DE DECRETIS
OR
DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
The complaint of the Arians against the Nicene Council; their fickleness;
they, are like Jews; their employment of force instead of reason.
1. Thou hast done well, in signifying to me the discussion thou hast had
with the advocates of Arianism, among whom were certain of the friends of
Eusebius, as well as very many of the brethren who hold the doctrine of the
Church. I hailed thy vigilance for the love of Christ, which excellently
exposed the irreligion(1) of their heresy; while I marvelled at the effrontery
which led the Arians, after all the past detection of unsoundness and futility
in their arguments, nay, after the general conviction of their extreme
perverseness, still to complain like the Jews, "Why did the Fathers at Nic'a
use terms not in Scripture(2), 'Of the essence' and 'One in essence?'" Thou
then, as a man of learning, in spite of their subterfuges, didst convict them
of talking to no purpose; and they in devising them were but acting suitably
to their own evil disposition. For they are as variable and fickle in their
sentiments, as chameleons in their colours(3); and when exposed they look
confused, and when questioned they hesitate, and then they lose shame, and
betake themselves to evasions. And then, when detected in these, they do not
rest till they invent fresh matters which are not, and, according to the
Scripture, 'imagine a vain thing(4)'; and all that they may be constant to
their irreligion.
Now such endeavours(5) are nothing else than an obvious token of their
defect of reason(6), and a copying, as I have said, of Jewish malignity. For
the Jews too, when convicted by the Truth, and unable to confront it, used
evasions, such as, 'What sign doest Thou, that we may see and believe Thee?
What dost Thou work(7)? though so many signs were given, that they said
themselves, 'What do we? for this man doeth many miracles(8).' In truth, dead
men were raised, lame walked, blind saw afresh, lepers were cleansed, and the
water became wine, and five loaves satisfied five thousand, and all wondered
and worshipped the Lord, confessing that in Him were fulfilled the prophecies,
and that He was God the Son of God; all but the Pharisees, who, though the
signs shone brighter than the sun, yet complained still, as ignorant men, 'Why
dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God(9)? Insensate, and verily blind in understanding! they ought
contrariwise to have said, "Why hast Thou, being God, become man?" for His
works proved Him God, that they might both worship the goodness of the Father,
and admire the Son's Economy for our sakes. However, this they did not say;
no, nor liked to witness what He was doing; or they witnessed indeed, for this
they could not help, but they changed their ground of complaint again, "Why
healest Thou the paralytic, why makest Thou the born-blind to see, on the
sabbath day?" But this too was an excuse, and mere murmuring; for on other
days as well did the Lord heal 'all manner of sickness, and all manner of
disease(1),' but they complained still according to their wont, and by calling
Him Beelzebub, preferred the suspicion of Atheism(2), to a recantation of
their own wickedness. And though in such sundry times and divers manners the
Saviour shewed His Godhead and preached the Father to all men, nevertheless,
as kicking against the pricks, they contradicted in the language of folly, and
this they did, according to the divine proverb, that by finding occasions,
they might separate themselves from the truth(3).
2. As then the Jews of that clay, for acting thus wickedly and denying the
Lord, were with justice deprived of their laws and of the promise made to
their fathers, so the Arians, Judaizing now, are, in my judgment, in
circumstances like those of Caiaphas and the contemporary Pharisees. For,
perceiving that their heresy is utterly unreasonable, they invent excuses,
"Why was this defined, and not that?" Yet wonder not if now they practise
thus; for in no long time they will turn to outrage, and next will threaten '
the band and the captain(4).' Forsooth in these their heterodoxy has its
support, as we see; for denying the Word of God, reason have they none at all,
as is equitable. Aware then of this, I would have made no reply to their
interrogations: but, since thy friendliness(5) has asked to know the
transactions of the Council, I have without any delay related at once what
then took place, shewing in few words, how destitute Arianism is of a
religious spirit, and how their one business is to frame evasions.
CHAPTER II.
CONDUCT OF THE ARIANS TOWARDS THE
NICENE COUNCIL
Ignorant as well as irreligious to attempt to reverse an Ecumenical Council
proceedings at Nic'a: Eusebians then signed what they now complain of: on the
unanimity of true teachers and the process of tradition: changes of the
Arians.
And do thou, beloved, consider whether it be not so. If, the devil having
sowed their hearts with this perverseness(6), they feel confidence in their
bad inventions, let them defend themselves against the proofs of heresy which
have been advanced, and then will be the time to find fault, if they can, with
the definition framed against them(7). For no one, on being convicted of murder or adultery, is at liberty after the trial to arraign the sentence of the judge, why he spoke in this way and not in
that(8). For this does not exculpate the convict, but rather increases his
crime on the score of petulance and audacity. In like manner, let these either
prove that their sentiments are religious (for they were then accused and
convicted, and their complaints are subsequent, and it is just that those who
are under a charge should confine themselves to their own defence), or if they
have an unclean conscience, and are aware of their own irreligion, let them
not complain of what they do not understand, or they will bring on themselves
a double imputation, of irreligion and of ignorance. Rather let them
investigate the matter in a docile spirit, and learning what hitherto they
have not known, cleanse their irreligious ears with the spring of truth and
the doctrines of religion(9).
3. Now it happened to Eusebius and his fellows in the Nicene Council as
follows:-while they stood out in their irreligion, and attempted their fight
against God(1), the terms they used were replete with irreligion; but the
assembled Bishops who were three hundred more or less, mildly and charitably
required of them to explain and defend themselves on religious grounds.
Scarcely, however, did they begin to speak, when they were condemned(2), and
one differed from another; then perceiving the straits in which their heresy
lay, they remained dumb, and by their silence confessed the disgrace which
came upon their heterodoxy. On this the Bishops, having negatived the terms
they had invented, published against them the sound and ecclesiastical faith;
and, as all subscribed it, Eusebius and his fellows subscribed it also in
those very words, of which they are now complaining, I mean, "of the essence"
and "one in essence," and that "the Son of God is neither creature or work,
nor in the number of things originated(3), but that the Word is an offspring
from the substance of the Father." And what is strange indeed, Eusebius of
C'sarea in Palestine, who had denied the day before, but afterwards
subscribed, sent to his Church a letter, saying that this was the Church's
faith, and the tradition of the Fathers; and made a public profession that
they were before in error, and were rashly contending against the truth. For
though he was ashamed at that time to adopt these phrases, and excused himself
to the Church in his own way, yet he certainly means to imply all this in his
Epistle, by his not denying the "one in essence," and "of the essence." And in
this way he got into a difficulty; for while he was excusing himself, he went
on to attack the Arians, as stating that "the Son was not before His
generation," and as thereby rejecting His existence before His birth in the
flesh. And this Acacius is aware of also, though he too through fear may
pretend otherwise because of the times and deny the fact. Accordingly I have
subjoined at the end the letter of Eusebius, that thou mayest know from it the
disrespect towards their own doctors shewn by Christ's enemies, and singularly
by Acacius himself(4).
4. Are they not then committing a crime, in their very thought to gainsay
so great and ecumenical a Council? are they not in transgression, when they
dare to confront that good definition against Arianism, acknowledged, as it
is, by those who had in the first instance taught them irreligion? And
supposing, even after subscription, Eusebius and his fellows did change again,
and return like dogs to their own vomit of irreligion, do not the present
gain-sayers deserve still greater detestation, because they thus sacrifices
their souls' liberty to others; and are willing to take these persons as
masters of their heresy, who are, as James(6) has said, double-minded men, and
unstable in all their ways, not having one opinion, but changing to and fro,
and now recommending certain statements, but soon dishonouring them, and in
turn recommending what just now they were blaming? But this, as the
Shepherd has said, is "the child of the devil," and the note of hucksters
rather than of doctors. For, what our Fathers have delivered, this is truly
doctrine; and this is truly the token of doctors, to confess the same thing
with each other, and to vary neither from themselves nor from their fathers;
whereas they who have not this character are to be called not true doctors but
evil. Thus the Greeks, as not witnessing to the same doctrines, but
quarrelling one with another, have no truth of teaching; but the holy and
veritable heralds of the truth agree together, and do not differ. For though
they lived in different times, yet they one and all tend the same way, being
prophets of the one God, and preaching the same Word harmoniously.
