On the Synods 73–92

In proclaiming, then, dearest brothers, that the Son is like the Father in all things, we proclaim nothing other than that he is equal. Likeness carries the meaning of perfect equality, and this is to be understood from the holy Scriptures. For we read: "And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years and begot a son according to his own image and according to his own likeness, and called his name Seth." I ask what kind of likeness and image of himself Adam begot in Seth. Take away the weaknesses of bodies, take away the beginning of conception, take away the pains of childbirth and every human necessity: I ask whether this likeness that is in Seth differs by nature from its author, or whether there was an essence of another kind in each, so that Seth, when born, did not have Adam's natural essence. But it is Adam's likeness, even if we deny it, because it is not unlike in nature. And the likeness of nature did not have in Seth a nature of another kind, because Seth was born from nowhere else. So likeness makes the natural realities equal, through the likeness of an essence that does not differ. Every son, then, according to natural birth, is the equality of his father, because he is also the likeness of his nature. And the blessed John teaches that this same likeness, which Moses speaks of in Seth and Adam, is in the nature of the Father and the Son an equality of nature; for he says: "For this reason the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God." Why do we bring into the teachings and words of such great men minds dulled by grievous sins, and why do we impiously weary our dull and rash senses against teachings that cannot be undone? Through Moses, Seth is the likeness of Adam; through John, the Son is equal to the Father; and we seek some third thing between the Father and the Son which nature does not admit. He is like the Father, he is the Son of the Father, he was born from him: by this alone can it be devoutly proclaimed that they are one.

Nor am I unaware, dearest brothers, that there are some who, confessing likeness, deny equality. But let them speak as they will and pour the poison of their blasphemy into the ignorant. If they say that likeness and equality differ, I ask where equality is to be gained from. For if the Son is like the Father according to essence, power, glory, and time, I ask in what respect he would not seem equal. For in the earlier creed this condemnation too was laid down: that he should be anathema who said that the Father is the father of an essence unlike himself. If, then, he gave to the one he impassibly begot a nature neither other nor unlike, he cannot have given another but his own. So likeness is propriety, propriety is equality, and equality differs in nothing. And things that differ in nothing are one: not by union of person, but by equality of nature.

Although, both by common sense and by divine authorities, likeness and equality are understood to differ in nothing, since according to Moses and John the Son is both like and equal to the Father, yet let us see whether the Lord, when the Jews were angry that by calling God his Father he had made himself equal to God, taught that he was equal to God. For he says: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing." He distinguished the author when he said, "He can do nothing of himself"; he signifies obedience when he adds, "except what he sees the Father doing." For it is not a difference of power to be unable unless he sees, because nature rather than sight provides power; but it is obedience to be able then when he sees. And so, by being able when he sees, he signifies that he does not receive power from sight, but takes up his power on the authority of the sight. The power of nature, then, does not differ in the Father and the Son, since what gives the Son the ability to do what the Father can do is not any increase of nature but the example of the author. Finally, the honor that subjection preserved, the power of nature made equal. For he added: "For whatever he does, the Son also does likewise." Is likeness not equal? It is plainly equal, even if we deny it: for he does the same things likewise. Are things done likewise not the same? Or do the same things not admit equality? Or does anything else differ between like and equal, when things done likewise are understood to be done the same? Unless perhaps someone will deny that things that are the same are equal, so that like things are not called equal; whereas things done likewise are proclaimed not only to be done equally but to be the same.

The likeness of nature, then, brothers, is free from the suspicion of insult; nor can the Son seem not to be in the property of the Father's nature because he is like, since there is no likeness except from equality of nature; and there cannot be equality of nature unless it is one; and one not by unity of person but of kind. This is the devout faith, this the religious conscience, this the saving word: not to deny the one substance of the Father and the Son, because he is like; and to proclaim him like, because they are one.

Having set out, dearest brothers, a faithful and devout understanding of "one substance", which in Greek is called homoousion, and of "like substance", which is called homoeusion, and having shown most completely the faults that can arise either from a deceitful brevity of words or from a dangerous bareness, I must direct the rest of my discourse to the holy men, the Eastern bishops; so that, since no suspicion about our faith now remains between us, the things that still come under suspicion from words may be cleared away. And they will pardon me, who am about to speak to them more freely out of the faith of our common conscience.

