Introduction to in Illud ‘Omnia,’ Etc.
Deposition of Arius
S. Alexander’s Deposition of Arius and His Companions, and Encyclical Letter on the Subject.
Alexander, being assembled with his beloved brethren, the Presbyters and Deacons of Alexandria, and the Mareotis, greets them in the Lord.
Although you have already subscribed to the letter I addressed to Arius and his fellows, exhorting them to renounce his impiety, and to submit themselves to the sound Catholic Faith, and have shewn your right-mindedness and agreement in the doctrines of the Catholic Church: yet forasmuch as I have written also to our fellow-ministers in every place concerning Arius and his fellows, and especially since some of you, as the Presbyters Chares and Pistus , and the Deacons Serapion, Parammon, Zosimus, and Irenaeus, have joined Arius and his fellows, and been content to suffer deposition with them, I thought it needful to assemble together you, the Clergy of the city, and to send for you the Clergy of the Mareotis, in order that you may learn what I am now writing, and may testify your agreement thereto, and give your concurrence in the deposition of Arius, Pistus, and their fellows. For it is desirable that you should be made acquainted with what I write, and that each of you should heartily embrace it, as though he had written it himself.
A Copy.
To his dearly beloved and most honoured fellow-ministers of the Catholic Church in every place. Alexander sends health in the Lord.
1. As there is one body of the Catholic Church, and a command is given us in the sacred Scriptures to preserve the bond of unity and peace, it is agreeable thereto. that we should write and signify to one another whatever is done by each of us individually; so that whether one member suffer or rejoice, we may either suffer or rejoice with one another. Now there are gone forth in this diocese, at this time, certain lawless men, enemies of Christ, teaching an apostasy, which one may justly suspect and designate as a forerunner of Antichrist. I was desirous to pass such a matter by without notice, in the hope that perhaps the evil would spend itself among its supporters, and not extend to other places to defile the ears of the simple . But seeing that Eusebius, now of Nicomedia, who thinks that the government of the Church rests with him, because retribution has not come upon him for his desertion of Berytus, when he had cast an eye of desire on the Church of the Nicomedians, begins to support these apostates, and has taken upon him to write letters every where in their behalf, if by any means he may draw in certain ignorant persons to this most base and antichristian heresy; I am therefore constrained, knowing what is written in the law, no longer to hold my peace, but to make it known to you all; that you may understand who the apostates are, and the cavils which their heresy has adopted, and that, should Eusebius write to you, you may pay no attention to him, for he now desires by means of these men to exhibit anew his old malevolence , which has so long been concealed, pretending to write in their favour, while in truth it clearly appears, that he does it to forward his own interests.
2. Now those who became apostates are these, Arius, Achilles, Aeithales, Carpones, another Arius, and Sarmates, sometime Presbyters: Euzoius, Lucius, Julius, Menas, Helladius, and Gaius, sometime Deacons: and with them Secundus and Theonas, sometime called Bishops. And the novelties they have invented and put forth contrary to the Scriptures are these following :—God was not always a Father , but there was a time when God was not a Father. The Word of God was not always, but originated from things that were not; for God that is, has made him that was not, of that which was not; wherefore there was a time when He was not; for the Son is a creature and a work. Neither is He like in essence to the Father; neither is He the true and natural Word of the Father; neither is He His true Wisdom ; but He is one of the things made and created, and is called the Word and Wisdom by an abuse of terms, since He Himself originated by the proper Word of God, and by the Wisdom that is in God, by which God has made not only all other things but Him also. Wherefore He is by nature subject to change and variation as are all rational creatures. And the Word is foreign from the essence of the Father, and is alien and separated therefrom. And the Father cannot be described by the Son, for the Word does not know the Father perfectly and accurately, neither can He see Him perfectly. Moreover, the Son knows not His own essence as it really is; for He is made for us, that God might create us by Him, as by an instrument; and He would not have existed, had not God wished to create us. Accordingly, when some one asked them, whether the Word of God can possibly change as the devil changed, they were not afraid to say that He can; for being something made and created, His nature is subject to change.
3. Now when Arius and his fellows made these assertions, and shamelessly avowed them, we being assembled with the Bishops of Egypt and Libya, nearly a hundred in number, anathematized both them and their followers. But Eusebius and his fellows admitted them to communion, being desirous to mingle falsehood with the truth, and impiety with piety. But they will not be able to do so, for the truth must prevail; neither is there any “communion of light with darkness,” nor any “concord of Christ with Belial .” For who ever heard such assertions before ? or who that hears them now is not astonished and does not stop his ears lest they should be defiled with such language? Who that has heard the words of John, “In the beginning was the Word ,” will not denounce the saying of these men, that “there was a time when He was not?” Or who that has heard in the Gospel, “the Only-begotten Son,” and “by Him were all things made ,” will not detest their declaration that He is “one of the things that were made.” For how can He be one of those things which were made by Himself? or how can He be the Only-begotten, when, according to them, He is counted as one among the rest, since He is Himself a creature and a work? And how can He be “made of things that were not,” when the Father saith, “My heart hath uttered a good Word,” and “Out of the womb I have begotten Thee before the morning star ?” Or again, how is He “unlike in substance to the Father,” seeing He is the perfect “image” and “brightness ” of the Father, and that He saith, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ?” And if the Son is the “Word” and “Wisdom” of God, how was there “a time when He was not?” It is the same as if they should say that God was once without Word and without Wisdom . And how is He “subject to change and variation,” Who says, by Himself, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ,” and “I and the Father are One ;” and by the Prophet, “Behold Me, for I am, and I change not ?” For although one may refer this expression to the Father, yet it may now be more aptly spoken of the Word, viz., that though He has been made man, He has not changed; but as the Apostle has said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” And who can have persuaded them to say, that He was made for us, whereas Paul writes, “for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things ?”