5. And thus what Moses taught, that Abraham observed; and what Abraham
observed, that Noah and Enoch acknowledged, discriminating pure from impure,
and becoming acceptable to God. For Abel too in this way witnessed, knowing
what he had learned from Adam, who himself had learned from that Lord, who
said, when He came at the end of the ages for the abolishment of sin, "I give
no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye have heard from
the beginning."Wherefore also the blessed Apostle Paul, who had learned it
from Him, when describing ecclesiastical functions, forbade that deacons, not
to say bishops, should be double-tongued [10]; and in his rebuke of the
Galatians, he made a broad declaration, "If anyone preach any other Gospel
unto you than that ye have received, let him be anathema, as I have said, so
say I again. If even we, or an Angel from heaven should preach unto you any
other Gospel than that ye have received, let him be anathema." Since then
the Apostle thus speaks, let these men either anathematise Eusebius and his
fellows, at least as changing round and professing what is contrary to their
subscriptions; or, if they acknowledge that their subscriptions were good, let
them not utter complaints against so great a Council. But if they do neither
the one nor the other, they are themselves too plainly the sport of every wind
and surge, and are influenced by opinions, not their own, but of others, and
being such, are as little worthy of deference now as before, in what they
allege. Rather let them cease to carp at what they understand not; lest so be
that not knowing to discriminate, they simply call evil good and good evil,
and think that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. Doubtless, they desire
that doctrines which have been judged wrong and have been reprobated should
gain the ascendancy, and they make violent efforts to prejudice what was
rightly defined. Nor should there be any reason on our part for any further
explanation, or answer to their excuses, neither on theirs for further
resistance, but for an acquiescence in what the leaders of their heresy
subscribed; for though the subsequent change of Eusebius and his fellows was
suspicious and immoral, their subscription, when they had the opportunity of
at least some little defence of themselves, is a certain proof of the
irreligion of their doctrine. For they would not have subscribed previously
had they not condemned the heresy, nor would they have condemned it, had they
not been encompassed with difficulty and shame; so that to change back again
is a proof of their contentious zeal for irreligion. These men also ought
therefore, as I have said, to keep quiet; but since from an extraordinary want
of modesty, they hope perhaps to be able to advocate this diabolical
irreligion better than the others, therefore, though in my former letter
written to thee, I have already argued at length against them,
notwithstanding, come let us now also examine them, in each of their separate
statements, as their predecessors; for now not less than then their heresy
shall be shewn to have no soundness in it, but to be from evil spirits.
CHAPTER III
Two senses of the word San, I. adaptive,. 2. essential; attempts of Arians to
find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was created
immediately by God (Asterius's view), or that our Lord alone partakes the
Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He makes, really; though His
creation and generation are not like man's; His generation independent of
time; generation implies an internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God;
explanation of Pray. viii. 22.
6. THEY say then what the others held and dared to maintain before them;
"Not always Father, not always Son; for the Son was not before His generation, but, as
others, came to be from nothing; and in consequence God was not always Father
of the Son; but, when the Son came to be and was created, then was God called
His Father. For the Word is a creature and a work, and foreign and unlike the
Father in essence; and the Son is neither by nature the Father's true Word,
nor His only and true Wisdom; but being a creature and one of the works, He is
improperly called Word and Wisdom; for by the Word which is in God was He
made, as were all things. Wherefore the Son is not true God."
Now it may serve to make them understand what they are saying, to ask
them first this, what in fact a son is, and of what is that name significant
(5). In truth, Divine Scripture acquaints us with a double sense of this word
:-one which Moses sets before us in the Law 'When ye shall hearken to the
voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all His commandments which I command thee
this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God, ye are
children of the Lord your God; as also in the Gospel, John says, 'But as
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God
[7]:'--and the other sense, that in which Isaac is son of Abraham, and Jacob
of Isaac, and the Patriarchs of Jacob. Now in which of these two senses do
they understand the Son of God that they relate such fables as the foregoing?
for I feel sure they will issue in the same irreligion with Eusebius and his
fellows.
If in the first, which belongs to those who gain the name by grace from
moral improvement, and receive power to become sons of God (for this is what
their predecessors said), then He would seem to differ from us in nothing; no,
nor would He be Only-begotten, as having obtained the title of Son as others
from His virtue. For granting what they say, that, whereas His qualifications
were fore-known, He therefore received grace from the first, the name, and
the glory of the name, from His very first beginning, still there will be no
difference between Him and those who receive the name after their actions, so
long as this is the ground on which He as others has the character of son. For
Adam too, though he received grace from the first, and upon his creation was
at once placed in paradise, differed in no respect either from Enoch, who was
translated thither after some time from his birth on his pleasing God, or i
from the Apostle, who likewise was caught up to Paradise after his actions;
nay, not from him who once was a thief, who on the ground of his confession,
received a promise that he should be forthwith in paradise.
7. When thus pressed, they will perhaps make an answer which has brought
them into trouble many times already; "We consider that the Son has this
prerogative over others, and therefore is called Only-begotten, because He
alone was brought to be by God alone, and all other things were created by God
through the Son." Now I wonder who it was[2] that suggested to you so
futile and novel an idea as that the Father alone wrought with His own hand
the Son alone, and that all other things were brought to be by the Son as by
an under-worker. If for the tows sake God was content with making the Son
only, instead of making all things at once, this is an irreligious thought,
especially in those who know the words of Esaias, 'The everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, hungereth not, neither is weary;
there is no searching of His understandings.' Rather it is He who gives
strength to the hungry, and through His Word refreshes the labouring.
Again, it is irreligious to suppose that He disdained, as if a humble task, to
form the creatures Himself which came after the Son; for there is no pride [in
that God, who goes down with Jacob into [Egypt, and for Abraham s sake
corrects Abim elek because of Sara, and speaks face to face with Moses, himself a man, and
descends upon Mount Sinai, and by His secret grace fights for the people
against Amalek. However, you are false even in this assertion, for 'He made
us, and not we ourselves.' He it is who through His Word made all things
small and great, and we may not divide the creation, and says this is the
Father's, and this the Son's, but they are of one God, who uses His proper
Word as a Hand, and in Him does all things. This God Himself shews us,
when He says, 'All these things hath My Hand made;, while Paul taught us
as he had learned, that 'There is one God, from whom all things; and one
l Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things .' Thus He, always as now,
speaks to the sun and it rises, and commands the clouds and it rains upon one
place; and where it does not rain, it is dried up. And He bids the earth yield
her fruits, and fashions Jeremias [10] in the womb. But if He now does all
this, assuredly at the beginning also He did not disdain to make all things
Himself through the Word; for these are but parts of the whole.
8. But let us suppose that the other creatures could not endure to be
wrought by the absolute Hand of the Unoriginate and therefore the Son
alone was brought into being by the Father alone, and other things by the Son
as an underworker and assistant, for this is what Asterius the sacrificer
has written, and Arius has transcribed and bequeathed to his own friends,
and from that time they use this form of words, broken reed as it is, being
ignorant, the bewildered men, how brittle it is. For if it was impossible for
things originate to bear the hand of God, and you hold the Son to be one of
their number, how was He too equal to this formation by God alone? and if a
Mediator became necessary that things originate might come to be, and you hold
the Son to be originated, then must there have been some medium before Him,
for His creation; and that Mediator himself again being a creature, it follows
that he too needed another Mediator for his own constitution. And though we
were to devise another, we must first devise his Mediator, so that we shall
never come to an end. And thus a Mediator being ever in request, never will
the creation be constituted, because nothing originate, as you say, can bear
the absolute hand of the Unoriginate. And if, on your perceiving the
extravagance of this, you begin to say that the Son, though a creature, was
made capable of being made by the Unoriginate, then it follows that other
things also, though originated, are capable of being wrought immediately by
the Unoriginate; for the Son too is but a creature in your judgment, as all of
them. And accordingly the origination of the Word is superfluous, according to
your irreligious and futile imagination, God being sufficient for the
immediate formation of all things, and all things originate being capable of
sustaining His absolute hand.
