Chapter 2.
Chapter 2.
4. And do thou, beloved, consider whether it be not so. If, the devil having sown their hearts with this perverseness, they are so confident in the truth of their reasonings, why do they not first clear themselves of the charge of heresy which lies against them? and then will come the time for them to criticise the definition of the Council. 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. For this, instead of exculpating the convict, rather increases his crime on the score of petulance and audacity. Why did not they find fault with the wording of the definition at the time when it was framed? but now when their first duty is to repeat after the Council those anathemas in which its creed ends, instead of this, they profess to have scruples as to the creed itself, and they find matter for a subterfuge in the fact, which no one denies, that the word “substance” is not in Scripture. Surely it is just that those who are under a charge should confine themselves to their own defence. While their own conscience is so unclean, they are not quite the men to quarrel with an act which in truth they do not understand. Rather, let them investigate the matter in a docile spirit, and, in order to learn what hitherto they had not known, let them cleanse their ears in the stream of truth and the doctrine of piety.
5. Now it happened to the Eusebians in the Nicene Council in this wise:—On their making a stand in behalf of their impiety, the assembled bishops, who were more or less three hundred in number, mildly and courteously called upon them to explain and defend themselves. Scarcely, however, did they begin to speak, when they pronounced their own condemnation, for one differed from another; then, perceiving the serious straits in which their heresy lay, they remained dumb, and by their silence confessed the disgrace which came upon them. On this the Bishops, after condemning the formulæ which they had devised, published against them the sound and ecclesiastical faith; and, whereas all subscribed it, the Eusebians subscribed it too in those very phrases, of which they are now complaining, (I mean, “Of the substance,” and “Consubstantial,”) professing that “the Son of God is neither creature nor work, nor in the number of things made from nothing, but that the Word is an Offspring from the substance of the Father.” And, what is strange indeed, Eusebius of Cæsarea in Palestine, who had refused the day before, yet afterwards subscribed, and sent to his church a letter, saying that this was the Church’s faith and the tradition of the Fathers; and thereby made it clear to all that his party were in error before, and were rashly contending against the truth. For, though he was ashamed at the moment to adopt these phrases, and excused himself to his Church in his own way, yet he certainly means to signify his acceptance of them, in that he does not in his Epistle deny the “One in substance,” and “Consubstantial.” And in this way he got into a difficulty; for, in excusing himself, he thereby was attacking the Arians, as if their stating that “the Son was not before His generation,” was their denial of His existence even before His birth in the flesh. And Acacius too knows this well, though he also through fear may pretend otherwise because of the times, and may deny the fact. Accordingly I have subjoined at the end of these remarks the letter of Eusebius, that thou mayst know from it the scanty regard shown by Christ’s enemies towards their own masters, and singularly by Acacius himself.
6. Are they not then committing a crime, in their very thought to gainsay the decree of so great and ecumenical a Council? are they not in transgression, when they dare to confront that good definition against Arianism, acknowledged, as it was, by those who had in the first instance taught them their impiety? And supposing, even after subscription, Eusebius and his did change again, and return like dogs to their own vomit[8] of impiety, then surely the present gainsayers do but deserve still greater detestation, for they are sacrificing their souls’ liberty to those, as the masters of their heresy, who are, as James has said, double-minded men, and unstable in all their ways,[9] 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 to be “the child of the devil,” and is the note of hucksters rather than of doctors. For, what our Fathers have of old delivered, this is really doctrine; and this 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 not to be called true doctors but charlatans. 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, 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.
7. And thus what Moses taught, that Abraham kept; and what Abraham kept, that Noe and Enoch acknowledged, discriminating pure from impure, and becoming acceptable to God. For Abel too in this way witnessed unto death, taught in the truths which he had learned from Adam, who himself had learned from the Lord, and He again, when He came in the last age for the abolishment of sin, said, I give no new commandment unto you.[10] Wherefore also the blessed Apostle Paul, who had learnt it from Him, when he is determining ecclesiastical duties, forbade that even deacons, not to say bishops, should be double-tongued;[11] and in his rebuke of the Galatians, he made a broad declaration, If any one 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 an Angel from Heaven should preach unto you any other gospel than that ye have received, let him be anathema.[12]
8. Thus the Apostle. If then truth lay, as the Eusebians afterwards said, otherwise than their subscription implied, the present men ought to anathematise them for subscribing; if on the other hand they subscribed to a truth, what ground have they of complaint against the great Council which imposed on them the subscription? But if they blame the Council’s act, yet let off those who took part in it, they are themselves too plainly the sport of every wind and wave, and are influenced by opinions, not their own, but of others, and being such, are as little trustworthy now as before, in what they allege. Rather let them cease to carp at what they understand not; lest so it be that, not knowing to discriminate, they at hazard call evil good and good evil, and think that bitter is sweet and sweet bitter. Doubtless their real desire is that doctrines which have already been judged wrong and have been reprobated should gain the ascendancy, and they make violent efforts to prejudice what was rightly defined. Nor is there reason for further explanation on our part or answer to their excuses, nor for further resistance on theirs, instead of acquiescence in what the leaders of their heresy subscribed; but since, from an extraordinary want of modesty, the present men perhaps hope to be able to advocate an impiety, which really is from the Evil One, with better success than those who went before them, therefore, though in my former letter written to thee, I have already argued at length against them, notwithstanding, I am ready now also to examine each of their separate statements, as I did those of their predecessors; for now not less than then their heresy shall be shown to have no soundness in it, but to be a doctrine of demons.[13]