4. As to their blasphemous position that “the Son knows not the Father perfectly,” we ought not to wonder at it; for having once set themselves to fight against Christ, they contradict even His express words, since He says, “As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father .” Now if the Father knows the Son but in part, then it is evident that the Son does not know the Father perfectly; but if it is not lawful to say this, but the Father does know the Son perfectly, then it is evident that as the Father knows His own Word, so also the Word knows His own Father Whose Word He is.
5. By these arguments and references to the sacred Scriptures we frequently overthrew them; but they changed like chameleons , and again shifted their ground, striving to bring upon themselves that sentence, “when the wicked falleth into the depth of evils, he despiseth .” There have been many heresies before them, which, venturing further than they ought, have fallen into folly ; but these men by endeavouring in all their cavils to overthrow the Divinity of the Word, have justified the other in comparison of themselves, as approaching nearer to Antichrist. Wherefore they have been excommunicated and anathematized by the Church. We grieve for their destruction, and especially because, having once been instructed in the doctrines of the Church, they have now sprung away. Yet we are not greatly surprised, for Hymenaeus and Philetus did the same, and before them Judas, who followed the Saviour, but afterwards became a traitor and an apostate. And concerning these same persons, we have not been left without instruction; for our Lord has forewarned us; “Take heed lest any man deceive you: for many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and the time draweth near, and they shall deceive many: go ye not after them ;” While Paul, who was taught these things by our Saviour, wrote that “in the latter times some shall depart from the sound faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, which reject the truth .”
6. Since then our Lord and Saviour Jesus, Christ has instructed us by His own mouth, and also hath signified to us by the Apostle concerning such men, we accordingly being personal witnesses of their impiety, have anathematized, as we said, all such, and declared them to be alien from the Catholic Faith and Church. And we have made this known to your piety, dearly beloved and most honoured fellow-ministers, in order that should any of them have the boldness to come unto you, you may not receive them, nor comply with the desire of Eusebius, or any other person writing in their behalf. For it becomes us who are Christians to turn away from all who speak or think any thing against Christ, as being enemies of God, and destroyers of souls; and not even to “bid such God speed ,” lest we become partakers of their sins, as the blessed John hath charged us. Salute the brethren that are with you. They that are with me salute you.
Introduction to Epistola Eusebii
The letter which follows, addressed by Eusebius of Caesarea to his flock, upon the conclusion of the great Synod, is appended by Athanasius to his defense of the Definition of Nicaea (de Decretis), written about a.d. 350. It is, however, inserted here in the present edition, partly in accordance with the chronological principle of arrangement, but principally because it forms the fittest introduction to the series of treatises which follow. Along with the account of Eustathius in Theodoret H. E. i. 8, and that given by Eusebius, in his life of Constantine (vol. I. pp. 521–526 of this series), it forms one of our most important authorities for the proceedings at Nicae, and the only account we have dating from the actual year of the Council. It is especially important as containing the draft Creed submitted to the Council by Eusebius, and the revised form of it eventually adopted. The former, which contained (in the first paragraph of §3, from ‘We believe’ down to ‘One Holy Ghost’) the traditional Creed of the Church of Caesarea, which Eusebius had professed at his baptism, was laid by him before the Council, and approved: but at the Emperor’s suggestion the single word omoousion was inserted (not by ‘the majority’ as distinct from the Emperor, as stated by Swainson, Creeds, p. 65). This modification opened the door for others, which eventually resulted in the Creed given in §4. It is not altogether easy to reconcile this account with that given by Athanasius himself (below de Decr. 19, 20, Ad Afr. 5), according to which the Council were led to insist on the insertion of the omoousion by the evasions with which the Arian bishops met every other test that was propounded, signalling to each other by nods winks and gestures, as each Scriptural attribute of the Son was enumerated, that this also could be accepted in an Arian sense. probably (see Prolegg. ch. ii. §3(1) note 5) the discussions thus described came first (cp. Sozom. i. 17): then Eusebius of Nicomedia presented the document which was indignantly torn up: then came the Confession of Eusebus of Caesarea, which was adopted as the basis of the Creed finally issued. In any case the Emperor’s suggestion of the insertion of omoousion must have been prompted by others, most likely by Hosius (Hist. Ar. 42, Cf. Hort, Two Dissertations, p. 58. Gwatkin, Studies, pp. 44, 45, puts the scene described by Athanasius during the debate upon the final adoption of the Creed).
The translation which follows, with the notes and Excursus A, is the unaltered work of Newman (Library of the Fathers, vol. 8, pp. 59–72), except that the word ‘essense’ (for ousia), as throughout this volume, has been substituted for ‘substance,’ and the translation of genhto" by ‘generate’ altered wherever it occurs, as explained in the preface. Additions by the editor of this volume are here as elsewhere included in square brackets.
Council of Nicaea
Letter of Eusebius of Coesarea to the people of his Diocese .