These irreligious men then having so little mind amid their madness, let
us see whether this particular sophism be not even more irrational than the
others. Adam was created alone by God alone through the Word; yet no one would
say that Adam had any prerogative over other men, or was different from those
who came after him, granting that he alone was made and fashioned by God
alone, and we all spring from Adam, and consist according to succession of the
race, so long as he was fashioned from the earth as others, and at first not
being, afterwards came to be.
9. But though we were to allow some prerogative to the Protoplast as
having been deemed worthy of the hand of God, still it must be one of honour
not of nature. For he came of the earth, as other men; and the hand which then
fashioned Adam, is also both now and ever fashioning and giving entire
consistence to those who come after him. And God Himself declares this to
Jeremiah, as I said before; ' Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee
[5];, and so He says of all,
All those things hath My hand made;' and again by Isaiah, ' Thus saith
the Lord, thy redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord
that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that
spreadeth abroad the earth by Myself.' And David, knowing this, says in
the Psalm, 'Thy hands have made me and fashioned me;, and he who says in
Isaiah, 'Thus saith the Lord who formed me from the womb to be His servant
[9],' signifies the same. Therefore, in respect of nature, he differs nothing
from us though he precede us in time, so long as we all consist and are
created by the same hand. If then these be your thoughts, O Arians, about
the Son of God too, that thus He subsists and came to be, then in your
judgment He will differ nothing on the score of nature from others, so long as
He too was not, and came to be, and the name was by grace united to Him in His
creation for His virtue's sake. For He Himself is one of those, from what you
say, of whom the Spirit says in the Psalms, 'He spake the word, and they were
made; He commanded, and they were created.' If so, who was it by whom God
gave command for the Son's creation? for a Word there must be by whom God
gave command, and in whom the works are created; but you have no other to show
than the Word you deny, unless indeed you should devise again some new notion.
"Yes," they will say, "we have another;" (which indeed I formerly heard
Eusebius and his fellows use), "on this score do we consider that the Son of
God has a prerogative over others, and is called Only-begotten, because He
alone partakes the Father, and all other things partake the Son." Thus they
weary themselves in changing and in varying their phrases like colours;
however, this shall not save them from an exposure, as men that are of the
earth, speaking vainly, and wallowing in their own conceits as in mire.
10. For if He were called God's Son, and we the Son's sons, their fiction
were plausible; but if we too are said to be sons of that God, i of whom He is
Son, then we too partake the Father, who says, 'I have begotten and
exalted children.' For if we did not partake Him, He had not said, 'I
have begotten;' but if He Himself begat us, no other than He t is our Father
[6]. And, as before, it matters not whether the Son has something more and
was made first, but we something less, and were made afterwards, as long as
we all partake, and are called sons, of the same Fathers. For the more or
less does not indicate a different nature; but attaches to each according to
the practice of virtue; and one is placed over ten cities, another over five;
and some sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of lsrael; and others
hear the words, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father,' and, 'Well done, good and
faithful servant.' With such ideas, however, no wonder they imagine that
of such a Son God was not always Father, and such a Son was not always in
being, but was generated from nothing as a creature, and was not before His
generation; for such an one is other than the True Son of God.
But to persist in such teaching does not consist with piety, for it is
rather the tone of thought of Sadducees and the Samosatene [10]; it remains
then to say that the Son of God is so called according to the other sense, in
which Isaac was son of Abraham; for what is naturally begotten from any one
and does not accrue to him from without, that in the nature of things is a
son, and that is what the name implies. Is then the Son's generation one
of human affection? (for this perhaps, as their predecessors, they too
will be ready to object in their ignorance;)--in no wise; for God is not as
man, nor men as God. Men were created of matter, and that passible; but God
is immaterial and incorporeal. And if so be the same terms are used of God and
man in divine Scripture, yet the clear-sighted, as Paul enjoins, will study
it, and thereby discriminate, and dispose of what is written according to the
nature of each subject, and avoid any confusion of sense, so as neither to
conceive of the things of God in a human way, nor to ascribe the things of man
to Gods. For this were to mix wine with water, and to place upon the altar strange
fire with that which is divine.
11. For God creates, and to create is also ascribed to men; and God has
being, and men are said to be, having received from God this gift also. Yet
does God create as men do? or is His being as man's being? Perish the thought;
we understand the terms in one sense of God, and in another of men. For God
creates, in that He calls what is not into being, needing nothing thereunto;
but men work some existing material, first praying, and so gaining the wit to
make, from that God who has framed all things by His proper Word. And again
men, being incapable of self-existence, are enclosed in place, and consist in
the Word of God; but God is self-existent, enclosing all things, and enclosed
by none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all
in His proper natures. As then men create not as God creates, as their being
is not such as God's being, so men's generation is in one way, and the Son is
from the Father in another. For the offspring of men are portions of their
fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but in a state
of flux, and composed of parts; and men lose their substance in begetting,
and again they gain substance from the accession of food. And on this account
men in their time become fathers of many children; but God, being without
parts, is Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither
effluence of the Immaterial, nor influx from without, as among men; and
being uncompounded in nature, He is Father of One Only Son. This is why He is
Only-begotten, and alone in the Father's bosom, and alone is acknowledged by
the Father to be from Him, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.' And He too is the Father's Word, from which may be understood
the impassible and impartitive nature of the Father, in that not even a human
word is begotten with passion or partition, much less the Word of God.
Wherefore also He sits, as Word, at the Father's fight hand; for where the
Father is, there also is His Word; but we, as His works, stand in judgment
before Him; and, while He is adored, because He is Son of the adorable Father,
we adore, confessing Him Lord and God, because we are creatures and other than
He.
12. The case being thus, let who will among them consider the matter, so
that one may abash them by the following question; Is it right to say that
what is God's offspring and proper to Him is out of nothing? or is it
reasonable in the very idea, that what is from God has accrued to Him, that a
man should dare to say that the Son is not always? For in this again the
generation of the Son exceeds and transcends the thoughts of man, that we
become fathers of our own children in time, since we ourselves first were not
and then came into being; but God, in that He ever is, is ever Father of the
Son. And the origination of mankind is brought home to us from things that are parallel; but, since 'no
one knoweth the Son but the Father, and no one knoweth the Father but the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,' therefore the sacred
writers to whom the Son has revealed Him, have given us a certain image from
things visible, saying, 'Who is the brightness of His glory, and the
Expression of His Person;' and again, 'For with Thee is the well of life,
and in Thy light shall we see lights;' and when the Word chides lsrael, He
says, 'Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom; ' and this Fountain it
is which says, 'They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters' And
mean indeed and very dim is the illustrations compared with what we
desiderate; but yet it is possible from it to understand something above
man's nature, instead of thinking the Son's generation to be on a level with
ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was not, so
that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that the Son was
not before His generation? or who is capable of separating the radiance from
the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void of life, that he should
madly say, 'The Son is from nothing,' who says, 'I am the life,' or 'alien
to the Father's essence,' who, says, 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the:
Father [10]?' for the sacred writers wishing us thus to understand, have given
these illustrations; and it is unseemly and most irreligious, when Scripture
contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others which are
neither in Scripture, nor have any religious bearing.
