Church History 1.3

“To my most honoured and like-minded brother Alexander, Alexander sends greeting in the Lord.

The ambitious and covetous purpose of wicked men has always been given to plotting against the dioceses that seem greater, and such men attack the church's piety under various pretexts. Driven to frenzy by the devil who works in them, they leap away from all reverence toward the pleasure set before them and trample on the fear of God's judgment. About them I, the one who suffers, was obliged to inform your Reverence, so that you may be on guard against such men, lest any of them dare to set foot in your dioceses too, either in person (for the cheats are able to play a part in order to deceive) or through letters falsely dressed up, which can snatch away one who has given himself to a simple and sincere faith. Arius and Achillas, then, having lately formed a conspiracy, have imitated the ambition of Colluthus, but far worse than he. For he, accusing these very men, found a pretext for his own wicked choice; but they, seeing his trafficking in Christ, could no longer bear to remain subject to the church, but built themselves dens of robbers and hold unceasing assemblies in them, busying themselves night and day with slanders against Christ and against us. Accusing all the pious apostolic doctrine, they have set up, after the Jewish fashion, a workshop that fights against Christ, denying the divinity of our Saviour and proclaiming that he is equal to all; and picking out every saying about his saving dispensation and his humbling for our sake, they try to gather from them the proclamation of their own impiety, turning away from the words about his divinity from the beginning and his unspeakable glory with the Father. Strengthening the impious opinion of Greeks and Jews about Christ, they hunt as far as they can for praise among them, busying themselves with everything about us that is laughed at among them, and stirring up seditions and persecutions against us daily: now convening lawsuits through the petitions of disorderly women whom they have deceived, now bringing Christianity into disrepute by letting the younger women among them run about every street indecently. They have even dared to tear the seamless tunic of Christ, which the executioners did not resolve to divide. We, then, though because it was concealed we became aware of it late, have expelled them by a unanimous vote from the church that worships the divinity of Christ, as befits both their life and their unholy attempt.

They have attempted, running about against us, to go over to our like-minded fellow ministers, pretending in the guise of peace and unity to make a request, but in truth eager to sweep some of them into their own disease through fine words, and asking them for wordier letters, so that by reading these out to those they have deceived they may make them unrepentant in their errors and harden them in impiety, as though they had bishops who vote and think with them. They do not confess to them what they wickedly taught and did among us, for which they were also expelled; but either they pass it over in silence, or they deceive by overshadowing it with invented words and writings. Hiding their corrupting teaching under more persuasive and buffoonish talk, they snatch away anyone liable to deception, not refraining even from slandering our piety before everyone. Hence it happens that some, by signing their letters, receive them into the church; a very great reproach, I think, lies on the fellow ministers who dare to do this, because the apostolic canon does not permit it, and because it further inflames the devilish working against Christ in them. For this reason, beloved, I have roused myself without delay to make known to you the unbelief of such men, who say that there was once when the Son of God was not, and that he who did not exist before came into being later, having become, when at some time he did come into being, such as every man is by nature. “For God,” they say, “made all things out of nothing,” including the Son of God along with the creation of all things rational and irrational. Consistently with this they also say that he is of a changeable nature, capable of both virtue and vice. And with their hypothesis “out of nothing” they also do away with the divine Scriptures that speak of his eternal being, which signify the unchangeableness of the Word and the divinity of the Wisdom of the Word, which is Christ. “We too,” say the accursed men, “can become sons of God, just as he did; for it is written: ‘I have begotten and exalted sons.’” When the words that follow are put to them, “but they rejected me,” which cannot apply to the Saviour, whose nature is unchangeable, they cast off all reverence and say that God, knowing by foreknowledge and foresight about him that he would not reject him, chose him out of all. For he was chosen, they say, not as having anything by nature or as a privilege above the other sons (for no one, they say, is son of God by nature, nor has any special relation to him), but because, though he too was of a changeable nature, through care for his conduct and through discipline he did not turn to the worse; so that if Paul or Peter had striven for this, their sonship would not differ at all from his. And to establish this crazed teaching they abuse the Scriptures as well, citing the saying about Christ in the Psalms, which runs: “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”