O men at last zealous for the apostolic and gospel teaching, whom the warmth of faith has kindled in such darkness of the heretical night! What hope of recalling the true faith you have brought by steadfastly beating back the onset of an audacious unbelief! For before, in the dark and in corners, it was denied that the Lord Christ is the Son of God by nature, and it was proclaimed that, lacking the Father's essence, he had received his origin with the creatures from things that did not exist. But now the heresy, breaking out with the profession of public authority, boasted not secretly, as victor, of what it had before been muttering in stealth. By what tunnels had it not tried before to creep into the catholic church? What powers of the world had it not put forward with the allurement of a false religion? For perverse men had broken out so far that, though they did not dare to proclaim this publicly themselves, they deceived the emperor into hearing it. For they deceived the king in his ignorance, so that, busy with wars, he set out a creed of this unbelief and, not yet reborn, imposed a form of believing on the churches. They forced the bishops who contradicted into exile. Indeed they forced us into the will to be exiled, while they imposed the necessity of impiety. But let us be exiles always, provided the truth begins to be proclaimed. For thanks be to the Lord that the emperor, warned through you, recognized his ignorance, and through these judgments of your faith recognized the error as not his own but that of those who urged him; and he freed himself from the odium of an impious will before God and men when, receiving your embassy with honor and being compelled by you to profess his ignorance, he learned the falsehood of those by whose authority he was being led into odium.

For they deceive, as far as I both fear and think, dearest brothers, they deceive, because they have always deceived; and even this present subscription is not without falsehood. For they excuse themselves by saying that they wished homoousion and homoeusion to be passed over in silence because they thought that one and the same thing was meant by both words. Unskilled bishops, I suppose, ignorant of the meaning of homoousion, as though there had never been a synod or disputes about it! But suppose they did not know homoousion, or did not know that homoeusion means "of like essence". If they did not know this, why did they wish the begetting of the Son not to be known? Is it, if it is indescribable, therefore also unknowable? But if how he was born is not known, can even this be unknown, that the Son, God, not from another substance but born from God, does not have a different essence? Have they not read that the Son is to be honored as the Father is, that they should prefer the Father in honor? Was it unknown to them that the Father is seen in the Son, that among them the Son should differ in dignity, glory, and majesty? Or did this too come from ignorance, that the Son is subject to the Father together with the rest, so that, being subjected with the rest, he is not distinguished from the rest? whereas the Son's subjection is the devotion of nature, but the subjection of the rest is the weakness of creation. They knew indeed that he suffered; but let them say, I beg, when did they learn that he "suffered with"? They avoid homoousion and homoeusion because it is nowhere written: I ask where they got the presumption that he "suffered with". Or do they wish there to be two who suffered? For "suffering with" testifies to this. Where is that saying, "Jesus Christ the Son of God"? Or is Jesus Christ one and the Son of God another? If the Son of God is not the same and one within and without, then believe their ignorance of homoousion, if these things may be unknown. But if in these very things that ignorance is impious, which yet cannot be excused even falsely, I fear that their profession lies also about ignorance of homoeusion. I do not complain much of the pardon you have granted: it is a matter of religion to reserve to God what is his, and the error of ignorance is human. But let the two bishops, Valens and Ursacius, pardon me now, for, given their age and experience, I do not believe they were ignorant. And it is very hard that those should not be thought to lie who cannot clear themselves in another matter except by a lie. But may the Lord rather grant that we think ill of them than that they were not ignorant. For I would rather be judged as thinking ill than have your faith violated by communion with a heretical conscience.

I beg you, most holy men, to weigh my anxieties with kind indulgence. For the Lord is witness of my conscience that I do not wish in any point to overturn these expositions of your faith which you brought to Sirmium. But pardon me if I cannot understand some things, and I will console myself, because I have read: "The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets." From this perhaps it is not shamelessly presumed by me too that I may understand what another does not know. Not that I have dared to say that you are ignorant of anything, according to the measure of knowledge; but concerning the unity of the catholic faith, allow that there are no fewer anxieties in us than in you.