13. Therefore let them tell us, from what teacher or by what tradition
they derived these notions concerning the Saviour? "We have read," they will
say, "in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways i unto His
works;'" this Eusebius and his fellows used to insist on, and you
write me word, that the present men also, though overthrown and confuted by an
abundance of arguments, still were putting about in every quarter this
passage, and saying that the Son was one of the creatures, and reckoning Him
with things originated. But they seem to me to have a wrong understanding of
this passage also; for it has a religious and very orthodox sense, which had
they understood, they would not have blasphemed the Lord of glory. For on
comparing what has been above stated with this passage, they will find a great
difference between them. For what man of right understanding does not
perceive, that what are created and made are external to the maker; but the
Son, as the foregoing argument has shewn, exists not externally, but from the
Father who begat Him? for man too both builds a house and begets a son, and no
one would reverse things, and say that the house or the ship were begotten by
the builder, but the son was created and made by him; nor again that the
house was an image of the maker, but the son unlike him who begat him; but
rather he will confess that the son is an image of the father, but the house a
work of art, unless his mind be disordered, and he beside himself. Plainly,
divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of everything, says
through Moses, of the creatures, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earths;' but of the Son it introduces not another, but the Father
Himself saying, 'I have begotten Thee from the womb before the morning star
[6];' and again, 'Thou art My' Son, this day have I begotten Thee.' And
the Lord says of Himself in the Proverbs, 'Before all the hills He begets me
[8];' and concerning things originated and created John speaks, 'All things
were made by Him;' but preaching of the Lord, he says, 'The Only-be-gotten
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him [10].' If then son,
therefore not creature; if creature, not son; for great is the difference
between them, and son and creature cannot be the same, unless His essence be
considered to be at once from God, and external to God.
14. 'Has then the passage no meaning?' for this, like a swarm of gnats,
they are droning about us. No surely, it is not without meaning, but has a
very apposite one; for it is true to say that the Son was created too, but
this took place when He became man; for creation belongs to man. And any one may find this sense duly given in the divine oracles, who, instead of accounting their study a secondary matter,
investigates the time and characters, and the object, and thus studies and
ponders what he reads. Now as to the season spoken of, he will find for
certain that, whereas the Lord always is, at length in fulness of the ages He
became man; and whereas He is Son of God, He became Son of man also. And as to
the object he will understand, that, wishing to annul our death, He took on
Himself a body from the Virgin Mary; that by offering this unto the Father a
sacrifice for all, He might deliver us all, who by fear of death were all our
life through subject to bondage. And as to the character, it is indeed the
Saviour's, but is said of Him when He took a body and said, 'The Lord created
me a beginning of His ways unto His works.' For as it properly belongs to
God's Son to be everlasting. and in the Father's bosom, so on His becoming
man, the words befitted Him, 'The Lord created me.' For then it is said of
Him, as also that He hungered, and thirsted, and asked where Lazarus lay, and
suffered, and rose again. And as, when we hear of Him as Lord and God and
true Light, we understand Him as being from the Father, so on hearing, 'The
Lord created,' and 'Servant,' and 'He suffered,' we shall justly ascribe this,
not to the Godhead, for it is irrelevant, but we must interpret it by that
flesh which He bore for our sakes: for to it these things are proper, and this
flesh was none other's than the' Word's. And if we wish to know the object:
attained by this, we shall find it to be as follows: that the Word was made
flesh in order to offer up this body for all, and that we partaking of His
Spirit, might be deified a gift which we could not otherwise have gained
than by His clothing Himself in our created body, for hence we derive our
name of "men of God" and "men in Christ." But as we, by receiving the Spirit,
do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and
bearing a body, was no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of
the body, but rather deified it and rendered it immortal.
CHAPTER IV.
PROOF OF THE CATHOLIC SENSE OF THE
WORD SON.
Power, Word or Reason, and Wisdom, the names of the Son, imply eternity; as
well as the Father's title of Fountain. The Arians reply, that these do not
formally belong to the essence of the Son, but are names given Him; that God
has many words, powers, &c. Why there is but one Son and Word, &c. All the
titles of the Son coincide in Him.
15. This then is quite enough to expose the infamy of the Arian heresy;
for, as the Lord has granted, out of their own words is irreligion brought
home to them. But come now and let us on our part act on the offensive,
and call on them for an answer; for now is fair time, when their own ground
has failed them, to question them on ours; perhaps it may abash the perverse,
and disclose to them whence they have fallen. We have learned from divine
Scripture, that the Son of God, as was said above, is the very Word and Wisdom
of the Father. For the Apostle says, 'Christ the power of God and the Wisdom
of God;' and John after saying, 'And the Word was made flesh,' at once
adds, 'And we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth,' so that, the Word being the Only-begotten Son,
in this Word and in Wisdom heaven and earth and all that is therein were made.
And of this Wisdom that God is Fountain we have learned from Baruch, by
Israel's being charged with having forsaken the Fountain of Wisdom. If then
they deny Scripture, they are at once aliens to their name, and may fitly be
called of all men atheists, and Christ's enemies, for they have brought
upon themselves these names. But if they agree with us that the sayings of
Scripture are divinely inspired, let them dare to say openly what they think
in secret that God was once wordless and wisdomless; and let them in their madness say, 'There was once when He was not,' and,
'before His generation, Christ was not;' and again let them declare that
the Fountain begat not Wisdom from itself, but acquired it from without, till
they have the daring to say, 'The Son came of nothing;' whence it will follow
that there is no longer a Fountain, but a sort of pool, as if receiving water
from without, and usurping the name of Fountain.
16. How full of irreligion this is, I consider none can doubt who has ever
so little understanding. But since they mutter something about Word and Wisdom
being only names of the Son [10], we must ask then, If these are only: names
of the Son, He must be something else: beside them. And if He is higher than
the names, it is not lawful from the lesser to denote the higher; but if He be
less than the names, yet He surely must have in Him the principle of this more
honourable appellation; and this implies his advance, which is an irreligion
equal to anything that has gone before. For He who is in the Father, and in
whom also the Father is, who says, 'I and the Father are one,' whom he
that hath seen, hath seen the Father, to say that He has been exalted by
anything external, is the extreme of madness. However, when they are beaten
hence, and like Eusebius and his fellows, are in these great straits, then
they have this remaining plea, which Arius too in ballads, and in his own
Thalia, fabled, as a new difficulty: 'Many words speaketh God; which then
of these are we to call Son and Word, Only-begotten of the Father?'
Insensate, and anything but Christians! for first, on using such language
about God, they conceive of Him almost as a man, speaking and reversing His
first words by His second, just as if one Word from God were not sufficient
for the framing of all things at the Father's will, and for His providential
care of all. For His speaking many words would argue a feebleness in them all,
each needing the service of the other. But that God should have one Word,
which is the true doctrine, both shews the power of God, and the perfection of
the Word that is from Him, and the religious understanding of them who thus
believe.
17. O that they would consent to confess the truth from this their own
statement! for if they once grant that God produces words, they plainly know
Him to be a Father; and acknowledging this, let them consider that, while they
are loth to ascribe one Word to God, they are imagining that He is Father of
many; and while they are loth to say that there is no Word of God at all, yet
they do not confess that He is the Son of God,-which is ignorance of the
truth, and inexperience in divine Scripture. For if God is Father of a word at
all, wherefore is not He that is begotten a Son? And again, who should be Son
of God, but His Word? For there are not many words, or each would be
imperfect, but one is the Word, that He only may be perfect, and because, God
being one, His Image too must be one, which is the Son. For the Son of God, as
may be learnt from the divine oracles themselves, is Himself the Word of God,
and the Wisdom, and the Image, and the Hand, and the Power; for God's
offspring is one, and of the generation from the Father these titles are
tokens. For if you say the Son, you have declared what is from the Father
by nature; and if you think of the Word, you are thinking again of what is
from Him, and what is inseparable; and, speaking of Wisdom, again you mean
just as much, what is not from without, but from Him and in Him; and if you
name the. Power and the Hand, again you speak of what is proper to essence;
and, speaking of the Image, you signify the Son; for what else is like God but
the offspring from Him? Doubtless the things, which came to be through the
Word, these are 'founded in Wisdom' and what are 'founded in Wisdom,' these
are all made by the Hand, and dame to be through the Son. And we have proof of
this, not from external sources, but from the Scriptures; for God Himself says
by Isaiah the Prophet; 'My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth,
and My right hand hath spanned the heavens .' And again, 'And I will cover
thee in the shadow of My Hand, by which I planted the heavens, and laid the
foundations of the earths.' And David being taught this, and knowing that the
Lord's Hand was nothing else than Wisdom, says in the Psalm, ' In wisdom hast
Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy creation.' Solomon also
received the same from God, and said, 'The Lord by wisdom founded the earth
[10],' and John, knowing that the Word was the Hand and the Wisdom, thus
preached, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by
Him, and without Him was not anything made.' And the Apostle, seeing that
the Hand and the Wisdom and the Word was nothing else than the Son, says,
'God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the
Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son,
whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the ages.'
