On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (De Synodis) · Part 5

(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.

(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.

(15.) Whosoever shall say that Abraham saw, not the Son, but the Ingenerate God or part of Him, be he anathema.

(16.) Whosoever shall say that with Jacob, not the Son as man, but the Ingenerate God or part of Him, has wrestled, be he anathema.

(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 right hand, but He hears the Father saying, Sit Thou on My right hand' (Ps. cx. 1).

(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.

(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 Son 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, 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 unbegun 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.

Whereas 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. liii. 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; 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, 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.

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. 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 decline not to bring forward the authentic faith published at the Dedication at Antioch; 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, 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 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, 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.

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, 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. Because then of the extreme shamelessness of their blasphemy they were called by all Anomoeans, having also the name of Exucontian, 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; not however by religious men, but by Euzoius, 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, 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? 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; 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 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, 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; 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 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. 1; 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 ); 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; and spontaneously from elements of similar structure, 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.