History of Arian Opinions, Part 2

“5. We also abhor and anathematize those who pretend that he is only the bare word of God, without existence of his own, having his being in another: now a word spoken aloud, as some put it, now a word held in the mind. They hold that he was not Christ, or Son of God, or mediator, or image of God before the ages, but that he first became Christ and Son of God when he took our flesh from the Virgin, less than four hundred years ago. For they insist that Christ began his kingdom then, and that it will have an end after the close of all things and the judgment. Such are the disciples of Marcellus and of Scotinus, of Ancyra in Galatia. Just like the Jews, they deny Christ’s existence before the ages, and his Godhead, and his unending kingdom, on the pretext of upholding the divine Monarchy. We, on the contrary, regard him not simply as God’s word spoken aloud or held in the mind, but as the living God and Word, existing in himself, and Son of God and Christ. He was and abides with his Father before the ages, and not in foreknowledge only, and he served him in the whole making of things, whether visible or invisible. For he it is to whom the Father said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ He also was seen in his own person by the patriarchs, gave the law, spoke by the prophets, and at last became man, and showed his own Father to all people, and reigns to never-ending ages. For Christ has taken on no recent dignity; we have believed him to be perfect from the first, and like the Father in all things. [a]

“6. And those who say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same, and irreverently take the three names as names of one and the same reality and person, we rightly banish from the church. For they suppose that the Father, who cannot be bounded and cannot suffer, is also bounded and able to suffer, through his becoming man. Such are those whom the Romans call Patripassians, and we call Sabellians. For we acknowledge that the Father who sent remained in the state proper to his unchangeable Godhead, and that Christ, who was sent, carried out the plan of salvation by becoming man.

“7. At the same time, those who irreverently say that the Son was begotten not by choice or will, and so surround God with a necessity that leaves no room for choice or purpose, so that he would have begotten the Son unwillingly, we count as most impious and strangers to the church. For they have dared to define such things about God beyond the common notions about him, and indeed beyond the meaning of divinely inspired Scripture. For we, knowing that God is absolute and sovereign over himself, hold the reverent judgment that he begot the Son willingly and freely. Yet, as we reverently believe the Son’s words about himself, ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, for his works,’ we do not take him to have come into being like the creatures or works that came to be through him. For it is impious and foreign to the church’s faith to compare the Creator with the handiwork he created, and to think that he came into being in the same manner as the rest. For divine Scripture teaches us really and truly that the only Son was begotten alone, and in a way all his own.

“Yet in saying that the Son is in himself, and lives and exists as the Father does, we do not for that reason separate him from the Father, imagining place and distance in their union, as happens with bodies. For we believe that they are united with each other without anything between them and without distance, and that they exist inseparably: the whole Father holding the Son in his bosom, and the whole Son hanging on and clinging to the Father, and alone resting on the Father’s breast continually. Believing, then, in the all-perfect and most holy Triad, that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and calling the Father God and the Son God, we still confess in them not two Gods but one dignity of Godhead and one exact harmony of rule. The Father alone is Head over the whole universe entirely, and over the Son himself, and the Son is subordinate to the Father. But apart from the Father, the Son rules after him over all things that have come to be through himself, and grants the grace of the Holy Spirit unsparingly to the saints at the Father’s will. For this is the account of the divine Monarchy with regard to Christ that the sacred oracles have handed down to us.

“We have been compelled to set out all this at length, in addition to the faith we published before in brief. We have not done it for any officious display, but to clear away every unjust suspicion about our opinions among those who do not know our affairs. We want all in the West to know both how bold the slanders of those who teach otherwise are, and, as for the Easterners, their churchly mind in the Lord, to which the divinely inspired Scriptures bear witness without being forced, where people are not perverse.”

However, they did not hold even to this. Again they met together at Sirmium, against Photinus, and there composed a faith once more. It was not drawn out to such a length or so full of words. They took away the greater part and added other things in its place, as if they had listened to the suggestions of others, and they wrote as follows: [f]

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of all things, ‘from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.’

