On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15–25

But after he was cast out, Arius, encouraged by Eusebius’s party, composed his heresy on paper; and as in a Thalia, emulating none of the wise but the Egyptian Sotades in the character and the looseness of his meter, he writes a great deal, and parts of it are these. Blasphemies of Arius. “God himself, as he is, is ineffable to all. He alone has none equal to him, none like him, none of like glory. We call him unbegotten because of the one who is begotten by nature; we praise him as without beginning because of the one who has come to be in time. The one without beginning set the Son as a beginning of originated things, and brought him forth as a Son for himself, making him his child. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence; for he is not equal to him, nor yet of the same essence with him. God is wise, since he himself is the teacher of wisdom. Sufficient proof that God is invisible to all: he is invisible both to those who are through the Son and to the Son himself. I will say expressly how the Invisible is seen by the Son: by the power by which God is able to see; and in his own measures the Son endures to see the Father, as is lawful. That is, there is a Triad with glories not alike; their hypostases are unmixed with one another; one is more glorious than the other in glories, to infinity. The Father is foreign to the Son in essence, because he exists without beginning. Understand that the Monad was, but the Dyad was not, before it came to exist. Accordingly, when the Son did not exist, the Father was God. Then the Son, not existing (but he came to exist by the Father’s will), is only-begotten God, and he is alien from both. Wisdom came to exist as wisdom by the will of the wise God. He is conceived in countless conceptions: Spirit, Power, Wisdom, Glory of God, Truth, and Image, and Word, he. Understand that he is conceived also as Radiance and Light. The Superior is able to beget one equal to the Son, but one more excellent, or superior, or greater, no. By God’s will the Son is of such age and such greatness as he is; from when, and from whom, and from that time he subsisted from God; being mighty God, he praises the Superior in part. To put it briefly, God is ineffable to the Son; for he is to himself what he is, that is, unspeakable; so that the Son does not comprehend how to express any of the things that are said. For it is impossible for him to search out the Father, who is by himself. For the Son himself does not know his own essence; for, being Son, he truly came to exist by the Father’s will. What reason, then, allows that he who is from the Father should know by comprehension the one who begot him? For it is plain that what has a beginning cannot conceive or grasp the one without beginning as he is.”

And what they wrote by letter to the blessed bishop Alexander is this: “… judge, governor, steward, unchangeable and unalterable, just and good, God of the Law and the Prophets and the New Testament; who begot an only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom he made both the ages and all things; who begot him not in appearance but in truth, causing him to subsist by his own will, unchangeable and unalterable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; an offspring, but not as one of the things begotten; not, as Valentinus taught, that the offspring of the Father is an emanation; nor, as the Manichee introduced, that the offspring is a part of the Father of the same essence; nor, as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, spoke of a Son-Father; nor, as Hieracas, a lamp from a lamp, or as a torch divided into two; nor that he who existed before was afterwards begotten or created anew as Son—as you yourself too, blessed pope, have very often forbidden in the midst of the church and in council those who introduced these things—but, as we say, created by the will of God before times and before ages, and having received life and being from the Father, the Father giving subsistence to his glories together with him. For the Father, in giving him the inheritance of all things, did not deprive himself of what he has unbegottenly in himself; for he is the source of all things. So there are three hypostases. And God, being the cause of all things, is without beginning, most utterly alone; but the Son, begotten timelessly by the Father, and created and founded before ages, was not before he was begotten, but, begotten timelessly before all things, he alone was caused to subsist by the Father. For he is not eternal, nor co-eternal, nor co-unoriginate with the Father; nor does he have his being together with the Father, as some speak of relatives, introducing two unbegotten principles; but as Monad and principle of all things, so God is before all things. Therefore he is also before the Son, as we have learned from you too, preaching in the midst of the church. Inasmuch, then, as he has being from God, and glories, and life, and all things have been delivered to him, in this respect God is his principle. For he rules over him, as being his God and before him. But if ‘from him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father and have come,’ are understood by some as a part of him of the same essence and as an emanation, the Father will be, according to them, composite and divisible and mutable and a body, and, so far as lies with them, the incorporeal God will suffer what follows on a body.” These are some parts of what Arius’s party vomited out of their heretical heart.