1. What was transacted concerning ecclesiastical faith at the Great Council assembled at Nicaea, you have probably learned, Beloved, from other sources, rumour being wont to precede the accurate account of what is doing. But lest in such reports the circumstances of the case have been misrepresented, we have been obliged to transmit to you, first, the formula of faith presented by ourselves, and next, the second, which [the Fathers] put forth with some additions to our words. Our ownpaper, then, which was read in the presence of our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable, ran thus:—
2. “As we have received from the Bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and when we received the Holy Layer, and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this :”—3. “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, by 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 the 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 nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost .” Concerning Whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematizing 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 witness, being able by proofs to shew and to convince you, that, even in times past, such has been our belief and preaching.”
4. On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox statements. He confessed moreover that such were his own sentiments, and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word, One-in-essence, 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; but they, with a view to the addition of One in essence, drew up the following formula:—
The Faith dictated in the Council.
“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 essence of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten not made, One in essence 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.”
“And those who say, ‘Once He was not,’ and ‘Before His generation He was not,’ and ‘He came to be from nothing,’ or those who pretend that the Son of God is ‘Of other subsistence or essence ,’ or ‘created’ or ‘alterable,’ or ‘mutable,’ the Catholic Church anathematizes.”
5. On their dictating this formula, we did not let it pass without inquiry in what sense they introduced “of the essence of the Father,” and “one in essence 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 essence” 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 essence . On this account we assented to the sense ourselves, without declining even the term “One in essence,” peace being the object which we set before us, and stedfastness in the orthodox view.
6. 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. Wherefore, say they, He was not a work resembling the things which through Him came to be , but was of an essence which is too high for 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 incalculable to every originated nature.
7. And so too on examination there are grounds for saying that the Son is “one in essence” with the Father; not in the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He is not such by division of essence, or by severance no nor by any affection, or alteration, or changing of the Father’s essence and power (since from all such the unoriginate nature of the Father is alien), but because “one in essence with the Father” suggests that the Son of God bears no resemblance to the originated creatures, but that to His Father alone Who begat Him is He in every way assimilated, and that He is not of any other subsistence and essence, 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 “one in essence,” in their theological teaching concerning the Father and Son.
8. So much then be said concerning the faith which was published; to which all of us assented, not without inquiry, but according to the specified senses, mentioned before the most religious Emperor himself, and justified by thee forementioned considerations. And as to the anathematism published by them at the end of the Faith, it did not pain us, because it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from which almost all the confusion and disorder of the Church have 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.
9. Moreover to anathematize “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 .
10. Nay, our most religious Emperor did at the time prove, in a speech, that He was in being even according to His divine generation which is before all ages, since even before He was generated in energy, 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 being always in the same respects and in the same way.
11. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberation 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 pained us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves have professed in the faith which we have already published.
On the meaning of the phrase ex etera" upostasew" housia" in the Nicene Anathema.
Bishop Bull has made it a question, whether these words in the Nicene Creed mean the same thing, or are to be considered distinct from each other, advocating himself the latter opinion against Petavius. The history of the word upostasi" is of too intricate a character to enter upon here; but a few words may be in place in illustration of its sense as it occurs in the Creed, and with reference to the view taken of it by the great divine, who has commented on it.
Bishop Bull, as I understood him (Defens. F. N. ii. 9. §II.), considers that two distinct ideas are intended by the words ousia and upostasi", in the clause ex etera" upostasew" h ousia"; as if the Creed condemned those who said that the Son was not from the Father’s essence, and those also who said that He was not from the Father’s hypostasis or subsistence; as if a man might hold at least one of the two without holding the other. And in matter of fact, he does profess to assign two parties of heretics, who denied this or that proposition respectively.
Petavius, on the other hand (de Trin. iv. I.), considers that the word upostasi" is but another term for ousia, and that not two but one proposition is contained in the clause in question; the word upostasi" not being publicly recognised in its present meaning till the Council of Alexandria, in the year 362. Coustant. (Epist. Pont. Rom. pp. 274. 290. 462.) Tillemont (Memoires S. Denys. d’Alex. §15.), Huet (Origenian. ii. 2. n. 3.), Thomassin (de Incarn. iii. I.), and Morinus (de Sacr. Ordin. ii. 6.), take substantially the same view; while Maranus (Proef. ad S. Basil. §I. tom. 3. ed. Bened.), Natalis Alexander, Hist. (Saec. I. Diss. 22. circ. fin.), Burton (Testimonies to the Trinity, No. 71), and [Routh] (Reliqu. Sacr. vol. iii. p. 189.), differ from Petavius, if they do not agree with Bull.
Bull’s principal argument lies in the strong fact, that S. Basil expressly asserts, that the Council did mean the two terms to be distinct, and this when he is answering the Sabellians, who grounded their assertion that there was but one upostasi", on the alleged fact that the Council had used ousia and upostasi" indifferently.
Bull refers also to Anastasius Hodeg. 21. (22. p. 343. ?) who says, that the Nicene Fathers defined that there are three hypostases or Persons in the Holy Trinity. Petavius considers that he derived this from Gelasius of Cyzicus, a writer of no great authority; but, as the passage occurs in Anastasius, they are the words of Andrew of Samosate. But what is more important, elsewhere Anastasius quotes a passage from Amphilochius to something of the same effect. c. 10. p. 164. He states it besides himself, c. 9. P. 150. and c. 24. p. 364. In addition, Bull quotes passages from S. Dionysius of Alexandria, S. Dionysius of Rome (vid. below, de Decr. 25—27 and notes), Eusebius of Caesarea, and afterwards Origen; in all of which three hypostases being spoken of, whereas antiquity, early or late, never speaks in the same way of three ousiai, it is plain that upostasi" then conveyed an idea which ousia did not. To these may be added a passage in Athanasius, in Illud, Omnia, §6.