And again, 'There is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and
we through Him.' And knowing also that the Word, the Wisdom, the Son
Himself was the Image of the Father, he says in the Epistle to the Colossians,
'Giving thanks to God and the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the Saints in light, who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; in
whom we have redemption, even the remission of sins; who is the Image of the
Invisible God, the First-born of every creature; for by Him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities or powers all things
were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all
things consist.' For as all things are created by the Word, so, because He
is the Image, are they also created in Him. And thus anyone who directs
his thoughts to the Lord, will avoid stumbling upon the stone of offence, but
rather will go forward to the brightness in the light of truth; for this is
really the doctrine of truth, though these contentious men burst with spite
[6], neither religious toward God, nor abashed at their confutation.
CHAPTER V.
DEFENCE OF THE COUNCIL'S PHRASES, "FROM THE ESSENCE," AND "ONE IN ESSENCE."
Objection that the phrases are not scriptural,' we ought to look at the sense
more than the wording; evasion of the Arians as to the phrase "of God" which
is in Scripture,' their evasion of all explanations but those which the
Council selected, which were intended to negative the Arian formula; protest
against their conveying any material sense.
18. Now Eusebius and his fellows were at the former period examined at
great length, and convicted themselves, as I said before; on this they
subscribed; and after this change of mind they kept in quiet and retirement
[1]; but since the present party, in the fresh arrogance of irreligion, and in
dizziness about the truth, are full set upon accusing the Council, let them
tell us what are the sort of Scriptures from which they have learned, or who
is the Saint by whom they have been taught, that they have heaped together
the phrases, 'out of nothing,' and 'He was not before His generation,' and
'once. He was not,' and 'alterable,' and 'pre-existence,' and 'at the will;'
which are their fables in mockery of the Lord. For the blessed Paul in his
Epistle to the Hebrews says, 'By faith we understand that the ages were framed
by the Word of God, so that that which is seen was not made of things which do
appear.' But nothing is common to the Word with the ages; for He it
is who is in existence before the ages, by whom also the ages came to be. And in the Shepherd it is
written (since they allege this book also, though it is not of the Canon
[7]), 'First of all believe, that God is one, who created all things, and
arranged them, and brought all things from nothing into being;' but this again
does not relate to the Son, for it speaks concerning all things which came to
be through Him, from whom He is distinct; for it is not possible to reckon the
Framer of all with the things made by Him, unless a man is so beside himself
as to say that the architect also is the same as the buildings which he rears.
Why then, when they have invented on their part unscriptural phrases, for
the purposes of irreligion, do they accuse those who are religious in their
use of them? For irreligiousness is utterly forbidden, though it be
attempted to disguise it with artful expressions and plausible sophisms; but
religiousness is confessed by all to be lawful, even though presented in
strange phrases. provided only they are used with a religious view, and a
wish to make them the expression of religious thoughts. Now the aforesaid
grovelling phrases of Christ's enemies have been shewn in these remarks to be
both formerly and now replete with irreligion; whereas the definition of the
Council against them, if accurately examined, will be found to' be altogether
a representation of the truth, and especially if diligent attention be paid to
the occasion which gave rise to these expressions, which was reasonable, and
was as follows :--
19. The Council [10] wishing to do away with the irreligious phrases of
the Arians, and to use instead the acknowledged words of the Scriptures, that
the Son is not from nothing but 'from God,' and is 'Word' and 'Wisdom,' and
not creature or work, but a proper offspring from the Father, Eusebius and his
fellows, led by their inveterate heterodoxy, understood the phrase 'from God'
as belonging to us, as if in respect to it the Word of God differed nothing
from us, and that because it is written, 'Thee is one God, from whom, all
things;' and again,
Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, and all
things are from God,' But the Fathers, perceiving their craft and the
cunning of their irreligion, were forced to express more distinctly the sense
of the words 'from God.' Accordingly, they wrote 'from the essence of God
[3],' in order that 'from God' might not be considered common and equal in the
Son and in things originate, but that all others might be acknowledged as
creatures, and the Word alone as from the Father. For though all things be
said to be from God, yet this is not in the sense in which the Son is from
Him; for as to the creatures, 'of God' is said of them on this account, in
that they exist not at random or spontaneously, nor come to be by chance,
according to those philosophers who refer them to the combination of atoms,
and to elements of similar structure,--nor as certain heretics speak of a
distinct Framer,--nor as others again say that the constitution of all things is from certain Angels ;--but in that (whereas God is), it was. by Him that all things were brought into being, not being before,
through His Word; but as to the Word, since He is not a creature, He alone is
both called and is 'from the Father;' and it is significant of this sense to
say that the Son is 'from the essence of the Father,' for to nothing originate
does this attach. In truth, when Paul says that 'all things are from God,' he
immediately adds, 'and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things s,' in
order to shew all men, that the Son is other than all these things which came
to be from God (for the things which came to be from God, came to be through
His Son); and that he had used his foregoing words with reference to the world
as framed by God, and not as if all things were from the Father as the Son
is. For neither are other things as the Son, nor is the Word one among others,
for He is Lord and Framer of all; and on this account did the Holy Council
declare expressly that He was of the essence of the Father, that we might
believe the Word to be other than the nature of things originate, being alone
truly from God; and that no subterfuge should be left open to the irreligious.
This then was the reason why the Council wrote 'of the essence.'
20. Again, when the Bishops said that the Word must be described as the
True Power t and Image of the Father, in all things exact and like the
Father, and as unalterable, e and as always, and as in Him without division
(for never was the Word not, but He was always, existing everlastingly with
the Father, as the radiance of light), Eusebius and his fellows endured
indeed, as not daring to contradict, being put to shame by the arguments which
were urged against them; but withal they were caught whispering to each other
and winking with their eyes, that 'like,' and 'always,' and 'power,' and 'in
Him,' were, as before, common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty
to agree to these. As to 'like,' they said that it is written of us, 'Man is
the image and glory of God:' 'always,' that it was written, 'For we which
live are alway [10]:' 'in Him,' 'In Him we live and move and have our being
[1]:' 'unalterable,' that it is written, 'Nothing shall separate us from the
love of Christ:' as to 'power,' that the caterpillar and the locust are
called 'power' and 'great power,' and that it is often said of the people,
for instance, All the power of the Lord came out of the land of Egypt:'
and there are others also, heavenly ones, for Scripture says, 'The Lord of
powers is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.' Indeed Asterius, by
title the sophist, had said the like in writing, having learned it from them,
and before him Arius having learned it also, as has been said. But the
Bishops discerning in this too their dissimulation, and whereas it is written,
'Deceit is in the heart of the irreligious that imagine evil,' were again
compelled on their part to collect the sense of the Scriptures, and to re-say
and re-write what they had said before, more distinctly still, namely, that
the Son is 'one in essence' with the Father: by way of signifying, that
the Son was from the Father, and not merely like, but the same in likeness
[9], and of shewing that the Son's likeness and unalterableness was different from such
copy of the same as is ascribed to us, which we acquire from virtue on the
ground of observance of the commandments. For bodies which are like each other
may be separated and become at distances from each other, as are human sons
relatively to their parents (as it is written concerning Adam and Seth, who
was begotten of him that he was like him after his own pattern [10]) but since
the generation of the Son from the Father is not according to the nature of
men, and not only like, but also inseparable from the essence of the Father,
and He and the Father are one, as He has said Himself, and the Word is ever
in the Father and the Father in the Word, as the radiance stands towards the
light (for this the phrase itself indicates), therefore the Council, as
understanding this, suitably wrote 'one in essence,' that they might both
defeat the perverseness of the heretics, and shew that the Word was other than
originated things. For, after thus writing, they at once added, 'But they who
say that the Son of God is from nothing, or created, or alterable, or a work,
or from other essence, these the Holy Catholic Church anathematizes.' And
by saying this, they shewed clearly that 'of the essence,' and 'one in
essence,' are destructive of those catchwords of irreligion, such as
'created,' and 'work,' and 'originated,' and 'alterable,' and 'He was not
before His generation.' And he who holds these, contradicts the Council; but
he who does not hold with Arius, must needs hold and intend the decisions of
the Council, suitably regarding them to signify the relation of the radiance
to the light, and from thence gaining the illustration of the truth.