And before the council of Nicaea took place, Eusebius’s party too—Narcissus and Patrophilus and Maris, Paulinus and Theodotus, and Athanasius of Nazarba—wrote things like theirs. And Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote to Arius, to make the point even more strongly: “Since you think rightly, pray that all may think so; for it is plain to everyone that what has been made did not exist before it came to be; and what has come to be has a beginning of being.” And Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, writing to Euphration the bishop, did not fear to say openly that Christ is not true God. And Athanasius of Nazarba revealed the heresy still more nakedly, saying that the Son of God is one of the hundred sheep. For writing to Alexander the bishop, he dared to say this: “Why do you blame Arius’s party for saying, ‘The Son of God was made a creature from nothing, and is one of all things’? For since all things that have been made are compared to a hundred sheep, the Son too is one of them. If, then, the hundred are not creatures and originated, or there is something more than the hundred, then clearly let the Son not be a creature and one of all things either; but if the hundred are all originated, and there is nothing outside the hundred except God alone, what absurdity do Arius’s party utter if, including and counting Christ among the hundred, they have said that he is one of all things?” And George, who is now at Laodicea, and was then a presbyter of Alexandria staying at Antioch, wrote to Alexander the bishop: “Do not blame Arius’s party for saying, ‘There was once when the Son of God was not’; for Isaiah too became son of Amoz, and yet Amoz existed before Isaiah came to be, but Isaiah did not exist before, but came to be afterwards.” And to the Arians he wrote: “Why do you blame Alexander the pope for saying that the Son is from the Father? For you too need not fear to say that the Son is from God. For if the apostle wrote, ‘But all things are from God,’ and it is plain that all things were made from nothing, and the Son too is a creature and one of the things made, the Son too might be said to be from God, in the way that all things are said to be from God.” From him, then, those who hold the views of Arius learned to use the phrase “from God” hypocritically, and to say the phrase but not mean it rightly. George himself was deposed by Alexander for other reasons, and also because he was shown to be impious; for he was a presbyter, as has been said before.

And in general these men wrote such things as though each were striving and vying to see who would increase the impiety of the heresy more and display it more nakedly. Their letters I did not have at hand, so as to send them; otherwise I would have sent you copies of them too; but, the Lord willing, if I am able, I will do this as well. And one Asterius from Cappadocia, a many-headed sophist, one of Eusebius’s party, since he had sacrificed in the former persecution, under Constantius’s grandfather, and so could not be advanced by them to the clergy, composes, with the approval of Eusebius’s party, a little treatise, such as they themselves wanted, and equal to the daring of his sacrifice. For in it he compares the locust and the caterpillar with Christ, or rather prefers them to him, and says that there is another wisdom in God besides Christ, which created both Christ and the world; and with it he went round the churches in Syria and the others, with the commendation of Eusebius’s party, so that, having once practiced denial, he might now too be bold against the truth. The all-daring man went into places not permitted to him, and, sitting in the place of the clergy, read out his treatise publicly, though the others were indignant at him. The treatise is written at length; parts of it are these: “For the blessed Paul did not say that he preached Christ as his own power or his wisdom, that is, God’s, but, without the article, ‘power of God and wisdom of God’; preaching that the power proper to God himself, innate in him and coexisting with him unoriginately, is another—generative, plainly, of Christ, and creative of the whole world—concerning which he taught in the letter to the Romans, saying: ‘For his invisible things since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity.’ For as no one would say that the divinity spoken of there is Christ, but that it is the Father himself, so, I think, his eternal power too is not the only-begotten God, but the Father who begot him. But he teaches another power and wisdom of God, namely the one shown through Christ and made known through the very works of his ministry.” And again: “And yet his eternal power and wisdom, which the reasonings of truth show to be without beginning and unbegotten, would surely be one and the same; but many are the powers created by him one by one, of which Christ is firstborn and only-begotten; all, however, depend alike on their possessor, and all are rightly called powers of him who created and uses them. So the prophet says that the locust, sent by God as punishment for human sins, is called by God himself not only a power of God, but a great one; and the blessed David in several of the psalms … not angels …”

Having dared such things against the Savior, he was not content, but extends his blasphemies further, saying that the Son is one of all things: “For he is the first of originated things, and one of the intellectual natures; and as the sun among visible things is one of the things that appear, yet shines on the whole world at the command of its maker, so the Son, being one of the intellectual natures, also himself illumines and shines on all who are in the intellectual world.” And again he says, “There was once when he was not,” writing thus: “And before the generation of the Son, the Father had pre-existing knowledge of how to beget; since a physician too, before healing, had the knowledge of healing.” And again he says: “By beneficent zeal the Son was created, and by superabundance of power the Father made him”; and again: “If the will of God has passed through all the works in turn, then plainly the Son too, being a work, came to be and was made by will.” These things Asterius alone wrote; but Eusebius’s party held them in common with him.