Bishop Bull adds the following explanation of the two words as they occur in the Creed: he conceives that the one is intended to reach the Arians, and the other the Semi-arians; that the Semi-arians did actually make a distinction between ousia and upostasi", admitting in a certain sense that the Son was from the upostasi" of the Father, while they denied that He was from His ousia. They then are anathematized in the words ex etera" ousia"; and, as he would seem to mean, the Arians in the ex etera" uposrasew".
Now I hope it will not be considered any disrespect to so great an authority, if I differ from this view, and express my reasons for doing so.
1. First then, supposing his account of the Semi-arian doctrine ever so free from objection, granting that they denied the ex ousia", and admitted the ex upostasew", yet who are they who, according to his view, denied the ez upostasew", or said that the Son was ex etera" upostasew"? he does not assign any parties, though he implies the Arians. Yet though, as is notorious, they denied the ez ousia", there is nothing to shew that they or any other party of Arians maintained specifically that the Son was not [from] the upostasi", or subsistence of the Father. That is, the hypothesis supported by this eminent divine does not answer the very question which it raises. It professes that those who denied the ex upostasew", were not the same as those who denied the ez ousia"; yet it fails to tell us who did deny the ez upostasew", in a sense distinct from ex ousia".
2. Next, his only proof that the Semi-arians did hold the ex upostasew" as distinct from the ex ousia", lies in the circumstance, that the three (commonly called) Semi-arian confessions of a.d. 341, 344, 351, known as Mark’s of Arethusa [i.e. the ‘fourth Antiochene’], the Macros-tich, and the first Sirmian, anathematize those who say that the Son is ex etera" upostasew", not anathematizing the kai mh ek tou qeou, which he thence infers was their own belief. Another explanation of this passage will be offered presently; meanwhile, it is well to observe, that Hilary, in speaking of the confession of Philippopolis which was taken from Mark’s, far from suspecting that the clause involved an omission, defends it on the ground of its retaining the Anathema (de Synod. 35.), thus implying that ex etera" upostasew" kai mh ek tou qeou was equivalent to ex etepa" upostasew" upostasew" h ousia". And it may be added, that Athanasius in like manner, in his account of the Nicene Council (de Decret. §20. fin.), when repeating its anathema, drops the ex upostasew" altogether, and reads tou" de legonta" ex ouk ontwn,....h poihma, h ex etera" ousia", toutou" anaqematizei k. t. l.
3. Further, Bull gives us no proof whatever that the Semi-arians did deny the ex ousia"; while it is very clear, if it is right to contradict so great a writer, that most of them did not deny it. He says that it is “certissimum” that the heretics who wrote the three confessions above noticed, that is, the Semi-arians, “nunguam fassos, nunquam fassuros fuisse filium ex ousia", e substantia, Patris progenitum.” His reason for not offering any proof for this naturally is, that Petavius, with whom he is in controversy, maintains it also, and he makes use of Petavius’s admission against himself. Now it may seem bold in a writer of this day to differ not only with Bull, but with Petavius; but the reason for doing so is simple; it is because Athanasius asserts the very thing which Petavius and Bull deny, and Petavius admits that he does; that is, he allows it by implication when he complains that Athanasius had not got to the bottom of the doctrine of the Semi-arians, and thought too favourably of them. “Horum Semi-arianorum, quorum antesignanus fuit Basilius Ancyrae episcopus, prorsus obscura fuit heresis.. …ut ne ipsc quidem Athanasius satis illam exploratam habuerit.” de Trin. i. x. §7.
Now S. Athanasius’s words are most distinct and express; “As to those who receive all else that was defined at Nicaea, but dispute about the ‘One in essence’ only, we must not feel as towards enemies.… for, as confessing that the Son is from the essence of the leather and not of other subsistence, ek th" ousia" tou patro" einai, kai mh ex etera" upostasew" ton uion, …they are not far from receiving the phrase ‘One in essence’ also. Such is Basil of Ancyra, in what he has written about the faith” de Syn. §41;—a passage, not only express for the matter in hand, but remarkable too, as apparently using upostasi" and ousia as synonymous, which is the main point which Bull denies. What follows in Athanasius is equally to the purpose: he urges the Semi-arians to accept the omoousion, in consistency, because they maintain the ex ousia" and the omoiousion would not sufficiently secure it.
Moreover Hilary, while defending the Semi-arian decrees of Ancyra or Sirmium, says expressly, that according to them, among other truths, “non creatura est Filius genitus, sed a natura Parris indiscreta substantia est.” de Syn. 27.
Petavius, however, in the passage to which Ball appeals, refers in proof of this view of Semi-arianism, to those Ancyrene documents, which Epiphanius has preserved, Hoer. 73. and which he considers to shew, that according to the Semi-arians the Son was not ex ousia" tou patro". He says, that it is plain from their own explanations that they considered our Lord to be, not ek th" ousia", but ek th" omoiothto" (he does not say upostasew", as Bull wishes) tou patro" and that, energeia gennhtikh, which was one of the divine energeiai, as creation, hktistikh, was another. Yet surely Epiphanius does not bear out this representation better than Athanasius; since the Semi-arians, whose words he reports, speak of "uion omoion kai kat` ousian ek tou patro", p. 825 b, w" h sofou uio", ousia ousia", p. 853 c, kat ousian uion tou Qeou kai patro, p. 854 c, exousia omou kai ousia patro" monogenou" uiou. p. 858 d, besides the strong word gnhsio", ibid. and Athan. de Syn. §41. not to insist on other of their statements.