21. Therefore if they, as the others, make an excuse that the terms are
strange, let them consider the sense in which the Council so wrote, and
anathematize what the Council anathematized; and then if they can, let them
find fault with the expressions. But I well know that, if they hold the sense
of the Council, they will fully accept the terms in which it is conveyed;
whereas if it be the sense which they wish to complain of, all must see that
it is idle in them to discuss the wording, when they are but seeking handles
for irreligion. This then was the reason of these expressions; but if they
still complain that such are not scriptural, that very complaint is a reason
why they should be cast out, as talking idly and disordered in mind. And let
them blame themselves in this matter, for they set the example, beginning
their war against God with words not in Scripture However, if a person is
interested in the question, let him know, that, even if the expressions are
not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain
the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who
have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine. Now this circumstance it
is for thee to consider, and for those ill-instructed men to give ear to. It
has been shewn above, and must be believed as true, that the Word is from the
Father, and the only Offspring proper to Him and natural. For whence may
one conceive the Son to be, who is the Wisdom and the Word, in whom all things
came to be, but from God Himself? However, the Scriptures also teach us this,
since the Father says by David, 'My heart uttered a good Words,' and, 'From
the womb before the morning star I begat Thee;' and the Son signifies to
the Jews about Himself, 'If God were your Father, ye would dove Me; for I
proceeded forth from the Father.' And again; 'Not that anyone has seen the
Father, save He which is from God, He hath seen the Fathers.' And moreover, 'I
and My Father are one,' and, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me,' is
equivalent to saying, 'I am from the Father, and inseparable from Him.' And
John in saying, 'The Only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He
hath declared Hires,,' spoke of what He had learned from the Saviour. Be:
sides, what else does 'in the bosom' intimate, but the Son's genuine
generation from the Father?
22. If then any man conceives God to be compound, as accident is in
essence, or to have any external envelopement, and to be encompassed, or as if there
is aught about Him which completes the essence, so that when we say 'God,' or
name 'Father,' we do not signify the invisible and incomprehensible essence,
but something about it, then let them complain of the Council's stating that
the Son was from the essence of God; but let them reflect, that in thus
considering they utter two blasphemies; for they make God corporeal, and they
falsely say that the Lord is not Son of the very Father, but of what is about
Him. But if God be simple, as He is, it follows that in saying 'God' and
naming 'Father,' we name nothing as if about Him, but signify his essence
itself. For though to comprehend what the essence of God is be impossible, yet
if we only understand that God is, and if Scripture indicates Him by means of
these titles, we, with the intention of indicating Him and none else, call Him
God and Father and Lord. When' then He says, 'I am that I am,' and 'I am the
Lord God,' or when Scripture says, 'God,' we understand nothing else by it
but the intimation of His incomprehensible essence Itself, and that He Is, who
is spoken of. Therefore let no one be startled on hearing that the Son of
God is from the Essence of the Father; but rather let him accept the
explanation of the Fathers, who in more explicit but equivalent language have
for 'from God' written 'of the essence' For they considered it the same thing
to say that the Word was 'of God' and 'of the essence of God,' since the word
'God,' as I have already said, signifies nothing but the essence of Him Who
Is. If then the Word is not in such sense from God, as a son, genuine and
natural, from a father, but only as creatures because they are framed, and as
'all things are from God,' then neither is He from the essence of the Father,
nor is the Son again Son according to essence, but in consequence of virtue,
as we who are called sons by grace. But if He only is from God, as a genuine
Son, as He is, then the Son may reasonably be called from the essence of God.
23. Again, the illustration of the Light and the Radiance has this
meaning. For the Saints have not said that the Word was related to God as fire
kindled from the heat of the sun, which is commonly put out again, for this is
an external work and a creature of its author, but they all preach of Him as
Radiance, thereby to signify His being from the essence, proper and
indivisible, and His oneness with the Father. This also will secure His true
unchangableness and immutability; for how can these be His, unless He be
proper Offspring of the Father's essence? for this too must be taken to
confirm His identity with His own Father. Our explanation then having so
religious an aspect, Christ's enemies should not be startled at the 'One in
essence,' either, since this term also has a sound sense and good reasons.
Indeed, if we say that the Word is from the essence of God (for after what has
been said this must be a phrase admitted by them), what does this mean but the
truth and eternity of the essence from which He is begotten? for it is not
different in kind, lest it be combined with the essence of God as something
foreign and unlike it. Nor is He like only outwardly, lest He seem in some
respect or wholly to be other in essence, as brass shines like gold and silver
like tin. For these are foreign and of other nature, are separated off from
each other in nature and virtues, nor is brass proper to gold, nor is the
pigeon born from the doves; but though they are considered like, yet they differ in essence. If then it be
thus with the Son, let Him be a creature as we are, and not One in essence;
but if the Son is Word, Wisdom, Image of the Father, Radiance, He must in all
reason be One in essence. For unless it be proved that He is not from God, but
an instrument different in nature and different in essence, surely the Council
was sound in its doctrine and correct in its decree.
24. Further, let every corporeal reference be banished on this subject;
and transcending every imagination of sense, let us, with pure understanding
and with mind alone, apprehend the genuine relation of son to father, and the
Word's proper relation towards God, and the unvarying likeness of the radiance
towards the light: for as the words 'Offspring' and 'Son' bear, and are meant
to bear, no human sense, but one suitable to God, in like manner when we hear
the phrase 'one in essence,' let us not fall upon human senses, and imagine
partitions and divisions of the Godhead, but as having our thoughts directed
to things immaterial, let us preserve undivided the oneness of nature and the
identity of light; for this is proper to a son as regards a father, and in
this is shewn that God is truly Father of the Word. Here again, the
illustration of light and its radiance is in point. Who will presume to
say that the radiance is unlike and foreign to the sun? rather who, thus
considering the radiance relatively to the sun, and the identity of the light,
would not say with confidence, 'Truly the light and the radiance are one, and
the one is manifested in the other, and the radiance is in the sun, so that
whoso sees this, sees that also?' but such a oneness and natural property,
what should it be named by those who believe and see aright, but Offspring one
in essence? and God s Offspring what should we fittingly and suitably
consider, but Word, and Wisdom, and Power? which it were a sin to say was
foreign to the Father, or a crime even to Imagine as other than with Him
everlastingly. For by this Offspring the Father made all things, and extended
His Providence unto all things; by Him He exercises His love to man, and thus
He and the Father are one, as has been said; unless indeed these perverse men
make a fresh attempt, and say that the essence of the Word is not the same as
the Light which is in Him from the Father, as if the Light in the Son were one
with the Father, but He Himself foreign in essence as being a creature. Yet
this is simply the belief of Caiaphas and the Samosatene, which the Church
cast out, but these now are disguising; and by this they fell from the truth,
and were declared to be heretics. For if He partakes in fulness the light from
the Father, why is He not rather that which others partake, that there be
no medium introduced between Him and the Father? Otherwise, it is no longer
clear that all things were generated by the Son, but by Him, of whom He too
partakes. And if this is the Word, the Wisdom of the Father, in whom the
Father is revealed and known, and frames the world, and without whom the
Father doth nothing, evidently He it is who is from the Father: for all things
originated partake of Him, as partaking of the Holy Ghost. And being such, He
cannot be from nothing, nor a creature at all, but rather a proper Offspring
from the Father, as the radiance from light.
CHAPTER VI.
AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT OF THE COUNCIL. Theognostus ; Dionysius of Alexandria;
Dionysius of Rome; Origen.
