The Synod at Alexandria

As soon as Eusebius reached Alexandria, he and Athanasius together immediately called a synod. The bishops who gathered on this occasion from various cities considered many questions of the greatest importance. They affirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit and included him in the Trinity of one substance. They also declared that the Word, in becoming man, took on not only flesh but also a soul, in agreement with the views of the early writers of the church. For they did not bring any new doctrine of their own devising into the church, but were content to record their approval of the points that the church’s tradition has insisted on from the beginning, and that wise Christians have taught with proofs. [a]

The ancient fathers consistently held these views in all their writings against error. Irenaeus, Clement, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, and Serapion, who presided over the church at Antioch, assure us in their various works that it was the generally received belief that Christ, in his incarnation, was endowed with a soul. Moreover, the synod that met on account of Beryllus, bishop of Philadelphia in Arabia, recognized the same doctrine in its letter to that bishop. Origen too, throughout his surviving works, accepts that the incarnate God took on himself a human soul. But he explains this mystery most fully in the ninth book of his commentary on Genesis, where he shows that Adam and Eve were types of Christ and the church. That holy man Pamphilus, and Eusebius, who took his surname from him, are trustworthy witnesses on this subject. In their joint life of Origen, and in their admirable defense of him against those who were prejudiced against him, both of them prove that he was not the first to make this declaration, but that in making it he was simply setting out the mystical tradition of the church.

Those who took part in the council at Alexandria also examined with great care the question of “essence” or “substance,” and “existence,” “subsistence” or “personality.” For Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain, who was mentioned earlier as having been sent by the emperor Constantine to calm the excitement Arius had caused, started the controversy about these terms in his eagerness to overthrow the teaching of Sabellius the Libyan. In the Council of Nicaea, which was held soon after, this dispute was not raised. But because of the contention over it that arose later, the matter was discussed freely at Alexandria. There it was decided that such expressions as ousia and hypostasis ought not to be used of God. For they argued that the word ousia is nowhere used in the sacred Scriptures, and that the apostle had misapplied the term hypostasis, out of an unavoidable necessity arising from the nature of the doctrine. Nevertheless they decided that these terms were permissible in refuting the Sabellian error, for want of better language, so that no one would suppose that a single thing was meant under three names. Rather, we ought to believe that each of those named in the Trinity is God in his own proper person. Such were the decisions of this synod.

If we may give our own judgment about substance and personality, it seems to us that the Greek philosophers have given us various definitions of ousia, but have not taken the slightest notice of hypostasis. Irenaeus the grammarian, in fact, in his alphabetical lexicon called the Atticist, even declares it to be a barbarous word; for it is not found in any of the ancient writers, except now and then in a sense quite different from the one given it today. So Sophocles, in his tragedy called Phoenix, uses it to mean “treachery”; in Menander it means “sauces,” as if someone were to call the sediment at the bottom of a wine cask hypostasis. But although the ancient philosophers hardly noticed this word, the more recent ones have often used it in place of ousia. This term, as we said before, has been defined in various ways. But can something that can be bounded by a definition apply to God, who is beyond comprehension? Evagrius, in his Monachicus, warns us against rash and careless language about God. He forbids every attempt to define the divine nature, since it is wholly simple: “for,” he says, “definition belongs only to things that are compound.” The same author adds: “Every proposition has either a genus that is predicated, or a species, or a difference, or a property, or an accident, or something compounded of these. But none of these can be supposed to exist in the holy Trinity. Let what cannot be explained, then, be worshiped in silence.” Such is the reasoning of Evagrius, of whom we will speak again later. We have made a digression here, but one that will help to throw light on the subject under consideration.