The letter that Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius asked to be read from you at Sirmium about the explanation of homoousion and homoeusion I understand to be in some points no less circumspect than frank. And the demonstration itself of homoousion and homoeusion left no difficulty. About homoeusion, that is, "of like essence", our judgment is common. But in treating of homoousion, that is, "of one essence", you declared, first, that it should be rejected because by uttering this word a prior substance would be understood, which the two had divided between them. I understand the fault in the understanding. This sense is indeed profane, and to be rejected by the church in common judgment. Secondly, you added that our fathers, when Paul of Samosata was pronounced a heretic, also repudiated homoousion, because by this naming of one essence he proclaimed that the Father and the Son were solitary and single to himself. And this too the church even now recognizes as most profane: to reduce the Father and the Son, in these professions of names, to the solitude of a union and a single being, denying the property of the persons. Thirdly, this cause for rejecting homoousion was also mentioned by you: that at the synod held at Nicaea our fathers were compelled, because of those who called the Son a creature, to put in the name homoousion; and that it should not be received because it is found written nowhere. At this statement of yours I am much surprised. For if homoousion is to be rejected because of its novelty, I fear that homoeusion too is in danger, since it is found written nowhere.

But I do not make a quarrel of this. For I would rather have mentioned something new than impiously rejected it. Leaving aside, then, the question of novelty, there remains no question even in those things that are condemned by the common judgment of us all. For who of sound mind will proclaim a third substance common to the Father and the Son? Or who, reborn in Christ and confessing both Son and Father, will confess with the Samosatene that Christ is in himself both father and son to himself? Our judgment, then, is the same in condemning the impieties of the heretics; and it not only rejects this understanding of homoousion but hates it. And so no question of a faulty understanding is left, where there is common assent in condemning the fault.

As I am about to speak at last of the third question, I beg you that where there is peace of conscience there may be no battle of suspicions, and that you will think I bring forward nothing except for the advance of unity. For it is idle to fear a quarrel over a word when the thing itself, whose word it is, has no difficulty. Is anyone displeased that homoousion was accepted at the synod of Nicaea? If anyone is displeased, he must be pleased by what was denied by the Arians. For homoousion was denied so that God the Son would be proclaimed not born from the substance of God the Father, but made from nothing like the creatures. We say nothing new: the very unbelief of the Arians, published in many writings, is its own witness. If, on account of the impiety of those who denied it, the understanding of those who confessed it was then devout, I ask why what was then devoutly accepted, because it was impiously denied, is today overthrown. If it was devoutly accepted, why is the ordinance of piety brought under accusation, which devoutly extinguished impiety by the very things by which it was impiously attacked?

Let us see, then, what the synod of Nicaea aimed at in confessing homoousion, that is, "of one substance": certainly not to give birth to the heresy that is conceived from a faulty opinion of homoousion. They will not, I think, say that the Father and the Son divided one prior substance by sharing it into their own substance. And the faith itself, devoutly written then, we will now also, not irreligiously, insert in this discourse of ours: "We believe in one God the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, born not made, of one substance with the Father, which in Greek they call homoousion, through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth; who for our salvation came down, was made flesh, and became man, and suffered, and rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and will come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say, 'There was when he was not', and 'Before he was born he was not', and that he was made from things that did not exist, or from another substance or essence, saying that God is convertible and changeable: these the catholic church anathematizes." Here the most holy synod of religious men does not introduce some prior substance divided into two, but the Son born from the substance of the Father. Do we too deny this? Or what else do we confess? And after the other expositions of the common faith it says: "born not made, of one substance with the Father, which in Greek they call homoousion." What occasion for a faulty understanding is there here? The Son is proclaimed born from the substance of the Father, not made, lest the birth of the Godhead should be the making of a creation. And of one substance for this reason: not that he should subsist as one or alone, but that, born from the substance of God, he should not subsist from elsewhere, nor subsist in any difference of a dissenting substance. Or is this not our faith, that he does not subsist from elsewhere, and that he subsists not unlike? Or does homoousion here testify anything other than that the essence of the two is one and not unlike according to the offspring of nature, because the essence of the Son is not from elsewhere? And because it is not from elsewhere, both will rightly be believed to be of one essence, since the Son has the substance of his birth only from the authority of the Father's nature.

