The History of the Two Councils

Why two councils were called. How inconsistent and foolish it was to call any council at all, and the style of the Arian creeds. Why the Council of Nicaea was held. What was done at Ariminum; the council’s letter to Constantius; its decree. What was done at Seleucia. Reflections on the conduct of the Arians.

Perhaps news has reached even you about the council that everyone is talking about just now, for letters from both the emperor and the prefects were sent far and wide to summon it. But you take such an interest in what has happened that I have decided to give you an account of what I have seen myself and found out exactly. This may spare you the suspense of depending on other people’s reports, all the more because there are people who make a habit of misrepresenting what has happened. The council did not meet at Nicaea, then, the place that had been fixed. Instead a second edict was issued, calling the Western bishops to Ariminum in Italy and the Eastern bishops to Seleucia in Isauria, the one called “the Rugged.” The reason given for such a meeting was to deal with the faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. The men who gave it were Ursacius, Valens and one Germinius from Pannonia, and from Syria Acacius, Eudoxius and Patrophilus of Scythopolis. These men had always belonged to the Arian party. They “understand neither how they believe nor what they affirm.” They had been quietly deceiving first one person and then another, sowing their heresy a second time. They won over some who seemed to be important, and among them the emperor Constantius, who was a heretic, to call a council on some pretext about the faith. They thought they would be able to throw the Council of Nicaea into the shade, persuade everyone to turn around, and set up impiety everywhere in place of the truth. [a]

Now here the first thing I marvel at, and I think every sensible person will agree with me, is this. A general council had been fixed, and everyone was looking forward to it; then all of a sudden it was divided in two, so that one part met here and the other there. Yet this was surely the work of Providence, so that in the two councils the faith of the one party might be shown to be without guile or corruption, and the dishonesty and double-dealing of the other might be exposed. Next, this too was on the minds of myself and my true brothers here, and made us anxious: how unfitting this great gathering was, which we saw under way. What was so pressing that the whole world had to be thrown into confusion, and that those who at that time bore the title of clergy should run about far and near, trying to find out how best to learn to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ? Surely if they were believers already, they would not have been searching as though they were not. To the catechumens this was no small scandal. To the pagans it was something more than ordinary; it even gave them broad amusement that Christians, as if waking up from sleep at this late hour, should be asking how they were to believe about Christ, while their professed clergy, who claimed respect from their flocks as teachers, were unbelievers by their own showing, since they were searching for what they did not have. And the party of Ursacius, who were at the bottom of all this, did not understand what wrath they were storing up against themselves. For our Lord says through his saints, “Woe to them through whom my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles”; and with his own mouth in the Gospels, “Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea,” than, as Luke adds, “that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” [d]

What lack of teaching on religious truth was there in the catholic church, that they should inquire about the faith now, and put this year’s consulship at the head of their profession of faith? For Ursacius, Valens, Germinius and their friends have done what never happened and was never heard of among Christians. After writing down what they chose to believe, they put at the head of it the consulship and the month and the day of the current year. By this they show all sensible people that their faith dates not from of old but from now, from the reign of Constantius; for whatever they write is aimed at their own heresy. Moreover, while pretending to write about the Lord, they name another master for themselves, Constantius, who has granted them this reign of impiety. And they who deny that the Son is everlasting have called him Eternal Emperor. Such enemies of Christ they are, on top of their impiety. But perhaps the dates in the holy prophets are their excuse for the consulship. Yet so bold a pretext will only publish their ignorance of the subject more widely. The prophecies of the saints do give their times. For instance, Isaiah and Hosea lived in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah; Jeremiah in the days of Josiah; Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied under Cyrus and Darius; and others at other times. But they were not laying the foundations of divine religion. It was there before them, and always was, for before the foundation of the world God prepared it for us in Christ. Nor were they marking the dates of their own faith, for they had been believers before those dates. The dates belonged only to their own preaching. This preaching spoke beforehand of the Savior’s coming, but directly of what was to happen to Israel and the nations. And the dates marked, as I said before, not the beginning of faith but of the prophets themselves, that is, when it was that they prophesied in this way. But our modern wise men do it neither in telling a history nor in foretelling the future. Instead, right after writing, “The catholic faith was published,” they add the consulship and the month and the day, so that, as the saints gave the dates of their histories and of their own ministries, these men may mark the date of their own faith. I wish they had written about “their own” faith, for that does date from today, and had not made their attempt under the name of “the catholic” faith. For they did not write, “This is what we believe,” but, “The catholic faith was published.” [e]

