Against Auxentius (complete)

To the most beloved brothers remaining in the faith of the fathers and detesting the Arian heresy, the bishops and all the peoples: Hilary, your fellow servant in the Lord, eternal greeting.

The name of peace is indeed fair, and the idea of unity is beautiful; but who doubts that the only peace of the church and the Gospels is that which is Christ's? The peace that he spoke of to the apostles after the glory of his passion, that he entrusted as he departed as the pledge of his eternal commandment: this, most beloved brothers, we have taken care to seek when lost, to settle when disturbed, and to hold when found. But neither have the sins of our time deserved that we should become sharers or authors of this very peace, nor have the forerunners and ministers of the coming antichrist allowed it: who boast of their peace, that is, of the unity of their impiety, acting not as bishops of Christ but as priests of antichrist.

And lest we be accused of using reviling words against them, we do not keep silent about the cause of the public ruin, so that it may be unknown to no one. We know that there are many antichrists, as the apostle John also proclaims. For whoever has denied Christ such as he was preached by the apostles is antichrist. The proper meaning of the name antichrist is to be contrary to Christ. This is now brought about under the opinion of false piety; this is worked at under the appearance of gospel preaching: that the Lord Jesus Christ, while he is believed to be preached, is denied.

And first, we may pity the toil of our age and groan over the foolish opinions of the present times, in which human things are believed to be patrons of God, and labor is spent on protecting the church of Christ by worldly ambition. I beg you, bishops who believe yourselves to be such: what votes of support did the apostles use for preaching the Gospel? Helped by what powers did they preach Christ and bring almost all the nations from idols to God? Did they take some dignity from the palace when they sang a hymn to God in prison, among chains and after scourging? And did Paul, when he himself was a spectacle in the theater, gather a church for Christ by the king's edicts? Was he protected, I suppose, by the patronage of Nero, or Vespasian, or Decius, through whose hatred toward us the confession of the divine preaching flourished? They, supporting themselves by their own hands and work, meeting in upper rooms and secret places, traveling through villages and forts and almost all the nations by land and sea against the decrees of the senate and the edicts of kings: did they not, I suppose, have the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Or did the power of God not show itself plainly then against human hatred, when Christ was preached the more, the more his preaching was forbidden?

But now, alas! earthly votes commend the divine faith, and Christ is accused of lacking his own power, while ambition is won over to his name. The church terrifies with exiles and prisons, and compels belief in herself, she who was believed in amid exiles and prisons. She hangs on the favor of those who share her communion, she who was consecrated by the terror of persecutors. She puts priests to flight, she who was spread by priests put to flight. She boasts that she is loved by the world, she who could not have been Christ's unless the world had hated her. This the matter itself, which is before everyone's eyes and on everyone's lips, has proclaimed, by comparing the church once handed down to us with the church now ruined.

What it is that must no longer be unknown, I will briefly set out. According to the fullness pleasing to God, the times have been shortened. For their reckoning, circumscribed, is taught in the heavenly books; and we must have fallen into the very age of antichrist, by whose ministers, transforming themselves into an angel of light, he who is Christ is being abolished from the mind and conscience of almost all. For, so that the affirmation of error may be certain, an uncertain opinion of the truth is put first; and so the way may now be open for antichrist to deceive men that he is the Christ about whom there has until now been disagreement. Hence those various opinions; hence, under faith in one Christ, the preaching of many; hence lately the spirit of Arius, transfigured from an angel of the devil into an angel of light, whose whole inheritance has passed and flowed down to Valens, Ursacius, Auxentius, Germinius, and Gaius. For they have now brought in a new Christ, through whom antichrist might creep in.