“And in his only Son, our Lord Jesus the Christ, who before all the ages was begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, through whom all things were made, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. He is Word and Wisdom and true Light and Life. In the last days he was made man for us, and was born of the holy Virgin, and was crucified and died and was buried, and rose again from the dead on the third day, and was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father. He is coming at the close of the age to judge the living and the dead, and to repay everyone according to his works. His kingdom never ceases, and endures to the infinite ages; for he will sit at the right hand of the Father not only in this age but also in the age to come.

“And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete. Having promised to the apostles to send him forth after his ascension into heaven, to teach them and to remind them of all things, he did send him; and through him the souls of those who sincerely believe in him are made holy.

“1. But those who say that the Son was from nothing, or from some other hypostasis and not from God, and that there was a time or an age when he was not, the holy catholic church regards as strangers to it. 2. Again we say: whoever says that the Father and the Son are two Gods, let him be anathema. 3. And whoever, while saying that Christ is God, Son of God before the ages, does not confess that he served the Father in the making of the universe, let him be anathema. 4. Whoever presumes to say that the Unbegotten, or a part of him, was born of Mary, let him be anathema. 5. Whoever says that the Son is before Mary according to foreknowledge, and not that, begotten from the Father before the ages, he was with God, and that all things came into being through him, let him be anathema. 6. Whoever claims that the substance of God is widened or contracted, let him be anathema. 7. Whoever says that the substance of God, by being widened, made the Son, or calls the widening of his substance the Son, let him be anathema. 8. Whoever calls the Son of God the word held in the mind or the word spoken aloud, let him be anathema. 9. Whoever says that the Son from Mary is man only, let him be anathema. 10. Whoever, speaking of him who is from Mary, God and man, means by this the Unbegotten God, let him be anathema. 11. Whoever explains ‘I God am the first and I am the last, and besides me there is no God,’ which is said to deny idols and gods that do not exist, as a denial of the only Son, God before the ages, as the Jews do, let him be anathema. 12. Whoever, hearing ‘The Word was made flesh,’ thinks that the Word has changed into flesh, or says that he underwent alteration by taking flesh, let him be anathema. 13. Whoever, hearing that the only Son of God was crucified, says that his Godhead underwent corruption, or suffering, or alteration, or diminishing, or destruction, let him be anathema. 14. Whoever says that ‘Let us make man’ was not said by the Father to the Son, but by God to himself, let him be anathema. 15. Whoever says that Abraham saw, not the Son, but the Unbegotten God or a part of him, let him be anathema. 16. Whoever says that it was not the Son, as man, but the Unbegotten God or a part of him, who wrestled with Jacob, let him be anathema. 17. Whoever explains ‘The Lord rained fire from the Lord’ not of the Father and the Son, and says that he rained it from himself, let him be anathema. For the Son, being Lord, rained it from the Father, who is Lord. 18. Whoever, hearing that the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father and the Son are Lord, since there is Lord from Lord, says there are two Gods, let him be anathema. For we do not put the Son in the Father’s rank, but as subordinate to the Father. He did not come down upon Sodom without the Father’s will, nor did he rain fire from himself, but from the Lord, that is, by the Father’s authority. Nor does he sit at the right hand of his own accord; he hears the Father saying, ‘Sit at my right hand.’

“19. Whoever says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one person, let him be anathema. 20. Whoever, speaking of the Holy Spirit as Paraclete, means the Unbegotten God, let him be anathema. 21. Whoever denies what the Lord taught us, that the Paraclete is other than the Son, when he has said, ‘And the Father will send you another Paraclete, whom I will ask for,’ let him be anathema. 22. Whoever says that the Holy Spirit is part of the Father or of the Son, let him be anathema. 23. Whoever says that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three Gods, let him be anathema. 24. Whoever says that the Son of God came into being at the will of God, as one of the works, let him be anathema. 25. Whoever says that the Son was begotten without the Father wishing it, let him be anathema. For the Father did not beget the Son under compulsion, driven by natural necessity, as though he did not wish it. He at once willed it, and, having begotten him from himself apart from time and without suffering, made him known. 26. Whoever says that the Son is without beginning and unbegotten, as if speaking of two without beginning and two unbegotten, and so making two Gods, let him be anathema. For the Son is the Head, that is, the beginning of all things; and God is the Head, that is, the beginning of Christ. For in this way we reverently trace all things, through the Son, back to one beginning of the universe that itself has no beginning. 27. And to set out accurately the idea of Christianity, we say this again: whoever does not say that Christ is God, Son of God, as being before the ages and having served the Father in the making of the universe, but says that he was called Christ and Son only from the time he was born of Mary, and that he then took a beginning of being God, let him be anathema.”