25. THIs then is the sense in which they who met at Nicaea made use of
these expressions. But next that they did not invent them for themselves
(since this is one of their excuses), but spoke what they had received from
their predecessors, proceed we to prove this also, to cut off even this excuse
from them. Know then, O Arians, foes of Christ, that Theognostus @, a learned
man, did not decline the phrase 'of the essence,' for in the second book of
his Hypotyposes, he writes thus of the Son:--"The essence of the Son is not
one procured from without, nor accruing out of nothing', but it sprang from the Father's
essence, as the radiance of light, as the vapour of water; for neither the
radiance, nor the vapour, is the water itself or the sun itself, nor is it
alien; but it is an effluence of the Father's essence, which, however, suffers
no partition. For as the sun remains the same, and is not impaired by the rays
poured forth by it, so neither does the Father's essence suffer change, though
it has the Son as an Image of Itself."
Theognostus then, after previously investigating in the way of an exercise
[5], proceeds to lay down his sentiments in the foregoing words. Next,
Dionysius, who was Bishop of Alexandria, upon his writing against Sabellius
and expounding at large the Saviour's Economy according to the flesh, and
thence proving. against the Sabellians that not the Father but His Word became
flesh, as John has said, was suspected of saying that the Son as a thing made
and originated, and not one in essence with the Father; on this he writes to
his namesake Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, to allege in his defence that this was
a slander upon him. And he assured him that he had not called the Son made,
nay, did confess Him to be even one in essence. And his words ran thus:--
"And I have written in another letter a refutation of the false charge
they bring against me, that I deny that Christ was one in essence with God.
For though I say that I have not found 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 human birth as being evidently
homogeneous, and I observed that undeniably parents 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
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, yet was
altogether one in nature with it: and that a stream flowing from a
fountain, gained a new name, for that neither the fountain was called stream,
nor the stream fountain, and both existed, and the stream was the water from
the fountain"
26. And that the Word of God is not a work or creature, but an offspring
proper to the Father's essence and indivisible, as the great Council wrote,
here you may see in the words of Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, who, while writing
against the Sabellians, thus inveighs against those who dared to say so:--
"Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and
destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy
[7], making it as it were three powers and partitive subsistences [7a] and
god-heads three. I am told that some among you who are catechists and teachers
of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically
opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius's opinions; for he blasphemously says that
the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son, but they in some sort preach
three Gods, as dividing the sacred Monad into three subsistences foreign to
each other and utterly separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the
Universe, the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose and
habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the Universe,
must the Divine Triad be gathered up and brought together. For it is the doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine Monarchy into three origins,--a devil's teaching, not that of Christ's
true disciples and lovers of the Saviour's lessons, For they know well that a
Triad is preached by divine Scripture, but that neither Old Testament nor New
preaches three Gods. Equally must one censure those who hold the: Son to be a
work, and consider that the Lord has come into being, as one of things which
really came to be; whereas the divine oracles witness to a generation suitable
to Him and becoming, but not to any fashioning or making. A blasphemy then is
it, not ordinary, but even the highest, to say that the Lord is in any sort a
handiwork. For if He came to be Son, once He was not; but He was always, if
(that is) He be in the Father, as He says Himself, and if the Christ be Word
and Wisdom and Power (which, as ye know, divine Scripture says), and these
attributes be powers of God. If then the Son came into being, once these
attributes were not; consequently there was a time, when God was without them;
which is most absurd. And why say more on these points to you, men full of the
Spirit and well aware of the absurdities which come to view from saying that
the Son is a work? Not attending, as I consider, to this circumstance, the
authors of this opinion have entirely missed the truth, in explaining,
contrary to the sense of divine and prophetic Scripture in the passage, the
words, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works.' For
the sense of He created, as ye know, is not one, for we must understand 'He
created' in this place, as 'He set over the works made by Him,' that is, mode
by the Son Himself.' And 'He created' here must not be taken for 'made,' for
creating differs from making. 'Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee?
hath He not made thee and created thee?' says Moses in his great song in
Deuteronomy. And one may Say to them, O reckless men, is He a work, who is
'the First-born of every creature, who is born from the womb before the
morning star,' who said, as Wisdom, 'Before all the hills He begets me
[4]?' And in many passages of the divine oracles is the Son said to have been
s generated, but nowhere to have come into being; which manifestly
convicts those of misconception about the Lord's generation, who presume to
call His divine and ineffable generation a making. Neither then may we
divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with
the name of 'work' the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but we must
believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His Son, and in the
Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united.
For 'I,' says He, 'and the Father are one; 'and, 'I in the Father and the
Father in Me.' For thus both the Divine Triad, and the holy preaching of the
Monarchy, will be preserved."
27. And concerning the everlasting co-existence of the Word with the
Father, and that He is not of another essence or subsistence, but proper to
the Father's, as the Bishops in the Council said, you may hear again from the
labour-loving 0rigen also. For what he has written as if inquiring and by
way of exercise, that let no one take as expressive of his own sentiments, but
of parties who are contending in investigation, but what he definitely
declares, that is the sentiment of the labour-loving man. After his prolusions
then (so to speak) against the heretics, straightway he introduces his
personal belief, thus :--
"If there be an Image of the Invisible God, it is an invisible Image; nay,
I will be bold to add, that, as being the likeness of the Father, never was it
not. For when was that God, who, according to John, is called Light (for 'God
is Light'), without a radiance of His proper glory, that a man should presume
to assert the Son's origin of existence, as if before He was not? But when was
not that Image of the Father's Ineffable and Nameless and Unutterable
subsistence, that Expression and Word, and He that knows the Father? for let
him understand well who dares to say, 'Once the Son was not,' that he is
saying, 'Once Wisdom was not,' and 'Word was not,' and 'Life was not.'" And
again elsewhere he says:--
"But it is not innocent nor without peril, if because of our weakness of
understanding we deprive God, as far as in us lies, of the Only-begotten Word
ever co-existing with Him; and the Wisdom in which He rejoiced; else He mast
be conceived as not always possessed of joy."
See, we are proving that this view has been transmitted from father to
father; but ye, O modern Jews and disciples of Caiaphas, how many fathers can
ye assign to your phrases? Not one of the understanding and wise; for all
abhor you, but the devil alone [9a]; none but he is your father in this
apostasy, who both in the beginning sowed you with the seed of this
irreligion, and now persuades you to slander the Ecumenical Council, for
committing to writing, not your doctrines, but that which from the beginning
those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word have handed down to us
[2]. For the faith which the Council has confessed in writing, that is the
faith of the Catholic Church; to assert this, the blessed Fathers so expressed
themselves while condemning the Arian heresy; and this is a chief reason why
these apply themselves to calumniate the Council. For it is not the terms
which trouble them [2a], but that those terms prove them to be heretics, and
presumptuous beyond other heresies.
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE ARIAN SYMBOL "UNORIGINATE."
This term afterwards adopted by them; and why; three senses of it. A fourth
sense. Unoriginate denotes God in contrast to His creatures, not to Iris Son;
Father the scripturaI title instead; Conclusion. 28. Tins in fact was the
reason, when the unsound nature of their phrases had been exposed at that
time, and they were henceforth open to the charge of irreligion, that they
proceeded to borrow of the Greeks the term Unoriginate, that, under
shelter of it, they might reckon among the things originated and the
creatures, that Word of God, by whom these very things came to be; so
unblushing are they in their irreligion, so obstinate in their blasphemies
against the Lord. If then this want of shame arises from ignorance of the
term, they ought to have learned of those who gave it them, and who have not
scrupled to say that even intellect, which they derive from Good, and the soul
which proceeds from intellect, though their respective origins be known, are
notwithstanding unoriginated, for they understand that by so saying they do
not disparage that first Origin of which the others come. This being the case,
let them say the like themselves, or else not speak at all of what they do not
know. But if they consider they are acquainted with the subject, then they
must be interrogated; for the expression is not from divine Scripture,
but they are contentious, as elsewhere, for un-scriptural positions. Just as I
have related the reason and sense, with which the Council and the Fathers
before it defined and published 'of the essence,' and 'one in essence,'
agreeably to what Scripture says of the Saviour; so now let them, if they can,
answer on their part what has led them to this unscriptural phrase, and in
what sense they call God Unoriginated? In truth, I am told [4a], that the name
has different senses; philosophers say that it means, first 'what has not yet,
but may, come to be;' next, 'what neither exists, nor can come into being;'
and thirdly, 'what exists indeed, but was neither originated nor had origin of
being, but is everlasting and indestructible.' Now perhaps they will wish
to pass over the first two senses, from the absurdity which follows; for
according to the first, things that already have come to be, and things that
are expected to come to be, are un-originated; and the second is more absurd
still; accordingly they will proceed to the third sense, and use the word in
it; though here, in this sense too, their irreligion will be quite as great.
