Appendix : Letter of Eusebius of Cæsarea to the People of his Diocese
Appendix:
Letter of Eusebius of Cæsarea to the People of his Diocese
47. What was transacted concerning the Faith of the Church at the Great Council assembled at Nicæa, you have probably learned, Beloved, from other quarters, rumour being wont to precede the accurate account of what is doing. But lest in such reports the circumstances of the case should have been misrepresented to you, we have thought it necessary to transmit to you, first, the formula of faith presented by ourselves, and then, the second, which the Fathers put forth with some additions to our words. Our own formula then, which was read in the presence of our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable, ran thus:—
48. “As we have received from the Bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and when we received Holy Baptism, and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught when in the order of presbyters, and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this:—
Creed of Eusebius
“We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible.
“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Son Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, before all the ages begotten from the Father, through whom also all things were made; who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come again in glory to judge quick and dead.
“And we believe also in one Holy Ghost; believing each of These to be and to exist, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost; as also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the preaching, said, Go, teach all the nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.[76] Concerning whom we confidently affirm that so we hold and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and that we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematising every godless heresy. That this we have ever thought from our heart and soul, from the time we recollect ourselves, and now think and say in truth, before God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ do we bear witness, being able by proofs to show and to convince you that also in times past such was our belief and such our preaching.”
49. On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared to any one; but our most pious Emperor himself before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox statements. He confessed moreover, that such were his own sentiments, and he exhorted all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to the same, with the insertion of the single word, “Consubstantial,” which moreover he interpreted as not in the sense of the affections of bodies, nor as if the Son subsisted from the Father in the way of division or any severance; for that the immaterial, and intellectual, and incorporeal Nature could not be the subject of any corporeal affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And such were the theological remarks of our most wise and most religious Emperor; on which the Bishops, with a view to the addition of Consubstantial, drew up the following formula:—
Nicene Creed
“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, Only-begotten, that is, from the Substance of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things in earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and cometh to judge quick and dead.
“And in the Holy Ghost.
“But those who say, ‘Once He was not,’ and ‘Before His generation He was not,’ and ‘He came into being from nothing,’ or those who pretend that the Son of God is ‘Of other subsistence or substance,’ or ‘created,’ or ‘alterable,’ or ‘mutable,’ the Catholic Church anathematises.”
50. On their dictating this formula, we did not let it pass without inquiry in what sense they introduced “Of the substance of the Father,” and “consubstantial with the Father.” Accordingly questions and explanations took place, and the meaning of the words underwent the scrutiny of reason. And they professed, that the phrase “Of the substance” was indicative of the Son’s being indeed from the Father, yet without being as if a part of Him. And with this understanding we thought good to assent to the sense of such religious doctrine, teaching, as it did, that the Son was from the Father, not however a part of His substance. On this account we assented to this sense ourselves, without declining even the term “Consubstantial,” peace being the object which we set before us, and maintenance of the orthodox view.
51. In the same way we also admitted “Begotten, not made;” since the Council alleged that “made” was an appellative common to the other creatures which came to be through the Son, to whom the Son had no likeness. Therefore, it was said, He was not a work resembling the things which through Him came to be, but was of a substance which is above the level of any work, and which the Divine oracles teach to have been generated from the Father, the mode of generation being inscrutable and incomprehensible to every created nature.
52. And so too on examination there are grounds for saying, that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father; not in the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He is not consubstantial by division of substance, or by severance, no nor by any affection, or changing, or alteration of the Father’s substance and attributes (since from all such the ingenerate nature of the Father is alien), but because “consubstantial with the Father” suggests that the Son of God bears no resemblance to the creatures which have been made, but that He is in every way after the pattern of His Father alone who begat Him, and that He is not of any other subsistence and substance, but from the Father. To which term also, thus interpreted, it appeared well to assent; since we were aware that even among the ancients, some learned and illustrious bishops and writers have used the term “consubstantial” in their theological teaching concerning the Father and Son.
53. So much then be said concerning the Faith which has been published; to which all of us assented, not without inquiry, but according to the specified senses, mentioned in the presence of the most religious Emperor himself, and justified by the forementioned considerations. And as to the anathematism published by the Fathers at the end of the Faith, it did not trouble us, because it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from which almost all the confusion and disorder of the Church has come. Since then no divinely inspired Scripture has used the phrases, “Out of nothing,” and “Once He was not,” and the rest which follow, there appeared no ground for using or teaching them; to which also we assented as a good decision, since it had not been our custom hitherto to use these terms.
54. Moreover to anathematise “Before his generation He was not,” did not seem preposterous, in that it is confessed by all, that the Son of God was before the generation according to the flesh. Nay, our most religious Emperor did at the time prove in a speech, that even according to His divine generation which is before all ages, He was in being, since even before He was generated in act, He was in virtue with the Father ingenerately, the Father being always Father, as King always, and Saviour always, being all things in virtue, and having all things in the same respects and in the same way.
55. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberateness of our inquiry and assent, and how reasonably we resisted even to the last minute as long as we were offended at statements which differed from our own, but received without contention what no longer troubled us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves had professed in the Faith which we had already published.
[1] John 6:30
[2] John 11:47
[3] John 10:33
[4] Matt 4:23
[5] Heb 1:1
[6] Prov 18:1
[7] John 18:12
[8] Prov 26:11
[9] Jas 1:18
[10] 1 John 2:7
[11] 1 Tim 3:8
[12] Gal 1:9-8
[13] 1 Tim 4:1
[14] Deut 13:18; 14:1
[15] John 1:12
[16] Isa 40:28
[17] Ps 100:3
[18] Isa 66:2
[19] 1 Cor 8:6
[20] Jer 1:5
[21] Isa 66:2
[22] Isa 44:24
[23] Job 10:8; Ps 119:73
[24] Isa 49:5
[25] Ps 33:9
[26] Isa 1:2
[27] Matt 25:34
[28] Matt 21:23
[29] Matt 3:17
[30] Matt 11:27
[31] Heb 1:3
[32] Ps 36:9
[33] Bar 3:12
[34] Jer 2:13
[35] John 11:25; 14:6
[36] John 14:9
[37] Prov 8:22
[38] 1 Cor 2:8
[39] Heb 2:15
[40] 1 Cor 1:24
[41] John 1:14
[42] John 10:30
[43] John 14:9
[44] Prov 3:19
[45] Isa 48:13
[46] Ps 104:24
[47] Prov 3:19
[48] John 1:1-3
[49] Heb 1:1-2
[50] 1 Cor 8:6
[51] Col 1:12-16
[52] 1 Cor 8:6
[53] 2 Cor 5:17-18
[54] 1 Cor 8:6
[55] 1 Cor 11:7
[56] 2 Cor 4:11
[57] Acts 17:28
[58] Rom 8:35, 38
[59] Joel 2:25
[60] Exod 12:41
[61] Ps 46:7
[62] Prov 12:20
[63] Prov 28:22
[64] Deut 32:6
[65] Col 1:15
[66] Prov 8:25
[67] John 14:10, 11
[68] 1 John 1:5
[69] Luke 1:2
[70] John 14:10, 11
[71] John 14:9
[72] John 10:30
[73] Matt 6:9
[74] Gal 4:6
[75] Jer 13:23
[76] Matt 28:19