Casting all this aside, as if they had discovered something better, they put forward another faith, and write at Sirmium in Latin what is translated here into Greek: [j]

“Since it seemed good that there should be some discussion about the faith, all points were carefully examined and discussed at Sirmium in the presence of Valens, Ursacius, Germinius, and the rest. It is held for certain that there is one God, the Father Almighty, as is also preached in all the world.

“And his one only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten from him before the ages. And we must not speak of two Gods, since the Lord himself has said, ‘I go to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.’ For this reason he is God of all, as the apostle also taught: ‘Is he God of the Jews only? Is he not of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God, who will count the circumcised righteous by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.’ And everything else agrees, and has no ambiguity.

“But many people are disturbed by questions about what is called in Latin substantia, but in Greek ousia, that is, to put it more exactly, about ‘of one substance’ or what is called ‘like in substance.’ So there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor any explanation of them in the church. The reason, and the consideration behind it, is that nothing is written about them in divine Scripture, and that they are beyond human knowledge and human understanding; and because no one can declare the Son’s begetting, as it is written, ‘Who will declare his generation?’ For it is plain that only the Father knows how he begot the Son, and again the Son how he was begotten by the Father.

“And it can be a question to no one that the Father is greater. For no one can doubt that the Father is greater in honor and dignity and Godhead, and in the very name of Father, since the Son himself testifies, ‘The Father who sent me is greater than I.’ And no one is unaware that it is catholic teaching that there are two persons, of the Father and of the Son, and that the Father is greater, and the Son subordinate to the Father together with all the things the Father has made subject to him. The Father has no beginning, and is invisible, immortal, and unable to suffer; but the Son has been begotten from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, and, as was said above, no one knows his origin except the Father alone.

“And the Son himself, our Lord and God, took flesh, that is, a body, that is, man, from Mary the Virgin, as the angel announced beforehand. As all the Scriptures teach, and especially the apostle himself, the teacher of the Gentiles, Christ took man from Mary the Virgin, and through that man he suffered. And the whole faith is summed up and made secure in this: that a Trinity must always be kept, as we read in the Gospel, ‘Go and baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The number of the Trinity is whole and complete. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, sent forth through the Son, came according to the promise, to teach and sanctify the apostles and all believers.”

After drawing this up, they became dissatisfied with it, and composed the faith which, to their shame, they paraded with “the Consulate.” Then, as their habit is, they condemned this one too, and had Martinian the notary seize it from those who held copies of it. And having got the emperor Constantius to put out an edict against it, they framed another statement of doctrine afresh, and with the addition of certain expressions, as their habit is, they wrote as follows in Isauria: [m]

“We do not decline to bring forward the authentic faith published at the Dedication at Antioch, although our fathers met at that time for a particular matter under investigation. But ‘of one substance’ and ‘like in substance’ have troubled many people in times past and up to this day, and moreover some are said recently to have invented the Son’s ‘unlikeness’ to the Father. On their account we reject ‘of one substance’ and ‘like in substance’ as foreign to the Scriptures, but ‘unlike’ we anathematize, and we count all who profess it as strangers to the church. And we plainly confess the ‘likeness’ of the Son to the Father, according to the apostle, who says of the Son, ‘who is the image of the invisible God.’

“And we confess and believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. And we believe also in our Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, begotten from him before all the ages in a way that involved no suffering, God the Word, God from God, only Son, light, life, truth, wisdom, power, through whom all things were made, in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible. We believe that at the end of the world, to do away with sin, he took flesh from the holy Virgin, and was made man, and suffered for our sins, and rose again, and was taken up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and is coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

“We believe also in the Holy Spirit, whom our Savior and Lord named Paraclete, when he promised to send him to the disciples after his own departure, as he did send him. Through him he sanctifies those in the church who believe and are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“But those who preach anything other than this faith the catholic church regards as strangers. And it is plain to all who read it that the faith published lately at Sirmium, with the sanction of His Piety the emperor, is equivalent to this faith.”