The boldness of their plan, then, shows how little they understand the subject, while the novelty of their phrase fits the Arian heresy. For by it they show when it was that they began their own faith, and that from this present time they want it proclaimed. According to the evangelist Luke, “a decree was made” for the census; that decree did not exist before, but began in the days when its author made it. In the same way, by writing, “The faith is now published,” they have shown that the opinions of their heresy are new and did not exist before. But if they add “of the catholic faith,” they fall before they know it into the extravagance of the Phrygians, and say with them, “To us it was first revealed,” and, “From us dates the faith of Christians.” And as the Phrygians inscribe it with the names of Maximilla and Montanus, so these men inscribe it with “Constantius, Master,” instead of Christ. If, however, the faith dates from the present consulship, as they would have it, what will the fathers do, and the blessed martyrs? What, for that matter, will they themselves do with their own catechumens who went to their rest before this consulship? How will they wake them up, so as to wipe out their former lessons and sow in their place the supposed discoveries they have now put in writing? That is how ignorant they are on the subject. They know nothing except how to make excuses, and those unseemly and unconvincing, carrying their own refutation with them. [g]

As for the Council of Nicaea, it was not an ordinary meeting. It was called because of a pressing need and for a reasonable purpose. The Syrians, Cilicians and Mesopotamians were out of line in keeping the feast and kept Easter with the Jews. On the other hand, the Arian heresy had risen up against the catholic church and found supporters in Eusebius and his party, who were both zealous for the heresy and led the attack on the people of true religion. This gave occasion for an Ecumenical Council, so that the feast might be kept everywhere on one day, and the heresy that was springing up might be anathematized. So the council took place. The Syrians submitted, and the fathers declared the Arian heresy to be the forerunner of Antichrist and drew up a fitting formula against it. And yet in all this, many as they were, they ventured on nothing like what these three or four men have done. They put no consulship, month or day at the head. About Easter they wrote, “It seemed good as follows,” for it did then seem good that everyone should comply. But about the faith they did not write, “It seemed good,” but, “This is what the catholic church believes.” Then and there they confessed how they believed, to show that their own convictions were not new but apostolic, and that what they wrote down was no discovery of theirs but the same as the apostles taught. [i]

But these councils they are now stirring up: what plausible pretext do they have for them? If some new heresy has arisen since the Arian one, let them tell us what positions it has invented and who its inventors are. And in their own formula let them anathematize the heresies that came before this council of theirs, among them the Arian, as the fathers at Nicaea did, so that it may appear that they too have some compelling reason for saying something new. But suppose no such thing has happened and they have nothing of the kind to show. Suppose instead they themselves are the ones uttering heresies, holding the impiety of Arius, being exposed day after day and shifting their ground day after day. Then what need is there of councils, when the Council of Nicaea is sufficient, against the Arian heresy and against the rest as well? For it has condemned them one and all by means of the sound faith. Even the notorious Aetius, who was nicknamed “the godless,” does not boast of having discovered any madness of his own. He has simply been driven by a storm and wrecked on Arianism, he and the people he has led astray. So it is in vain that they run about with the pretext that they have demanded councils for the faith’s sake. For divine Scripture is sufficient above all things. But if a council is needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the fathers. The bishops at Nicaea did not neglect this matter. They stated the doctrine so exactly that anyone who reads their words honestly cannot help being reminded by them of the religion toward Christ proclaimed in divine Scripture. [n]

Having no reason on their side, then, and being in difficulty whichever way they turn, in spite of their pretexts, all they have left is to say this: “Since we contradict those who went before us and break the traditions of the fathers, we have thought it good that a council should meet. But again, since we are afraid that if it meets in one place our efforts will be wasted, we have thought it good that it be divided in two. Then, when we put forward our documents to these separate parts, we may outwit them the more effectively, with the threat of Constantius, the patron of this impiety, and may set aside the acts of Nicaea under cover of the simplicity of our own documents.” If they have not put this into words, still this is what their deeds and their disturbances mean. Certainly, many and frequent as their speeches and writings have been at various councils, they have never yet mentioned the Arian heresy as objectionable. Instead, if anyone present happened to accuse the heresies, they always took up the defense of the Arian heresy, which the Council of Nicaea had anathematized. More than that, they warmly welcomed those who professed Arianism. This in itself, then, is a strong argument that the aim of the present councils was not the truth but the annulling of the acts of Nicaea. But what they and their friends did at the councils themselves makes it equally clear that this was so. For now we must tell everything as it happened.