For if by unoriginated they mean what has no origin of being, nor is
originated or created, but eternal, and say that the Word of God is contrary
to this, who comprehends not the craft of these foes of God? who but would
stone such madmen? for, when they are ashamed to bring forward again those
first phrases which they fabled, and which were condemned, the wretches have
taken another way to signify them, by means of what they call unoriginate. For
if the Son be of things originate, it follows, that He too came to be from
nothing; and if He has an origin of being, then He was not before His
generation; and if He is not eternal, there was once when He was not .
29. If these are their sentiments they ought to signify their heterodoxy
in their own phrases, and not to hide their perverseness under the cloke of
the Unoriginate. But instead of this, the evil-minded men do all things with
craftiness like their father, the devil; for as he attempts to deceive in the
guise of others, so these have broached the term Un-originate, that they might
pretend to speak piously of God, yet might cherish a concealed blasphemy
against the Lord, and under a veil might teach it to others. However, on the
detecting of this sophism, what remains to them? 'We have found another,' say
the evildoers; and then proceed to add to what they have said already, that
Unoriginate means what has no author of being, but stands itself in this
relation to things originated. Unthankful, and in truth deaf to the
Scriptures! who do everything, and say everything, not to honour God, but to
dishonour the Son, ignorant that he who dishonours the Son, dishonours the
Father. For first, even though they denote God in this way, still the Word is
not proved to be of things originated. For again, as being an offspring of the
essence of the Father, He is of consequence with Him eternally. For this name
of offspring does not detract from the nature of the Word, nor does
Unoriginated take its sense from contrast with the Son, but with the things
which come to be through the Son; and as he who addresses. an architect, and
calls him framer of house or city, does not under this designation allude to
the son who is begotten from him, but on account of the art and science which
he displays in his work, calls him artificer, signifying thereby that he is
not such as the things made by him, and while he knows the nature of the
builder, knows also that he whom he begets is other than his works; and in
regard to his son calls him father, but in regard to his works, creator and
maker; in like manner he who says in this sense that God is unoriginate, names
Him from His works, signifying, not only that He is not originated, but that
He is maker of things which are so; yet is aware withal that the Word is other
than the things originate, and alone a proper offspring of the Father, through
whom all things came to be and consist.
30. In like manner, when the Prophets spoke of God as All-ruling, they did
not so name Him, as if the Word were included in that All; (for they knew that
the Son was other than things originated, and Sovereign over them Himself, according to
His likeness to the Father); but because He is Ruler over all things which
through the Son He has made, and has given the authority of all things to the
Son, and having given it, is Himself once more the Lord of all things through
the Word. Again, when they called God, Lord of the powers[9], they said not
this as if the Word was one of those powers, but because while He is Father of
the Son, He is Lord of the powers which through the Son have come to be. For
again, the Word too, as being in the Father, is Lord of them all, and
Sovereign over all; for all things, whatsoever the Father hath, are the Son's.
This then being the force of such titles, in like manner let a man call God
unoriginated, if it so please him; not however as if the Word were of
originated things, but because, as I said before, God not only is not
originated, but through His proper Word is He the maker of things which are
so. For though the Father be called such, still the Word is the Father's
Image, and one in essence with Him; and being His Image, He must be distinct
from things originated, and from everything; for whose Image He is, His
property and likeness He hath: so that he who calls the Father unoriginated
and almighty, perceives in the Unoriginated and the Almighty, His Word and His
Wisdom, which is the Son. But these wondrous men, and prompt for irreligion,
hit upon the term Unoriginated, not as caring for God's honour, but from
malevolence towards the Saviour; for if they had regard to honour and
reverent language, it rather had been right and good to acknowledge and to
call God Father, than to give Him this name: for in calling God unoriginated,
they are, as I said before, calling Him from things which came to be, and as
a Maker only, that so they may imply the Word to be a work i d after their
own pleasure; but he who calls God Father, in Him withal signifies His Son
also, and cannot fail to know that, whereas there is a Son, through this Son
all things that came to be were created.
31. Therefore it will be much more accurate to denote God from the Son and
to call Him Father, than to name Him and call Him Un-originated from His works
only; for the latter term refers to the works that have come to be at the
will of God through the Word, but the name of Father points out the proper
offspring from His essence. And whereas the i Word surpasses things
originated, by so much and more also doth calling God Father surpass the
calling Him Unoriginated; for the latter is non-scriptural and suspicious, as
it has various senses; but the former is simple and scriptural, and more
accurate, and alone implies the Son. And 'Unoriginated' is a word of the
Greeks who know not the Son: but 'Father' has been acknowledged and vouchsafed
by our Lord; for He knowing Himself whose Son He was, said, 'I in the Father
and the Father in Me[1];' and, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;'
and, 'I and the Father are one[2];' but nowhere is He found to call the Father
Unoriginated. Moreover, when He teaches us to pray, He says not, 'When ye
pray, say, O God Unoriginated,' but rather, 'When ye pray, say, Our Father,
which art in heavens[3].' And it was His Will, that the Summary of our faith
should have the same bearing. For He has bid us be baptized, not in the name
of Unoriginate and Originate, not into the name of Uncreate and Creature, but
into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit[4], for with such an initiation
we too are made sons verily[5], and using the name of the Father, we
acknowledge from that name the Word in the Father. But if He wills that we should call His own Father our
Father, we must not on that account measure ourselves with the Son according
to nature, for it is because of the Son that the Father is so called by us;
for since the Word bore our body and came to be in us, therefore by reason of
the Word in us, is God called our Father. For the Spirit of the Word in us
names through us His own Father as ours, which is the Apostle's meaning when
he says, 'God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father[6].'
32. But perhaps being refuted as touching the term Unoriginate also, they
will say according to their evil nature, 'It behoved, as regards our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ also, to state from the Scriptures what is there written
of Him, and not to introduce non-scriptural expressions.' Yes, it behoved, say
I too; for the tokens of truth are more exact as drawn from Scripture, than
from other sources[7]; but the ill disposition and the versatile and crafty
irreligion of Eusebius and his fellows, compelled the Bishops, as I said
before, to publish more distinctly the terms which overthrew their irreligion;
and what the Council did write has already been shewn to have an orthodox
sense, while the Arians have been shewn to be corrupt in their phrases, and
evil in their dispositions. The term Un-originate, having its own sense, and
admitting of a religious use, they nevertheless, according to their own idea,
and as they will, use for the dishonour of the Saviour, all for the sake of
contentiously maintaining, like giants[3], their fight with God. But as they
did not escape condemnation when they, adduced these former phrases, so when
they misconceive of the Unoriginated which in itself admits of being used
well and religiously, they were detected, being disgraced before all, and
their heresy everywhere proscribed This then, as I could, have I related, by
way of explaining what was formerly done in the Council; but I know that the
contentious among Christ's foes will not be disposed to change even after
hearing this, but will ever search about for other pretences, and for others
again after those. For as the Prophet speaks, 'If the Ethiopian change his
skin, or the leopard his spots[9], then will they be willing to think
religiously, who have been instructed in irreligion. Thou however, beloved, on
receiving this, read it by thyself; and if thou approvest of it, read it also
to the brethren who happen to be present, that they too on hearing it, may
welcome the Council's zeal for the truth, and the exactness of its sense; and
may condemn that of Christ's foes, the Arians, and the futile pretences, which
for the sake of their irreligious heresy they have been at the pains to frame
among themselves; because to God and the Father is due the glory, honour, and
worship with His co-existent Son and Word, together with the All-holy and
Life-giving Spirit, now and unto endless ages of ages. Amen.