Having written this in Isauria, they went up to Constantinople, and there, as if dissatisfied, they changed it, as their habit is. With some small additions, against using even the word “hypostasis” of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they sent it to those at Ariminum. They forced even those in that region to sign it, and those who spoke against them they had banished by Constantius. And it runs like this: [o]

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, from whom are all things; And in the only Son of God, begotten from God before all ages and before every beginning, through whom all things were made, visible and invisible; begotten as only Son, alone from the Father alone, 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 acknowledge that he, the only Son of God, the Father sending him, came here from the heavens, as it is written, to undo sin and death. He was born of the Holy Spirit, of Mary the Virgin according to the flesh, as it is written, and lived among the disciples. And having carried out the whole plan of salvation according to the Father’s will, he was crucified and died and was buried, and went down to the regions below the earth, at whom Hades itself trembled. He also rose from the dead on the third day, and stayed with the disciples, and when forty days were completed was taken up into the heavens. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and is to come on the last day, the day of the resurrection, in the Father’s glory, to repay everyone according to his works.

“And in the Holy Spirit, whom the only Son of God himself, Christ, our Lord and God, promised to send to the human race as Paraclete, as it is written, ‘the Spirit of truth,’ and whom he sent to them when he had ascended into the heavens.

“But the word ‘substance,’ which was set down by the fathers in simplicity and gave offense because the people did not know it, since the Scriptures do not contain it, it has seemed good to abolish, and in future to make no mention of it at all, since the divine Scriptures have made no mention of the substance of the Father and the Son. Nor ought ‘hypostasis’ to be named with regard to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we say that the Son is like the Father, as the divine Scriptures say and teach. And all the heresies, both those already condemned before and any of more recent date, that are contrary to this published statement, let them be anathema.”

However, they did not hold even to this. Coming down from Constantinople to Antioch, they were dissatisfied that they had written at all that the Son was “like the Father, as the Scriptures say.” Putting their ideas on paper, they began to go back to their first doctrines, and said that “the Son is altogether unlike the Father,” and that “the Son is in no way like the Father.” And they changed so much as to admit those who spoke the Arian doctrine openly, and to hand the churches over to them, with license to bring forward the words of blasphemy without punishment. Because of the extreme shamelessness of their blasphemy, then, they were called Anomoeans by everyone. They also had the name of Exucontians, and the heretical Constantius as the patron of their impiety. He persisted in impiety to the end, and on the point of death thought fit to be baptized, not, however, by religious men, but by Euzoius. Euzoius had been deposed for his Arianism, not once but often, both when he was a deacon and when he held the see of Antioch. [q]

The parties I have named had gone this far when they were stopped and deposed. But I know well that not even under these circumstances will they stop, as many as have now played the hypocrite. They will always be forming parties against the truth, until they come to themselves and say, “Let us get up and go to our fathers, and we will say to them, ‘We anathematize the Arian heresy, and we acknowledge the Council of Nicaea.’” For that is what their quarrel is against. [s]

Who, then, with even a little understanding, will put up with them any longer? Who, hearing that at every council some things are taken away and others added, does not see that their mind is shifty and treacherous against Christ? Who, seeing them set out at such great length both their professions of faith and their own defense, does not see that they are passing sentence on themselves? They take pains to write a great deal which, by its officious display and flood of words, may lead the simple astray and hide what they are as heretics.

But just as the pagans, as the Lord said, gain nothing by using empty words in their prayers, so these men too, after all this outpouring, were not able to quench the judgment pronounced against the Arian heresy, but were convicted and deposed instead. And rightly. For which of their formulas is the hearer to accept? Or with what confidence will they instruct those who come to them to be taught? For if they all have one and the same meaning, what need is there of many? But if the need for so many has arisen, it follows that each one by itself falls short and is not complete. And they prove this point better than we can, by making innovations in them all and remaking them. And the number of their councils, and the differences between their statements, prove that those who were present at them, while at odds with the Council of Nicaea, are yet too feeble to harm the truth.