These are the things for which they contend; for these they fight against the ancient council, because those who met at it did not write things like theirs, but rather anathematized the Arian heresy, which these men were eager to establish. That is why they put forward Asterius, the one who sacrificed, being a sophist, as advocate of their impiety, so that he might not spare either to speak against the Lord or to mislead the simple by plausible talk. And the ignorant men did not know that they were working this against themselves. For the stench of their advocate’s sacrifice to idols showed all the more that the heresy fights against Christ. That is why now too they stir everything up and make disturbances, thinking that if they kill more people and convene councils every month, the sentence against the Arian heresy will at last be done away with. But again they seem not to know—or, knowing, to pretend not to know—that even before Nicaea the heresy was abominable, when Artemas laid its foundation, and before him the council of Caiaphas and of the Pharisees of that time. And the Christ-fighting workshop is always abominable and will never cease to be hateful, since the Lord’s name is beloved, and all creation bends the knee and confesses “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Yet they have still not grown tired of holding council after council against the ecumenical one. For after the council of Nicaea Eusebius’s party were deposed; but after a time, shamelessly invading the churches, they began to plot against the bishops who opposed them and to install in the churches in their place men of their own heresy, so that they might hold councils whenever they wished, having those who would run along with them, whom they had chosen for this very purpose. They meet, then, in Jerusalem, and write this: “The holy council assembled in Jerusalem by the grace of God, to the church of God in Alexandria and to those throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid and Libya and the Pentapolis, and to the bishops and presbyters and deacons throughout the world: greeting in the Lord. When we who had come together from different provinces for the great festival which we celebrated at the dedication of the Savior’s Martyrium, built by the zeal of the most God-beloved emperor Constantine for God the King of all and for his Christ, the grace of Christ provided us with greater joy, which the most God-beloved emperor himself brought about by his own letters, urging us to do what was right: to banish all envy from the church of God and to drive all malice far away, by which the members of Christ had long been divided, and to receive with a single-hearted and peaceful soul Arius and those with him, whom envy, the hater of good, had for a time caused to be outside the church. And the most God-beloved emperor bore witness in his letter to the men’s correctness of faith, which he learned from them and accepted, having himself heard it from them by living voice, and which he made plain to us by appending to his own letter the men’s orthodoxy in writing; and we all recognized it as sound and ecclesiastical. And rightly he urged that the men be received and united to the church of God, as you yourselves will learn from the copies of that same letter, which we have sent on to your reverence. We believe that to you too it will be great joy and gladness, as you receive back the members of your own body and recognize and receive your own heart, and your own brothers and fathers—not only the presbyters with Arius being restored to you, but also all the people and the whole multitude that had for a long time been divided among you on account of the said men. And it is truly fitting, now that you know what has been done, and that the men have been admitted to communion and received by so great a holy council, that you too should most readily embrace union and peace with your own members, especially since the … of the faith set forth by them …”