Everyone expected that those whom the emperor’s letters had summoned would gather in one place and form one council. Instead they were divided in two. Some went to Seleucia, called the Rugged; the others met at Ariminum, more than four hundred bishops in all, among whom were Germinius, Auxentius, Valens, Ursacius, Demophilus and Gaius. While the whole assembly was discussing the matter from the divine Scriptures, these men brought out a paper. Reading out the consulship, they demanded that it be preferred to every council, that no questions be put to the heretics beyond it and no inquiry made into their meaning, but that it should be sufficient by itself. What they had written ran as follows: [o]

“The catholic faith was published in the presence of our Master, the most religious and gloriously victorious emperor Constantius Augustus, the eternal and august, in the consulship of the most illustrious Flavius Eusebius and Flavius Hypatius, at Sirmium, on the eleventh day before the Calends of June.

“We believe in one only and true God, the Father Almighty, Creator and Maker of all things;

“and in one only Son of God, who before all ages, before every beginning, before all time that can be conceived and before every substance that can be grasped, was begotten from God without passion; through whom the ages were ordered and all things were made; begotten as the only Son, alone from the only Father, God from God, like the Father who begot him, according to the Scriptures; whose origin no one knows except the Father alone who begot him. We know that he, the only Son of God, at the Father’s bidding came from the heavens to abolish sin, was born of the Virgin Mary, lived among the disciples, and fulfilled the plan of salvation according to the Father’s will. He was crucified and died, and descended to the regions beneath the earth and set things in order there; the gatekeepers of hell saw him and shuddered. He rose from the dead on the third day, lived among the disciples, and fulfilled all the plan of salvation. When the forty days were complete, he ascended into the heavens. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and is coming on the last day of the resurrection in the glory of the Father, to give to everyone according to his works.

“And in the Holy Spirit, whom the only Son of God himself, Jesus Christ, had promised to send to the human race, the Paraclete, as it is written: ‘I go to my Father, and I will ask the Father, and he will send you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth. He will take of what is mine and will teach you and bring all things to your remembrance.’

“But the term ‘substance’ was adopted by the fathers in simplicity, and it gives offense because the people misunderstand it, and it is not contained in the Scriptures. So it has seemed good to remove it, so that it is never again used of God in any case, because the divine Scriptures nowhere use it of the Father and the Son. But we say that the Son is like the Father in all things, as the Holy Scriptures also say and teach.”

When this had been read, the dishonesty of its authors was soon plain. For when the bishops proposed that the Arian heresy should be anathematized together with the other heresies too, and all agreed, Ursacius and Valens and those with them refused. In the end the fathers condemned them, on the ground that their confession had been written not in sincerity but to annul the acts of Nicaea and bring in their unhappy heresy instead. Marveling, then, at the deceitfulness of their language and their unprincipled intentions, the bishops said: “We have not come here as though we needed faith. We have faith within us, and sound faith. We have come to put to shame those who contradict the truth and try to bring in novelties. If, then, you have drawn up this formula as though you were only now beginning to believe, you are not even clergy; you are just starting school. But if you meet us with the same views with which we came here, let there be general agreement. Let us anathematize the heresies and keep the teaching of the fathers. Then pleas for councils will no longer go around, since the bishops at Nicaea anticipated them once for all and did everything that was needed for the catholic church.”

Even then, however, in spite of this general agreement of the bishops, the men mentioned above still refused. So at last the whole council condemned them as ignorant and deceitful men, or rather as heretics. They cast their votes in favor of the Council of Nicaea, and all of them judged that it was enough. As for Ursacius and Valens, Germinius, Auxentius, Gaius and Demophilus, named above, they declared them heretics and deposed them as not really Christians but Arians. And they wrote against them in Latin what has been translated in substance into Greek, as follows:

Copy of a letter from the council to Constantius Augustus. [t]

“We believe that what was decreed before came about both by God’s command and by the order of Your Piety. For we bishops from all the Western cities have gathered together at Ariminum, both so that the faith of the catholic church might be made known and so that those who contradict it might be found out. After long deliberation we have found it right to hold fast to and keep to the end that faith which has lasted from ancient times, which we received as preached by the prophets, the Gospels and the apostles, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the keeper of your kingdom and the protector of your power. For it seemed wrong and unlawful to make any change in what was rightly and justly defined, and what was resolved in common at Nicaea together with the emperor your father, the most glorious Constantine. The teaching and spirit of that definition went out and was proclaimed in the hearing and understanding of everyone. For it alone conquered and destroyed the heresy of Arius, and by it not only that heresy but the other heresies too were destroyed. Truly it is dangerous to add to it, and full of danger to take anything away from it, since if either is done, our enemies will be able to do whatever they like and go unpunished.

