The Synod’s Letter to the Emperor Jovian on the Faith

To Jovian Augustus, most devout, most humane, victorious: Athanasius and the rest of the bishops assembled, in the name of all the bishops from Egypt to the Thebaid, and of Libya. To prefer and pursue holy things with understanding is fitting for a prince beloved of God. So may you keep your heart in truth in God’s hand, and reign for many years in peace. [a]

Since Your Piety has recently expressed a wish to learn from us the faith of the catholic church, we have given thanks to the Lord, and we have resolved above all to remind Your Reverence of the faith confessed by the fathers at Nicaea. This faith some have set at nothing. They have devised many and various attacks on us because we refused to submit to the Arian heresy, and they have become founders of heresy and schism in the catholic church. The true and godly faith in our Lord Jesus Christ has been made plain to all, as it is known and read from the holy Scriptures. In this faith the martyred saints were made perfect, and now, having departed, they are with the Lord. This faith would have stood unharmed everywhere, if the wickedness of certain heretics had not dared to try to falsify it. For Arius and his party tried to corrupt it and to bring in impiety to destroy it, claiming that the Son of God is from what does not exist, a creature, a thing made, and capable of change. By these means they deceived many, so that even men who seemed to be something were led away by them. Then our holy fathers took the lead and met, as we said, at Nicaea. They anathematized the Arian heresy and signed the faith of the catholic church, so that the flames of heresy were put out by the proclamation of the truth throughout the world. In this way this faith was known and preached throughout the whole church.

But some who wished to start the Arian heresy over again have had the audacity to set at nothing the faith confessed by the fathers at Nicaea. Others pretend to accept it while in reality they deny it, twisting the meaning of “of one substance,” and so blaspheming the Holy Spirit by claiming that it is a creature, a thing made through the Son. Seeing, as we must, the harm that blasphemy of this kind does to the people, we have hastened to offer Your Piety the faith confessed at Nicaea, so that Your Reverence may know how exactly it has been drawn up, and how great is the error of those whose teaching contradicts it. Know, most holy Augustus, that this is the faith preached from everlasting; this is the faith that the fathers assembled at Nicaea confessed. With this faith all the churches throughout the world agree: those in Spain, in Britain, in Gaul, in all Italy and Campania, in Dalmatia and Moesia, in Macedonia, in all Greece; all the churches throughout Africa, Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, Pamphylia and Isauria, and Lycia; those of all Egypt and Libya, of Pontus, Cappadocia and the neighboring regions; and all the churches of the East, except a few who have embraced Arianism. We know the views of all those named above, having put them to the test. We have letters, and we know, most pious Augustus, that although a few speak against this faith, they cannot set aside the judgment of the whole inhabited world.

Having been long under the harmful influence of the Arian heresy, they resist true religion all the more contentiously. For the information of Your Piety, though indeed you already know it, we have taken care to add the faith confessed at Nicaea by the three hundred and eighteen bishops. It is as follows. [f]

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father; through whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, took flesh, and became man. He suffered, and rose again on the third day. He ascended into heaven, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. And we believe in the Holy Spirit. The holy, catholic and apostolic church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not; that before he was begotten he was not; that he was made out of what does not exist; or that he is of another essence or another substance; or that he is a creature, or subject to variation or change.

In this faith, most religious Augustus, everyone must remain, as divine and apostolic. No one must try to change it by persuasive reasoning and battles of words, as the Arian madmen did from the beginning, contending that the Son of God is from what does not exist, that there was a time when he was not, and that he is created and made and subject to variation. That is why, as we said, the Council of Nicaea anathematized this heresy and confessed the faith of the truth. For they did not simply say that the Son is like the Father, so that he might be believed to be not simply like God but true God from God. And they put forward the term homoousios, “of one substance,” because it belongs only to a real and true son of a true and natural father. Yet they did not separate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but rather glorified it together with the Father and the Son in the one faith of the Holy Trinity, because the Godhead of the Holy Trinity is one.