The same fact is brought before us even in a more striking way in the conference at Constantinople, a.d. 360, before Constantius, between the Anom‘ans and Semi-arians, where the latter, according to Theodoret, shew no unwillingness to acknowledge even the omoousion, because they acknowledge the ex ousia". When the Anomoeans wished the former condemned, Silvanus of Tarsus said, “If God the Word be not out of nothing, nor a creature, nor af other essence, o?¡as, therefore is He one in essence, omoousio", with God who begot Him, as God from God, and Light from Light, and He has the same nature with His Father.” H. E. ii. 23. Here again it is observable, as in the passage from Athanasius above, that, while apparently reciting the Nicene Anathema, he omits ex etera" upostasew", as if it were superfluous to mention a synonym.
At the same time there certainly is reason to suspect that the Semi-arians approximated towards orthodoxy as time went on; and perhaps it is hardly fair to determine what they held at Nicaea by their statements at Ancyra, though to the latter Petavius appeals. Several of the most eminent among them, as Meletius, Cyril, and Eusebius of Samosata conformed soon after; on the other hand in Eusebius, who is their representative at Nicaea, it will perhaps be difficult to find a clear admission of the ex ousia". But at any rate he does not maintain the ex upostasew", which Bull’s theory requires.
On various grounds then, because the Semi-arians as a body did not deny the ex ousia", nor confess the ex uposstasew", nor the Arians deny it, there is reason for declining Bishop Bull’s explanation of these words as they occur in the Creed; and now let us turn to the consideration of the authorities on which that explanation rests.
As to Gelasius, Bull himself does not insist upon his testimony, and Anastasius [about 700 a.d.] is too late to be of authority. The passage indeed which he quotes from Amphi-lochius is important, but as he was a friend of S. Basil, perhaps it does not very much increase the weight of S. Basil’s more distinct and detailed testimony to the same point, and no one can say that that weight is inconsiderable.
Yet there is evidence the other way which overbalances it. Bull, who complains of Petavius’s rejection of S. Basil’s testimony concerning a Council which was held before his birth, cannot maintain his own explanation of its Creed without rejecting Athanasius’s testimony respecting the doctrine of his contemporaries, the Semi-arians; and moreover the more direct evidence, as we shall see, of the Council of Alexandria, a.d. 362, S. Jerome, Basil of Ancyra, and Socrates.
First, however, no better comment upon the sense of the Council can be required than the incidental language of Athanasius and others, who in a foregoing extract exchanges ousia for upostasi" in a way which is natural only on the supposition that he used them as synonyms. Elsewhere, as we have seen, he omits the word h upostasew" in the Nicene Anathema, while Hilary considers the Anathema sufficient with that omission.
In like manner Hilary expressly translates the clause in the Creed by ex altera substantia vel essentia. Fragm. ii. 27. And somewhat in the same way Eusebius says in his letter, ex etera" tino" upostasew" te kai ousia".
But further, Athanasius says expressly, ad Afros,—“Hypostasis is essence, ousia, and means nothing else than simply being, which Jeremiah calls existence when he says,” &c. §4. It is true, he elsewhere speaks of three Hypostases, but this only shews that he attached no fixed sense to the word. [Rather, he abandons the latter usage in his middle and later writings.] This is just what I would maintain; its sense must be determined by the context; and, whereas it always stands in all Catholic writers for the Una Res (as the 4th Lateran speaks), which ousia denotes, when Athanasius says, “three hypostases,” he takes the word to mean ousia in that particular sense in which it is three, and when he makes it synonymous with ousia, he uses it to signify Almighty God in that sense in which He is one.
Leaving Athanasius, we have the following evidence concerning the history of the word upostasi". S. Jerome says, “The whole school of secular learning understanding nothing else by hypostasis than usia, essence,” Ep. xv. 4, where, speaking of the Three Hypostases he uses the strong language, “If you desire it, then be a new faith framed after the Nicene, and let the orthodox confess in terms like the Arian.”
In like manner, Basil of Ancyra, George, and the other Semi-arians, say distinctly, “This hypostasis our Fathers called essence,” ousia. Epiph. Hoer. 74. 12. fin.; in accordance with which is the unauthorized addition to the Sardican Epistle, "opostasin, hn autoi oi airetikoi ousian prosagoreuousi." Theod. H. E. ii. 6.
If it be said that Jerome from his Roman connection, and Basil and George as Semi-arians, would be led by their respective theologies for distinct reasons thus to speak, it is true, and may have led them to too broad a statement of the fact; but then on the other hand it was in accordance also with the theology of S. Basil, so strenuous a defender of the formula of the Three Hypostases, to suppose that the Nicene Fathers meant to distinguish upostasi" from ousia in their anathema.
Again, Socrates informs us that, though there was some dispute about hypostasis at Alexandria shortly before the Nicene Council, yet the Council itself “devoted not a word to the question,” H. E. iii. 7.; which hardly consists with its having intended to rule that ex etera" upostasew" was distinct from ex etera" ousia".