“Accordingly, Ursacius and Valens, since they had long been supporters and sympathizers of the Arian teaching, were rightly declared cut off from our communion. To be admitted to it, they asked to be granted a place of repentance and pardon for the wrongs they knew they had done, as the documents they drew up testify. By this means forgiveness and pardon on all charges was obtained. The time of these events was when the council was gathered at Milan, with presbyters of the Roman church also present.

“But we know at the same time that Constantine, of worthy memory, published the faith then drawn up with all exactness and deliberation. Now that he has been baptized by the hands of men and has departed to the place that was his due, we think it unfitting to make a new change afterward and to despise so many saints, confessors and martyrs who composed and drew up this decree, and who moreover continued to hold in all things to the ancient law of the church. God has handed down their faith even to the times of your reign through our Master Jesus Christ, through whom it is also yours to reign and rule over the world in our day.

“Once more, then, these pitiful men of wretched mind, with lawless daring, have proclaimed themselves heralds of an impious opinion and are trying to overturn every summary of truth. For when the synod met according to your command, those men laid bare the design of their own deceitfulness. In an unscrupulous and disorderly way they tried to propose an innovation to us, having found as accomplices in this plot Germinius, Auxentius and Gaius, stirrers-up of strife and discord, whose teaching by itself has gone beyond every degree of blasphemy. But when they saw that we did not share their purpose or agree with their evil mind, they came over to our council, claiming that it might be advisable to compile something else instead. But a short time was enough to expose their plans. So that the churches might not have these disturbances again, and so that a whirlwind of discord and confusion might not throw everything into disorder, it seemed good to keep the ancient and reasonable institutions undisturbed, and to separate these persons from our communion.

“For the information of Your Clemency, therefore, we have instructed our envoys to make known to you the judgment of the council by our letter. We have given them this special direction: to establish the truth by resting their case on the ancient and just decrees. They will also assure Your Piety that peace would not be achieved by removing those decrees, as Valens and Ursacius claimed. For how can peace-breakers bring peace? On the contrary, through them strife and confusion will arise not only in the other cities but also in the church of the Romans.

“For this reason we ask Your Clemency to receive our envoys with favorable ears and a calm face, and not to allow anything to be abolished to the dishonor of the dead. Allow us to keep what was defined and laid down by our forefathers, who, we venture to say and trust, acted in all things with prudence and wisdom and the Holy Spirit. For by these novelties not only are the faithful made to disbelieve, but the unbelievers also are embittered.

“We also pray that you will give orders that the many bishops who are detained abroad, many of them broken by age and poverty, may be allowed to return to their own country, so that the churches may not suffer by being deprived of their bishops. This, however, we ask earnestly: that nothing be changed in the existing creeds and nothing taken away, but that everything remain uncorrupted that has continued from the times of your father’s piety to the present. We ask too that you will not let us be harassed and estranged from our sees, but that the bishops may give themselves in quiet always to prayers and worship, which they always offer for your own safety and for your reign, and for peace, which may the Divinity grant you forever. Our envoys are bringing the signatures and titles of the bishops, and they will also inform Your Piety from the Holy Scriptures themselves.”

Decree of the council. [x]

“As far as was fitting and possible, dearest brothers, the general council and the holy church have been patient, and have generously shown the church’s forbearance toward Ursacius and Valens, Gaius, Germinius and Auxentius. By changing so often what they had believed, these men have troubled all the churches, and they are still trying to force their heretical spirit on the faith of the orthodox. For they want to annul the formula passed at Nicaea, which was framed against the Arian heresy. Besides this, they have presented to us a creed drawn up by themselves from outside, utterly foreign to the most holy church, which we could not lawfully receive. Both before this and now they have been declared heretics and opponents by us. We have not admitted them to our communion, but have condemned and deposed them by our voices in their presence. Now, then, declare again what seems good to you, so that each one’s vote may be confirmed by his signature.” The bishops answered with one accord: “It seems good that the heretics named above should be condemned, so that the catholic faith may remain in peace.”

Matters at Ariminum, then, came to this speedy end. There was no disagreement there; all of them with one accord both put in writing what they decided and deposed the Arians.