That the Son of God was not made out of nothing, and that there was no time when he was not, John the evangelist is sufficient to teach, writing thus of him: “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.” For the divine teacher, taking care to show that the Father and the Son are two realities inseparable from each other, named him as being in the bosom of the Father. And that the Word of God is not numbered with the things that came into being out of nothing, the same John shows by saying that all things came into being through him. For he showed his distinctive hypostasis by saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” If all things came into being through him, how was he who gave being to the things that came into being himself once not? For the Word, the maker, is in no way defined as being of the same nature as the things that came into being, since he was in the beginning, while all things came into being through him and he made them out of nothing. For that which is seems to be the opposite of, and far removed from, the things that came into being out of nothing. The one shows that there is no interval between Father and Son, since the soul cannot even picture this in thought; but the making of the world out of nothing has a later and recent origin of its existence, all things having received such being from the Father through the Son. The most reverent John, therefore, seeing how far the “was” of God the Word reaches, and that it surpasses the understanding of begotten beings, did not think fit to speak of his coming into being or his making, not daring even to name the maker with the same syllables as the things made; not because he was unbegotten (for the Father is the one unbegotten), but because the indescribable hypostasis of the only-begotten God is beyond the keen comprehension of the evangelists, and perhaps of angels too. I do not think that those who dare to inquire so far should be reckoned pious, because they disobey the words: “Do not seek what is too hard for you, and do not search out what is too high for you.” For if the knowledge of many other things, incomparably lesser than this, is hidden from human comprehension (as in Paul: “What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”; and God also tells Abraham that he cannot count the stars; and again, “Who will number the sand of the seas and the drops of rain?”), how could anyone busy himself about the hypostasis of God the Word, unless he happened to be seized by a fit of melancholy? Of it the prophetic Spirit says: “Who will declare his generation?” Our Saviour himself too, doing a kindness to the pillars of the whole world, was eager to relieve them of the burden of knowing this, telling them that it is beyond the nature of all of them to comprehend, and that the knowledge of this most divine mystery belongs to the Father alone: “For no one knows who the Son is,” he says, “except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son.” Concerning this I think the Father also says, “My mystery is for me.”

That it is madness to think that the Son came into being out of nothing, which implies a beginning in time, the phrase “out of nothing” itself shows, even if the senseless men do not know the madness of their own words. For “he was not” must have its place either in times or in some interval of an age. If, then, it is true that all things came into being through him, it is clear that every age and time and interval, and the “once” in which “he was not” is found, came into being through him. And is it not incredible to say that he who made the times and ages and seasons, with which “he was not” is mixed up, was himself once not? For it is senseless and full of every ignorance to say that the cause of something's coming into being is himself later than its coming into being. For according to them, that interval in which they say the Son had not yet been begotten by the Father precedes the Wisdom of God that fashioned all things; and according to them the Scripture that proclaims him “the firstborn of all creation” lies. In agreement with this the most loud-voiced Paul also cries out about him: “whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages”; and again: “in him all things were created, things in the heavens and things on earth, visible and invisible, whether principalities or authorities or dominions or thrones; all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things.”

Since, then, the hypothesis “out of nothing” has proved most impious, the Father must always be Father. And he is Father because the Son is always present, on whose account he is called Father. And since the Son is always present with him, the Father is always perfect, lacking nothing in the good, having begotten the only-begotten Son not in time, nor after an interval, nor out of nothing. What then? Is it not unholy to say that the Wisdom of God once was not, she who says, “I was beside him, setting things in order; I was the one in whom he delighted”; or that the Power of God once did not exist, or that his Word was once mutilated, or any of the other things by which the Son is known and the Father is characterized? For to say that the radiance of the glory does not exist abolishes also the original light whose radiance it is. And if the image of God was not always, it is clear that the one whose image it is does not always exist either. Moreover, by the nonexistence of the exact imprint of God's hypostasis, he too who is wholly imprinted by it is abolished. From this one may see that the sonship of our Saviour has no community with the sonship of the rest. For just as his ineffable hypostasis has been shown by an incomparable pre-eminence to lie above all those to whom he himself gave being, so also his sonship, which is by nature of the Father's divinity, differs by an inexpressible pre-eminence from those adopted as sons through him by appointment. For he is of an unchangeable nature, perfect and lacking nothing in every respect; but they, subject to change in either direction, need his help. For what progress could the Wisdom of God make, or what could Truth itself add to itself? How could God the Word, or the Life, or the true Light be improved? And if so, how much more unnatural is it that Wisdom should ever become capable of folly, or that the Power of God should be entwined with weakness, or that the Word should be darkened by irrationality, or that darkness should be mixed with the true Light; since the apostle says plainly, “What fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial?” and Solomon, that it would be impossible even in thought to find “the ways of a serpent on a rock,” which rock, according to Paul, is Christ? But his creatures, men and angels, have received a blessing to make progress, exercising themselves in virtues and in the commandments of the law, so as not to sin. Therefore our Lord, being by nature Son of the Father, is worshipped by all; while those who have put off the spirit of slavery, having received the spirit of adoption by brave deeds and progress, become sons by appointment themselves, benefited through him who is Son by nature.