For they want this Christ of theirs not to be of the divinity of which the Father also is, but to be a creature powerful and excelling the other creatures, and to have come into being out of nothing by the will of God; and indeed to be God born from God before all ages and before all time whatever, but not to be from the substance of God, nor to have in him the truth, to be understood, of the divine birth and of his majesty, which is God's; so that the Son who is God should not be as truly God as the Father who is God; so that what is proclaimed in the Gospels, that the Son and the Father are one, should be only in fellowship of will and love, not in truth of divinity. But if in the Son that divinity is not the very same that is God's, so that in the confession of faith God is one, why do they confess the Son God, why before times and ages, unless because the name of God is bestowed on every saint by the indulgence of eternity? Or are not all the reborn truly sons of God, or were not all the angels, made of course through Christ, created before all times and before all ages whatever? But in order to bring in antichrist with less odium, and to be believed by the wretched, they grant Christ the name of God, because this has been granted to men too; they confess him truly Son of God, because by the sacrament of baptism each one is made truly a son of God; they confess him before times and ages, which is not to be denied of the angels and of the devil. So only those things are granted to the Lord Christ that are proper either to the angels or to us. But what is lawful and true of Christ as God, that Christ is true God, that is, that the Son's divinity is the same as the Father's, is denied. And by the deceit of this impiety it has so far come about that, under the priests of antichrist, the people of Christ do not perish, since the people think that this belongs to faith which is only in the word. They hear "Christ God"; they think he is what is said. They hear "Son of God"; they think that in the birth from God there is the truth of God. They hear "before times"; they think that this "before times" is the same as "always". The ears of the people are holier than the hearts of the priests. If the Arians proclaim Christ true God, they have confessed God without deceit; but if they call him God and deny that he is true God, they grant the name and take away the truth.

Although, then, all the papers of the churches are full of their most impious blasphemies, and books are now full of them, yet what happened lately must not be passed over. When the holy king, by a severe edict, had ordered the church of Milan, which confesses Christ true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father, to be disturbed under the appearance and wish of unity, I represented to him, even with importunate pleading, that Auxentius was a blasphemer and must be held wholly an enemy of Christ; and I added that he believed otherwise than the king himself or all others held. Moved by this, the king ordered that we be heard by the Quaestor and the Master, with about ten bishops sitting with us. And first, as is usual in the forum, he raised a slander about my person: that I had once been condemned by Saturninus and ought not to be heard as a bishop. This is not the time to relate what was answered to this; but those who were then hearing decided that the matter of faith should rather be dealt with, as the king had wished. And when he was now in the strait of the danger of denying, Auxentius professed that he believed Christ true God and of one divinity and substance with God the Father. It was agreed, then, that this should be written down; and lest what had been said should slip from the memories of the hearers, I at once offer the king, through the Quaestor, a document containing what had been agreed; and lest I be accused of lying, I have appended copies of it. All agree that Auxentius should profess these very things repeatedly; he was compelled to write it himself. After long turning over his plans, he most craftily eludes the king's faith: he gives a writing composed with the pen of antichrist.

For first he testifies that what the impiety of all had undone at Nicaea in Thrace is holy: asserting, that is, that the violence inflicted on the bishops is the faith of true confession. He also denies that he knows Arius, though he began to be a presbyter at Alexandria in the Arian church over which Gregory presided. But let us say nothing about the synod of Ariminum, which has been religiously dissolved by all: only the devil's inventions must be laid open. When, therefore, it had been agreed that it be written that Christ is true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father, he puts down, like a most crafty devil, such a sentence as would signify that Christ was born before all times, God, true Son: so that, as the Arians would have it, "true" should refer to "Son" and not to "God". And so that a far greater difference of this meaning might arise, he adds, "from the true God the Father": so that the truth of God should be in the Father, and in Christ only the truth of Son should be written. Then, as the discourse proceeds, Auxentius proclaims one divinity, and does not confess the Son as also in it, so that the one sole divinity should be in the Father alone and not also in the Son.

But it is spread among the people that Auxentius wrote that Christ is true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father, and that he does not differ from the judgment of the faith set out by me; after which the king came into communion with him on account of the sincerity of his faith. But when this mystery of impiety, long hidden, was no longer concealed, and I said that everything was feigned, the faith denied, God and men mocked, I was ordered to leave Milan, since I had no freedom to remain there against the king's will.

This, then, brothers, to whom the judgment of God is a matter of fear, I report as having been done thus. What Auxentius feared to deny, he would not confess; for I have appended copies of his exposition. If he wrote the same, convict him of deceit; but if he wrote otherwise than he professed, understand now that through him another Christ, that is, antichrist, is preached. He has played with words by which he could deceive even the elect; but the profession of so great an impiety lies open.