Meanwhile at Seleucia the Rugged things went as follows. It was in the month the Romans call September, the Egyptians Thoth and the Macedonians Gorpiaeus, on the sixteenth day of the month by the Egyptian reckoning, that all the members of the council gathered together. About a hundred and sixty were present. Many among them were under accusation, and their accusers were crying out against them. So Acacius, Patrophilus, Uranius of Tyre, Eudoxius, who had seized the church of Antioch, Leontius, Theodotus, Evagrius, Theodulus, and George, who has been driven out of the whole world, took an unprincipled course. Fearing the proofs their accusers had to show against them, they joined forces with the rest of the Arian party. These were hirelings in the cause of impiety for this very purpose, and had been ordained by Secundus, who had been deposed by the great council: the Libyan Stephen, Seras and Polydeuces, who were under accusation on various charges, and next Pancratius, and one Ptolemy, a Melitian. [y]

They made a show of taking up the question of the faith, but it was clear that they were doing so from fear of their accusers. They took the side of the heresy, until at last they split among themselves. For Acacius and his party were under suspicion and were very few, while the others were the majority. So Acacius and his party, acting with the boldness of desperation, denied the Nicene formula outright and found fault with the council. The others, who were the majority, accepted all the proceedings of the council, except that they complained of the phrase “of one substance” as obscure and therefore open to suspicion.

As time went on, the accusers pressed their charges, and the accused put in pleas, and in doing so were carried further by their impiety and blasphemed the Lord. At that the majority of the bishops grew indignant. They deposed Acacius, Patrophilus, Uranius, Eudoxius and George the contractor, and others from Asia, Leontius, Theodosius, Evagrius and Theodulus. And they excommunicated Asterius, Eusebius, Augarus, Basilicus, Phoebus, Fidelius, Eutychius and Magnus. They did this when these men failed to appear after being summoned to defend themselves on charges that many brought against them. And they decreed that they should remain so until they made their defense and cleared themselves of the offenses charged against them. After sending the sentence passed against them to the diocese of each, they went on to Constantius, the most impious Augustus, to report their proceedings to him, as they had been ordered. And this was the end of the council at Seleucia.

Who, then, would not approve the conscientious conduct of the bishops at Ariminum? They endured so toilsome a journey and the dangers of the sea so that, by a sacred and canonical resolution, they might depose the Arians and keep the definitions of the fathers intact. For each of them judged that if they undid the acts of those before them, they would be giving those after them a pretext to undo what they themselves were then enacting. And who would not condemn the fickleness of Eudoxius, Acacius and their fellows, who sacrifice the honor due to their own fathers to their partisanship for the Ario-maniacs and their patronage of them? For what confidence can be placed in their acts, if the acts of their fathers are undone? Or how can they call those men fathers and themselves successors, if they set about impeaching their judgment? And above all, what can Acacius say of his own teacher, Eusebius? Eusebius not only signed at the Council of Nicaea, but even made known to his flock in a letter that the faith the council had declared was the true faith. Even if he explained himself in that letter in his own way, still he did not contradict the council’s terms. He even laid it as a charge against the Arians that their position, that the Son did not exist before he was begotten, was not even consistent with his existing before Mary. [ae]

What, then, will they go on to teach the people under their teaching? That the fathers erred? And how can they themselves be trusted by those whom they teach to disobey their teachers? And with what eyes will they look on the tombs of the fathers whom they now call heretics? And why do they slander the Valentinians, Phrygians and Manichaeans, yet give the name of saint to those whom they themselves suspect of saying similar things? Or how can they be bishops any longer, if they were ordained by men they accuse of heresy? But if those men’s opinions were wrong and their writings led the world astray, then let their memory perish altogether. When, however, you cast out their books, go and cast out their remains too from the cemeteries, so that everyone may know that they are deceivers, and that you are murderers of your own fathers.

The blessed apostle praises the Corinthians because, he says, “you remember me in all things, and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.” But these men, holding such views of those before them, will have the daring to say just the opposite to their flocks: “We do not praise you for remembering your fathers. Rather, we think much of you when you do not hold their traditions.” And let them go on to accuse their own unfortunate birth and say, “We are descended not from religious men but from heretics.” For such language, as I said before, fits those who trade their fathers’ good name and their own salvation for Arianism, and who do not fear the words of the divine proverb, “There is a generation that curses its father,” and the threat that lies in the Law against such people. [ah]

They, then, out of zeal for the heresy, have this obstinate temper. You, however, do not be troubled at it, and do not take their audacity for truth. For they disagree with one another. Having revolted from their fathers, they are not of one and the same mind, but drift about with various and conflicting changes. Quarreling with the Council of Nicaea, they have held many councils themselves, and have published a faith at each of them, and have stood by none. Indeed, they will never do otherwise, for seeking perversely, they will never find that Wisdom which they hate. I have accordingly added portions both of Arius’s writings and of whatever else I could collect of what they have published at the different councils. From these you will learn, to your surprise, with what aim they stand out against an Ecumenical Council and their own fathers without blushing.