And in like manner the Council of Alexandria, a.d. 362, in deciding that the sense of Hypostasis was an open question, not only from the very nature of the case goes on the supposition that the Nicene Council had not closed it, but says so in words again and again in its Synodal Letter. If the Nicene Council had already used “hypostasis” in its present sense, what remained to Athanasius at Alexandria but to submit to it?
Indeed the history of this Council is perhaps the strongest argument against the supposed discrimination of the two terms by the Council of Nicaea. Bull can only meet it by considering that an innovation upon the “veterem vocabuli usum” began at the date of the Council of Sardica, though Socrates mentions the dispute as existing at Alexandria before the Nicene Council, H. E. iii. 4. 5. while the supposititious confession of Sardica professes to have received the doctrine of the one hypostasis by tradition as Catholic.
Nor is the use of the word in earlier times inconsistent with these testimonies; though it occurs so seldom, in spite of its being a word of S. Paul [i.e. Heb. i. 3], that testimony is our principal evidence. Socrates’ remarks deserve to be quoted; “Those among the Greeks who have treated of the Greek philosophy, have defined essence, ousia, in many ways, but they had made no mention at all of hypostasis. Irenaeus the Grammarian, in his alphabetical Atticist, even calls the term barbarous; because it is not used by any of the ancients, and if anywhere found, it does not mean what it is now taken for. Thus in the Phoenix of Sophocles it means an ‘ambush;’ but in Menander, ‘preserves,’ as if one were to call the wine-lees in a cask ‘hypostasis.’ However it must be observed, that, in spite of the old philosophers being silent about the term, the more modern continually use it for essence, ousia", H. E. iii. 7. The word principally occurs in Origen among Ante-Nicene writers, and he, it must be confessed uses it, as far as the context decides its sense, to mean subsistence or person. In other words, it was the word of a certain school in the Church, which afterwards was accepted by the Church; but this proves nothing about the sense in which it was used at Nicaea. The three Hypostases are spoken of by Origen, his pupil Dionysius, as afterwards by Eusebius of Caesarea (though he may notwithstanding have considered hypostasis synonymous with essence), and Athanasius (Origen in Joan. ii. 6. Dionys. ap. Basil de Sp. S. n. 72. Euseb. ap. Socr. i. 23. Athan. in Illud Omnia, &c. 6); and the Two Hypostases of the Father and the Son, by Origen, Ammonius, and Alexander(Origen c. Cels. viii. 2. Ammon. ap. Caten. in Joan. x. 30. Alex. ap. Theod. i. 3. P. 740). As to the passage in which two hypostases are spoken of in Dionysius’ letter to Paul of Samosata, that letter certainly is not genuine, as might be shewn on a fitting occasion, though it is acknowledged by very great authorities.
I confess that to my mind there is an antecedent probability that the view which has here been followed is correct. Judging by the general history of doctrine, one should not expect that the formal ecclesiastical meaning of the word should have obtained everywhere so early. Nothing is more certain than that the doctrines themselves of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation were developed, or, to speak more definitely, that the propositions containing them were acknowledged, from the earliest times; but the particular terms which now belong to them are most uniformly of a later date. Ideas were brought out, but technical phrases did not obtain. Not that these phrases did not exist, but either not as technical, or in use in a particular School or Church, or with a particular writer, or as apax legomena, as words discussed, nay resisted, perhaps used by some local Council, and then at length accepted generally from their obvious propriety. Thus the words of the Schools pass into the service of the Catholic Church. Instead then of the word upostasi" being, as Maran says, received in the East “summo consensu,” from the date of Noetus or at least Sabellius, or of Bull’s opinion “apud Catholicos Dionysii aetate ratum et fixum illud fuisse, tres esse in divinis hypostases,” I would consider that the present use of the word was in the first instance Alexandrian, and that it was little more than Alexandrian till the middle of the fourth century.
Lastly, it comes to be considered how the two words are to be accounted for in the Creed, if they have not distinct senses. Coustant supposes that ex ousia" was added to explain ex upostasew", lest the latter should be taken in a Sabellian sense. On which we may perhaps remark besides, that the reason why upostasi" was selected as the principal term was, that it was agreeable to the Westerns as well as admitted by the Orientals. Thus, by way of contrast, we find the Second General Council, at which there were no Latins, speaking of Three Hypostases, and Pope Damasus and the Roman Council speaking a few years sooner of the Holy Ghost as of the same hypostasis and usia with the Father and the Son. Theod. H. E. ii. I7. Many things go to make this probable. For instance, Coustant acutely points out, though Maran and the President of Magdalen [Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. 383] dissent, that this probably was a point of dispute between the two Dionysii; the Bishop of Alexandria asserting, as we know he did assert, Three Hypostases, the Bishop of Rome protesting in reply against “Three partitive Hypostases,” as involving tritheism, and his namesake rejoining, “If because there are Three Hypostases, any say that they are partitive, three there are, though they like it not.” Again, the influence of the West shews itself in the language of Athanasius, who, contrary to the custom of his Church, of Origen, Dionysius, and his own immediate patron and master Alexander, so varies his own use of the word, as to make his writings almost an example of that freedom which he vindicated in the Council of Alexandria. Again, when Hosius went to Alexandria before the Nicene Council, and a dispute arose with reference to Sabellianism about the words upostasi" and ousia, what is this too, but the collision of East and West? It should be remembered moreover that Hosius presided at Nicaea, a Latin in an Eastern city; and again at Sardica, where, though the decree in favour of the One Hypostasis was not passed, it seems clear from the history that he was resisting persons with whom in great measure he agreed. Further, the same consideration accounts for the omission of the ex ousia" from the Confession of Mark and the two which follow, on which Bull r in proof that the Semi-arians rejected this formula. These three Semi-arian Creeds, and these only, were addressed to the Latins, and therefore their compilers naturally select that synonym which was most pleasing to them, as the means of securing a hearing; just as Athanasius on the other hand in his de Decretis, writing to the Greeks, omits upostasew" and writes ousia".