He denies that he proclaims two gods, because there are not two fathers. Who does not see from this that the confession of one God is proper to the Father only for this reason, that he alone is? Hence that pen of Satan produced: "We know the one only true God the Father." And after malicious significations he says: "The Son like his begetter the Father according to the Scriptures." If this is written anywhere in the holy volumes, it carries a profession of innocence. But if by the truth of divinity the Son and the Father are one, why is the imperfect opinion of likeness put first? Christ is indeed the image of God; but there is no doubt that man too is the image of God, since Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. Why do you, heir of Arius, grant to Christ only what is ours? Why do you circumvent the king, the counts, and the church of God by the art of your father, that is, of Satan? You call Christ God: why do you deceive in the name? Deny that Moses was called god to Pharaoh. You call Christ the firstborn Son of God: deny that Israel is God's firstborn son. You assert that Christ was born before times: deny, then, that the created devil came to be before times and ages. You speak of Christ as like the Father: deny that man began to be in the image and likeness of God. You deny to Christ only what he is: that he is true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father. And you are accustomed, together with your teachers, to accuse me of heresy: set out, in whatever writings you can, the case of my impiety, and put forward the title of my blasphemies. To me he is antichrist who does not confess that the Son is of one divinity with the Father, and who does not so proclaim the one true God the Father that the truth of divinity is understood also in the Son. If Christ and God are of one divinity, why did you not write this simply? If they are not so for you, why did you not simply deny it?

I would rather have revealed the secret of so pestilent a mystery myself, brothers, than by letter, and have explained all Auxentius's blasphemies word by word. But since that is not allowed, let each at least understand what he may. Shame prevents me from bringing many other things before the church, and I fear to commit the disgraces of the Arian blasphemies to a letter. One thing I warn you: beware of antichrist. For a love of walls has wrongly taken hold of you; wrongly do you venerate the church of God in roofs and buildings; wrongly do you bring in the name of peace under them. Is it doubtful that antichrist will sit in these? Mountains, forests, lakes, prisons, and chasms are safer to me; for in these the prophets, either dwelling or cast down, prophesied by the Spirit of God. Withdraw, then, from Auxentius, angel of Satan, enemy of Christ, abandoned ravager, denier of the faith, which he so professed to the king as to deceive, and so deceived as to blaspheme. Let him now gather what synods he will against me, and proscribe me as a heretic by public title, as he has often done already, and stir up as much anger of the powerful against me as he will: to me he will certainly never be anything but a devil, because he is an Arian; nor will peace with any ever be desired, except with those who, according to the decision of our fathers at Nicaea, anathematizing the Arians, will proclaim Christ true God. To the most blessed and most glorious emperors Valentinian and Valens, Augusti: Auxentius, bishop of the catholic church of Milan.

"I, most devout emperors, think that the unity of six hundred bishops, after so many labors, ought not to be torn open again because of the contention of a few men, who were cast out ten years ago, as the writings also show. But since some of the people, who had never been in communion even with the bishops who were before me, now further stirred up by Hilary and Eusebius and disturbing some, have called me a heretic, Your Piety ordered praiseworthy men, the Quaestor and the Master, to inquire into these matters. And as I said before, they ought not to have the standing of accusers or judges who have once been deposed (I mean Hilary and those who agree with him). Yet, obedient to Your Serenity, I came forward to expose those who speak falsely and blaspheme, and call me an Arian and one who does not confess that Christ the Son of God is God.

"I set out my confession to the friends of Your Piety, first satisfying them that I never knew Arius, never saw him with my eyes, never knew his teaching; but from childhood, as I was taught, as I received from the holy Scriptures, I have believed and believe in the one only true God the Father almighty, invisible, impassible, immortal; and in his only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, born from the Father before all ages and before every beginning, God, true Son from the true God the Father, according to what is written in the Gospel: 'And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' For through him all things were made, visible and invisible. He came down from heaven by the will of the Father for our salvation, was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary according to the flesh, as it is written; and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, whom the Lord and our God, the Savior Jesus Christ, sent to the disciples, the Spirit of truth. So I have believed and believe, as the only Son of God, ascending into heaven, handed down to the disciples, saying: 'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'

"But I have never proclaimed two gods: for there are not two fathers, so that two gods should be spoken of, nor two sons; but one Son from one Father, alone from alone, God from God, as it is written: 'One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things': for this reason we also proclaim one deity. All heresies, then, which come against the catholic faith, the catholic bishops gathered together have always condemned and anathematized, and especially when they met at Ariminum; and from that council we condemned them. But the catholic faith of the Gospels, which the apostles handed down, we have faithfully guarded. And so that Your Piety may know more truly what was done at the council of Ariminum, I have sent the acts, and I ask that you gladly order them to be read; for so Your Serenity will know that those who were long since deposed, that is, Hilary and Eusebius, strive everywhere to make schisms. For what has been well set out from the holy Scriptures concerning the catholic faith, Your Piety sees ought not to be reopened."