But perhaps it will be said on the other side that it ought to be rejected for this reason, that it is commonly understood in a faulty way. If we fear this, let us delete in the Apostle what is said, "The mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus", because Photinus uses it as authority for his heresy; and let it not be read by us, because it is badly understood by him. Let the letter written to the Philippians perish too, by fire or sponge, lest Marcion read in it again, "And being found in form as a man", and confess that it was the appearance of a body, not a body. Let the Gospel of John not exist, lest Sabellius learn, "I and the Father are one." Nor let these present preachers of a creature have it written, "The Father is greater than I." Nor let those who wish to affirm that the Son is unlike the Father read, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." Let there be no books of Moses either, lest darkness be coeval with God, who dwells in unbegotten light, because in Genesis the day began after the night; lest the years of Methuselah exceed the time of the flood, and not only eight souls be preserved; lest God, hearing the cry of Sodom when its sins were already full, should come down, as though not knowing the cry, to see whether the sins were full according to the cry, and God be found not to know what he knew; lest anyone of those who buried Moses should know the tomb of the buried Moses; lest by these things, as the heretics think, the law itself be at enmity with itself. And because these things are not understood by them, let them not be read by us. Let there perish too, if it seems good (which I would not say, but the necessity of reply says it), all those divine and holy Gospels of human salvation, lest they fight one another by the apparent contradiction of their sayings: lest the Lord who is to send the Holy Spirit be read as himself born of the Holy Spirit; lest he who is to threaten death by the sword to those who will use it should, when about to suffer, command a sword to be bought; lest he who is to descend to the underworld be in paradise with the thief; lest, finally, the apostles be found guilty, who, commanded to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, baptized only in the name of Jesus. For I say to you, brothers, who are no longer fed with milk but are strong on solid food: because the wise of the world do not understand these things and they are foolish to them, shall we be wise with the world, so as to believe them foolish? And because these things are blind to the impious, shall we not shine with the understood truth of the teaching? Holy things are wrongly prejudged if, because some do not hold them holy, they ought not to exist. Let us not, then, glory in the cross of Christ, because it is a scandal to the world; nor proclaim death in the living God, lest God be accused by the impious of being dead.

Homoousion is badly understood: what is that to me, who understand it well? The Samosatene confessed homoousion badly; but did the Arians deny it any better? Eighty bishops once rejected it; but three hundred and eighteen lately received it. And to me that very number is holy, the number with which Abraham, victor over the impious kings, is blessed by him who is the type of the eternal priesthood. Those disapproved it against a heretic; did not these also approve it against a heretic? The authority of the ancients is weighty; is the holiness of these light? If they held contrary views, we must as judges approve the better; but if, by approving and disapproving, both established one and the same thing, why do we overthrow what was well established?

But perhaps it will be said to me: some today of those who were present at that synod have decreed that there should be silence about homoousion. And I will reply, though unwillingly, to the speaker: Do they not also decree that there should be silence about homoeusion? I beg you, let no one else be found among them, except the old man Ossius, and he too fond of his tomb, who thinks there should be silence about both. And where at last shall we fall, amid such fury of heretics, if, while not receiving both, we retain neither? For it cannot seem impious to say that, since neither is found written, either neither should be confessed or both.

By homoousion, most holy men, I understand God from God, not of unlike essence, not divided but born, and an only-begotten birth, co-begotten in the Son from the substance of the unbegettable God, according to likeness. Understanding it so before, I was not a little confirmed in it by homoousion. Why do you condemn my faith in homoousion, which you cannot but approve through the profession of homoeusion? For you condemn my faith, or rather yours, when you condemn its understanding in the name. But someone else understands it badly? Let us condemn in common the faulty understanding; let us not take away the security of faith. Do you think one should subscribe to the synod of Samosata, lest anyone claim homoousion in the sense of the Samosatene? Let us subscribe also to the synod of Nicaea, lest the Arians reject homoousion. But is it to be feared that homoousion may seem not to mean homoeusion according to the faith? Let it be decreed that there is no difference between being of one and of like substance. But can homoousion be badly understood? Let it be laid down how it can be well understood. We think one and the same thing devoutly; I ask that we may wish the one and the same thing we think to be devout among us. Pardon me, brothers, as I have often asked: you are not Arians; why, by denying homoousion, are you reckoned Arians?