Introduction to Expositio Fidei
The date of this highly interesting document is quite uncertain, but there is every ground for placing it earlier than the explicitly anti-Arian treatises. Firstly, the absence of any express reference to the controversy against Arians, while yet it is clearly in view in §§3 and 4, which lay down the rule afterwards consistently adopted by Athanasius with regard to texts which speak of the Saviour as created. Secondly, the untroubled use of omoto" (§I, note 4) to express the Son’s relation to the Father. Thirdly, the close affinity of this Statement to the Sermo Major de Fide which in its turn has very close points of contact with the pre-Arian treatises. But see Prolegg. ch. iii. §I (37).
If we are to hazard a conjecture, we may see in this "ekqesi"" a statement of faith published by Athanasius upon his accession to the Episcopate, a.d. 328. The statement proper (Hahn §119) consists of §1. §§2—4 are an explanatory comment insisting on the distinct Existence of the Son, and on His essential uncreatedness.
The translation which follows has been carefully compared with one made by the late Prof. Swainson in his work on the Creeds, pp. 73—76. Dr. Swainson there refers to a former ‘imperfect and misleading’ translation (in Irons’ Athanasius contra Mundum) which the present editor has not seen. Dr. Swainson expresses doubts as to the Athanasian authorship of the Ecthesis, but without any cogent reason. The only point of importance is one which acquaintance with the usual language of Athanasius shews to make distinctly in favour of, and not against, the genuineness of this little tract. Three times in the course of it the Human Body, or Humanity of the Lord is spoken of as o Kuriako" anqrwpu". Dr. Swainson exaggerates the strangeness of the expression by the barbarous rendering ‘Lordly man’ (How would he translate kuriakon deipnon?). But the phrase certainly requires explanation, although the explanation is not difficult. (1) It is quoted by Facundus of Hermiane from the present work (Def Tr. Cap. xi 5), and by Rufinus from an unnamed work of Athanasius (‘libellus’), probably the present one. Moreover, Athanasius himself uses the phrase, frequently in the Sermo Major de Fide, and in his exposition of Psalm xl. (xli.). Epiphanius uses it at least twice (Ancor. 78 and 95); and from these Greek Fathers the phrase (‘Dominicus Homo’) passed on to Latin writers such as Cassian and Augustine (below, note 5), who, however, subsequently cancelled his adoption of the expression (Retr. I. xix. 8). The phrase, therefore, is not to be objected to as un-Athanasian. In fact (2) it is founded upon the profuse and characteristic use by Ath. of the word anqrwpo" to designate the manhood of our Lord (see Orat. c. Ar. i. 4I, 45, ii. 45, note 2. Dr. Swainson appears unaware of this in his unsatisfactory paragraph p. 77, lines I4 and foll.). If the human nature of Christ may be called anqrwpo" (I Tim. ii. 5) at all, there is no difficulty in its being called o anqp. tou swthpo" (Serm. M. de F. 24 and 30), or kuriako" anqrwpo", a phrase equated with to [kuriakon] swma in Serm. M. de F. 19 and 28—31 (see also a discussion in Thilo Athan. Opp. Dogm. select. p. 2). This use of the word anqrwpo", if carelessly employed, might lend itself to a Nestorian sense. But Athanasius does not employ it carelessly, nor in an ambiguous context; although of course he might have used different language had he foreseen the controversies of the fifth century. At any rate, enough has been said to shew that its use in the present treatise does not expose its genuineness to cavil.
Statement of Faith
1. We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself. And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue ; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful (Heb. iv. 12), the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’ (Joh. v. 23): very God of very God, as John says in his general Epistles, ‘And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and everlasting life’ (I Joh. v. 20): Almighty of Almighty. For all things which the Father rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’ (Joh. xiv. 9). But He was begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly, for ‘who shall declare his generation?’ (Isa. liii. 8), in other words, no one can. Who, when at the consummation of the ages (Heb ix. 26), He had descended from the bosom of the Father, took from the undefiled Virgin Mary our humanity (anqpqton), Christ Jesus, whom He delivered of His own will to suffer for us, as the Lord saith: ‘No man taketh My life from Me. I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it again’ (Joh. x. 18). In which humanity He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning of waysfor us (Prov. viii. 22), when on earth He shewed us light from out of darkness, salvation from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was cast outq and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise’ (Luke xxiii. 43), into which Paul also once entered. [He shewed us] also a way up to the heavens, whither the humanity of the Lord , in which He will judge the quick and the dead, entered as precursor for us. We believe, likewise, also in the Holy Spirit that searcheth all things, even the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 10), and we anathe-matise doctrines contrary to this.
