Section 523
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COUNCIL OF NICE. 41 D. Letter of Eusebius^ Bishop of Nicomedia, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre. To my Lord Paulinus, Eusebius greeting in the Lord. The zeal of my Lord Eusebius for the truth has not been con cealed, but has reached even to us, nor has your silence, my Lord, on the same subject, been unnoticed. We naturally rejoiced on account of my Lord Eusebius, but were grieved much by your reserve, considering the silence of so eminent a man as our own defeat. Wherefore, I exhort you, knowing as you do, how unbe coming it is in a wise man to think differently from others, and yet to suppress the truth, to exert your mental faculties, and commence writing on this subject, which would be useful both to yourself and your hearers, especially if you follow in the footsteps of scripture, and endeavor to write according to its words and meaning. We have never heard, my Lord, of two beings unbegotten, nor of one divided into two ; nor have we learnt or be lieved that he could suffer any thing corporeal, but that there is one unbegotten, and another truly from him, and not made of his substance, by no means partaking of his nature, nor being of his substance, but altogether differing in nature and in power, yet made in the perfect likeness of the nature and power of his Crea tor. We believe not only that his origin cannot be explained in words, but that it cannot be comprehended, we will not say by the understanding of man only, but by that of any beings supe rior to man. And we say this, not from our own reasonings, but instructed by the scriptures. That he is created and established, and begotten in the substance, (yewrjTov rr/ ovcna,) in an immutable ancT inexplicable nature, and in the resemblance which he bears to his Maker, we learn from the very words of the Lord, who says — " God created me in the beginning of his ways, and form ed me before the world, and begat me before all the hills." If