This was the beginning of their councils, and in it they quickly made known their purpose and could not conceal it. For having said that all envy had been driven out, and, after Athanasius the bishop of Alexandria had been exiled, writing that Arius and those with him ought to be received, they showed that it was for this reason that they had plotted against Athanasius himself, and had plotted against all the other bishops who opposed them—in order to receive Arius’s party and bring the heresy into the church. And though in this council they praised all Arius’s perversity and ordered that they be received into communion, having first done this themselves, they nevertheless thought that something was still lacking for what they wanted, and so they convene a council at Antioch on the pretext of the so-called Dedication; and since they were always being accused by everyone concerning the heresy, they write in various ways, some things one way and others another. And what they wrote in one letter is this: “We have not become followers of Arius—for how should we, who are bishops, follow a presbyter?—nor have we received any other faith besides the one handed down from the beginning. Rather, having become examiners and testers of his faith, we admitted him rather than followed him; you will know this from what we say. For we have learned from the beginning to believe in one God, the God of all, the maker and provider of all things, both intellectual and sensible; and in one only-begotten Son of God, existing before all ages and coexisting with the Father who begot him, through whom all things came to be, both visible and invisible; who in the last days, by the good pleasure of the Father, came down and took flesh from the Virgin, and having fulfilled all his Father’s will, suffered and was raised and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father and is coming again to judge living and dead, and remains King and God to the ages. And we believe also in the Holy Spirit; … and if it is necessary to add it, we believe also concerning the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life.” [23] And what they set out in another letter, a second time at the same Dedication, having changed their minds about the former and devised some newer and fuller things, is this: “We believe, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolic tradition, in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker and creator and provider of all things, from whom are all things; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, the only-begotten God, through whom are all things, who was begotten before the ages from the Father, God from God, whole from whole, only from only, perfect from perfect, King from King, Lord from Lord, living Word, living Wisdom, true Light, Way, Truth, Resurrection, Shepherd, Door, unchangeable and unalterable, exact image of the Godhead and of the essence and will and power and glory of the Father, the firstborn of all creation, who was in the beginning with God, God the Word, as it is said in the Gospel, ‘and the Word was God,’ through whom all things came to be and in whom all things hold together; who in the last days came down from above and was born of a Virgin according to the Scriptures, and became man, mediator between God and men, and apostle of our faith, and author of life, as he says, ‘I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me’; who suffered for us and rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and is coming again with glory and power to judge living and dead. And in the Holy Spirit, who is given to those who believe for consolation and sanctification and perfection, as our Lord Jesus Christ also commanded the disciples, saying, ‘Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’—that is, of a Father who is truly Father, and a Son who is truly Son, and a Holy Spirit who is truly Holy Spirit, the names not being given simply or idly, but signifying exactly the proper hypostasis and order and glory of each of those named, so that they are three in hypostasis but one in agreement. Holding this faith, then, and holding it from the beginning to the end before God and Christ, we anathematize every heretical false doctrine. And if anyone teaches contrary to the sound and right faith of the Scriptures, saying that there either is or has been time or season or age before the Son was begotten, let him be anathema. And if anyone says that the Son is a creature as one of the creatures, or an offspring as one of the offspring, or a thing made as one of the things made, and not as the divine Scriptures have handed down each of the aforesaid; or if he teaches or preaches anything else than what we have received, let him be anathema. For we … all things from the divine Scrip…”

And one Theophronius, bishop of Tyana, also composed and set out this faith before them all, and all subscribed, accepting the man’s faith: “God knows, whom I call as witness upon my soul, that I believe thus: in God the Father Almighty, the creator and maker of all things, from whom are all things; and in his only-begotten Son, God, Word, Power and Wisdom, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, who was begotten from the Father before the ages, perfect God from perfect God, and who is with God in hypostasis; and in the last days came down and was born of the Virgin according to the Scriptures, became man, suffered, and rose from the dead, and ascended into the heavens, and sat down at the right hand of his Father, and is coming again with glory and power to judge living and dead, and remains to the ages. And in the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, whom God also promised through the prophet to pour out on his servants, and whom the Lord promised to send to his disciples, and sent, as the Acts of the Apostles bear witness. And if anyone teaches, or holds in himself, anything contrary to this faith, let him be anathema; and if anyone holds the views of Marcellus of Ancyra, or Sabellius, or Paul of Samosata, let him be anathema, both he and all who are in communion with him.”

The bishops assembled at the Dedication were ninety, in the consulship of Marcellinus and Probinus, in the fourteenth indiction, Constantius, the most impious, being present there. Having done these things at Antioch at the Dedication, and thinking that they had not written completely, and having a wandering mind, they again compose, a few months later, another paper, supposedly about faith, and send Narcissus, Maris, Theodore, and Mark to Gaul. And these, as men sent from a council, delivered to Constans Augustus of blessed memory and to all there the following: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator and maker of all things, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named; and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten from the Father before all the ages, God from God, Light from Light, through whom all things came to be in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible; who is Word and Wisdom and Power and Life and true Light; who in the last days became man for us and was born of the holy Virgin; who was crucified and died and was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, and was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and is coming at the consummation of the age to judge living and dead and to render to each according to his works; whose kingdom, being indissoluble, remains to the infinite ages. For he will be sitting 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, whom, having promised him to the apostles, he sent after his ascent into heaven to teach them and to remind them of all things; through whom also the souls of those who have sincerely believed in him will be sanctified. But those who say that the Son is from nothing, or from another hypostasis and not from God, and that there was a time when he was not, the catholic church knows as aliens.”