2. For neither do we hold a Son-Father, as do the Sabellians, calling Him of one but not of the same essence, and thus destroying the existence of the Son. Neither do we ascribe the passible body which He bore for the salvation of the whole world to the Father. Neither can we imagine three Subsistences separated from each other, as results from their bodily nature in the case of men, lest we hold a plurality of gods like the heathen. But just as a river, produced from a well, is not separate, and yet there are in fact two visible objects and two names. For neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father. For the Father is Father of the Son, and the Son, Son of the Father. For like as the well is not a river, nor the river a well, but both are one and the same water which is conveyed in a channel from the well to the river, so the Father’s deity passes into the Son without flow and without division. For the Lord says, ‘I came out from the Father and am come’ (Joh. xvi. 28). But He is ever with the Father, for He is in the bosom of the Father, nor was ever the bosom of the Father void of the deity of the Son. For He says, ‘I was by Him as one setting in order’ (Prov. viii. 30). But we do not regard God the Creator of all, the Son of God, as a creature, or thing made, or as made out of nothing, for He is truly existent from Him who exists, alone existing from Him who alone exists, in as much as the like glory and power was eternally and conjointly begotten of the Father. For ‘He that hath seen’ the Son ‘hath seen the Father (Joh. xiv. 9). All things to wit were made through the Son; but He Himself is not a creature, as Paul says of the Lord: ‘In Him were all things created, and He is before all’ (Col. i. 16). Now He says not, ‘was created’ before all things, but ‘is’ before all things. To be created, namely, is applicable to all things, but ‘is before all’ applies to the Son only.
3. He is then by nature an Offspring, perfect from the Perfect, begotten before all the hills (Prov. viii. 25), that is before every rational and intelligent essence, as Paul also in another place calls Him ‘first-born of all creation’ (Col. i. I5). But by calling Him First-born, He shews that He is not a Creature, but Offspring of the Father. For it would be inconsistent with His deity for Him to be called a creature. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten from the Father, whence God the Word is ‘first-born of all creation,’ unchangeable from unchangeable. However, the body which He wore for our sakes is a creature: concerning which Jeremiah says, according to the edition of the seventy translators (Jer. xxxi. 22): ‘The Lord created for us for a planting a new salvation, in which salvation men shall go about:’ but according to Aquila the same text runs: ‘The Lord created a new thing in woman.’ Now the salvation created for us for a planting, which is new, not old, and for us, not before us, is Jesus, Who in respect of the Saviour was made man, and whose name is translated in one place Salvation, in another Saviour. Butsalvation proceeds from the Saviour, just as illumination does from the light. The salvation, then, which was from the Saviour, being created new, did, as Jeremiah says, ‘create for us a new salvation,’ and as Aquila renders: ‘The Lord created a new thing in woman,’ that is in Mary. For nothing new was created in woman, save the Lord’s body, born of the Virgin Mary without intercourse, as also it says in the Proverbs in the person of Jesus: ‘The Lord created me, a beginning of His ways for His works’ (Prov. viii. 22). Now He does not say, ‘created me before His works,’ lest any should take the text of the deity of the Word.
4. Each text then which refers to the creature is written with reference to Jesus in a bodily sense. For the Lord’s Humanity was created as ‘a beginning of ways,’ and He manifested it to us for our salvation. For by it we have our access to the Father. For He is the way (Joh. xiv. 6) which leads us back to the Father. And a way is a corporeal visible thing, such as is the Lord’s humanity. Well, then, the Word of God created all things, not being a creature, but an offspring. For He created none of the created things equal or like unto Himself. But it is the part of a Father to beget, while it is a workman’s part to create. Accordingly, that body is a thing made and created, which the Lord bore for us, which was begotten for us , as Paul says, ‘wisdom from God, and sanctification and righteousness, and redemption;’ while yet the Word was before us and before all Creation, and is, the Wisdom of the Father. But the Holy Spirit, being that which proceeds from the Father, is ever in the hands of the Father Who sends and of the Son Who conveys Him, by Whose means He filled all things. The Father, possessing His existence from Himself, begat the Son, as we said, and did not create Him, as a river from a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen.
Introduction to in Illud ‘Omnia,’ Etc.
This memorandum or short article was written, as its first sentence shews, during the lifetime of Eusebius of Nicomedia, and therefore not later than the summer of a.d. 342. The somewhat abrupt beginning, and the absence of any exposition of the latter portion of the text, have led to the inference that the work is a fragment: but its conclusion is evidently perfect, and the opening words probably refer to the text itself. The tract is a reply to the Arian argument founded upon Luke x. 22 (Matt. xi. 27). If ‘all things’ had been delivered to the Son by the Father, it would follow that once He was without them. Now ‘all things’ include His Divine Sonship. Therefore there was a time when the Son was not. Athanasius meets this argument by totally denying the minor premise. By ‘all things,’ he argues, Christ referred to His mediatorial work and its glories, not to His essential nature as Word of God. He then adduces Joh. xvi. I5, to shew at once the Son’s distinctness from the Father, and that the Father’s attributes must also be those of the Son.
The interpretation of the main text given in this tract was not subsequently maintained by Athanasius: in Orat. iii. 35, he explains it of the Son, as safeguarding His separate personality against the Sabellians. It should, however, be noted that this change of ground does not involve any concession to the Arian use of the passage: it merely transfers the denial of Athanasius from their minor to their major premise.
Beyond the fact that the tract was written before 342 there is no conclusive evidence as to its date. But it is generally placed (Montfaucon, Ceillier, Alzog) before the ‘Encyclical,’ which was written in 339, and in several particulars it differs from the later anti. Arian treatises: perhaps then we may conjecturally place it about 335, i.e. before the first exile of the ‘Pope.’