver at once by these presents, that we shall not recede from our
purpose, as we also instructed our deputies. We ask then that you will with
serene countenance command these letters of our mediocrity to be read; but
also that you will graciously receive those, with which we charged our
deputies. This however your gentleness comprehends as well as we, that
great grief and sadness at present prevail, because that, in these your
most happy days, so many Churches are without Bishops. And on this account
we again request your humanity, most God- beloved Lord Emperor, that, if it
please your religiousness, you would command us, before the severe winter
weather sets in, to return to our Churches, that so we may be able, unto
God Almighty and our Lord and Saviour Christ, His Only-begotten Son, to
fulfil together with our flocks our wonted prayers in behalf of your
imperial sway, as indeed we have ever performed them, and at this time make
them.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/IV, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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