But you say: the ambiguity of homoousion troubles me with scandal. Hear in turn, I beg, without scandal: the bareness of homoeusion troubles me too. Many things that are alike often deceive. I fear the gold of gilt leaf, because it can deceive me within; and yet what is seen is like gold. I fear the likeness of milk, lest the milk offered me be not sheep's milk, since cow's milk also seems like it. For sheep's milk to be like sheep's milk, it cannot be like unless it is from a sheep. True likeness lies in the truth of nature. And where there is truth of nature in both, homoousion is not denied. For this is likeness according to essence: if one mass, quite like another, does not deceive in the gilding; if milk of the same color is not different in taste. Nothing can be like gold except gold; nothing can be like milk unless it is of its kind. The color of wine has often deceived me; and yet by tasting I recognized a liquor of another kind. I have seen meat like meat, but afterwards the taste betrayed to me the unlikeness of nature. These likenesses, which do not come from unity of nature, I fear.

For I fear, brothers, the heresies of the East sprouting up at every moment; and what I say I fear, I have already read. In what you, the ministers of the embassy you undertook, brought to Sirmium to be subscribed with the assent of certain Easterners, no ground for suspicion indeed was left; but from the beginning they contained no small offense, which I believe you, most holy men Basil, Eustathius, and Eleusius, passed over in silence so as to abolish it, lest any scandal be caused. If those things were rightly written, they ought not to have been passed over. But if they are now passed over because they were not rightly written, care must be taken that they are never said again. Sparing you, I say nothing about them as yet; yet you recognize with me that the whole creed written at Ancyra did not stand so. I do not speak a rumor; I hold the evidence of a document, not received from laymen but given by bishops.

I beg you, brothers, remove suspicion, exclude the occasion. So that homoeusion may be approved, let us not disapprove homoousion. Let us think of so many holy priests now at rest: what will the Lord judge of us if they are now anathematized by us? What will become of us, who carry the matter so far that, because they were not bishops, we too have not begun to be? For we were ordained by them and are their successors. Let us renounce the episcopate, since we took its office from men under anathema. Pardon my grief, brothers: what you dare is impious. I cannot endure this saying, that he who confesses homoousion according to a religious understanding should be under anathema. A name has nothing criminal in it that does not disturb the sense of religion. I do not know or understand homoeusion except only from the confession of like essence. I call to witness the God of heaven and earth that, though I had heard neither, I always held both: that by homoousion homoeusion must be understood, that is, that nothing can be like itself according to nature except what is from the same nature. Long since reborn, and remaining for some time in the episcopate, I never heard the Nicene creed until I was about to go into exile; but the Gospels and the Apostles had made known to me the meaning of homoousion and homoeusion. What we wish is devout. Let us not condemn the fathers, let us not encourage the heretics, lest while we drive out heresy we nourish heresy. Our fathers after the synod of Nicaea interpreted the proper sense of homoousion religiously; the books exist, the conscience remains. If anything is to be added to the interpretation, let us consult in common. The best state of faith can be established among us, so that what was well established may not be harassed and what was badly understood may be cut away.

I have gone beyond the modesty of human conscience, dearest brothers, and, forgetful of my lowliness, compelled by love of you, I have written these things about matters so great and so hidden, untried and unspoken until this our age, and I have spoken what I myself believed; conscious that I owed this service to the church as the wage of my warfare, to send through this letter the voice of my episcopate in Christ, according to the gospel teachings. It is yours to discuss in common, to provide, and to act, so that, as you have until now remained in inviolable faith, you may preserve it with religious conscience and hold what you hold. Remember my exile in your holy prayers. After setting out this faith, I do not know whether it would be as pleasant to return from it to you in the Lord Jesus Christ as it would be safe to die. I pray that our God and Lord may keep you uncontaminated and unharmed until the day of revelation, dearest brothers.