His genuine, distinctive, natural, and exceptional sonship Paul declared thus, saying of God: “who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us” (that is, for those who are not sons by nature). For he called him his own Son in contrast with those who are not his own. And in the Gospel: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And in the Psalms the Saviour says: “The Lord said to me, You are my Son.” In showing genuineness he signifies that there are no other genuine sons besides him. And what of “From the womb before the morning star I begot you”? Does it not plainly show a natural sonship from the Father's bringing to birth, a sonship he obtained not by care for his conduct and exercise in progress but by a property of nature? Hence the only-begotten Son of the Father has a sonship that cannot be lost. But the adoption of rational beings, which is theirs not by nature but by fitness of conduct and the gift of God, Scripture knows to be capable of being lost: “The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, took wives for themselves,” and so on; and we have been taught that God said through Isaiah: “I have begotten and exalted sons, but they rejected me.”

Though I have much to say, beloved, I pass it over, thinking it tiresome to remind at greater length teachers who are of one mind with me. For you yourselves are taught by God, and are not unaware that the teaching which has lately risen up against the church's piety is that of Ebion and Artemas, and an imitation of Paul of Samosata at Antioch, who was cast out of the church by a synod and judgment of the bishops from everywhere. His successor Lucian remained out of communion under three bishops for many years. Having drunk down the dregs of their impiety, the “out of nothing” men have now sprung up among us, their hidden offshoots: Arius and Achillas and the assembly of those who do evil with them. And three bishops ordained in Syria, I do not know how, by agreeing with them inflame them to worse; let the judgment about them be reserved for your examination. These men, keeping in memory the sayings about the Saviour's passion, humbling and emptying, his so-called poverty, and the things that the Saviour took on as acquired for our sake, cite them to set aside his supreme divinity from the beginning; but they have forgotten the words that signify his natural glory and nobility and his abiding with the Father, such as “I and the Father are one.” This the Lord says not proclaiming himself the Father, nor making clear that the two natures in hypostasis are one, but because the Son of the Father by nature preserves the Father's likeness exactly, having taken from nature the impress of his likeness in all things, being the unvarying image of the Father and the exact imprint of the original. Hence to Philip, who then longed to see him, the Lord shows him ungrudgingly; to him who said, “Show us the Father,” he says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” the Father being beheld as in a spotless and living mirror, his divine image. Like this is what the saints say in the Psalms: “In your light we shall see light.” Therefore also he who honours the Son honours the Father, and rightly; for every impious word that one dares to speak against the Son refers to the Father.

And what is surprising, beloved, in what I am about to write, if I set out the false slanders against me and against our most pious people? For those who have arrayed themselves against the divinity of the Son of God do not hesitate to utter their ungrateful drunken insults against us too. They do not think any of the ancients worthy to be compared with them, nor do they endure being put on a level with the teachers with whom we have been in company from childhood; nor do they consider any of our present fellow ministers anywhere to have reached a measure of wisdom, saying that they alone are wise, free of possessions, and discoverers of doctrines, and that to them alone have been revealed things that have never come into the mind of anyone else under the sun. O unholy conceit and measureless madness, vainglory fit for melancholy and satanic pride, hardened into their unholy souls! The God-loving clarity of the ancient Scriptures has not put them to shame, nor has the harmonious reverence of our fellow ministers about Christ dulled their audacity against him. Even the demons will not tolerate their unholiness, for they guard themselves against uttering a blasphemous word against the Son of God.

Let these points be raised by us, according to our present ability, against those who have rolled in the dust of an untaught subject against Christ and have set out to slander our piety toward him. For the inventors of silly myths say that we, because we turn away from the impious and unscriptural blasphemy against Christ, “out of nothing,” teach two unbegottens; the untaught men say that one of two things must be so: either one must think that he is out of nothing, or one must certainly speak of two unbegottens. The insufferable men do not know how great is the distance between the unbegotten Father and the things created by him out of nothing, rational and irrational. Between these the only-begotten nature mediates, through which the Father of God the Word made all things out of nothing; it was begotten from the very Father who is, as the Lord himself somewhere testified, saying: “He who loves the Father loves also the Son begotten from him.”

Concerning these things we believe as the apostolic church holds: in one unbegotten Father, who has no one as the cause of his being, unchangeable and unalterable, always the same and in the same way, admitting neither increase nor diminution, giver of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels, Lord of patriarchs and apostles and all the saints; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten not out of what is not but out of the Father who is; not after the likeness of bodies, by cuttings or by emanations from divisions, as Sabellius and Valentinus hold, but ineffably and indescribably, according to him who said, as we quoted above, “Who will declare his generation?” since his hypostasis is beyond the scrutiny of all begotten nature, just as the Father himself is beyond scrutiny, because the nature of rational beings cannot contain the knowledge of the Father's divine begetting. Men moved by the Spirit of truth need not learn these things from me, since the voice of Christ, already spoken about this, sounds in our ears and teaches: “No one knows who the Father is except the Son, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father.” We have learned that he is unchangeable and unalterable like the Father, a Son lacking nothing and perfect, like the Father, falling short of him only in being unbegotten. For he is the exact and unvarying image of the Father. For it is clear that the image is full of all the things by which the greater likeness exists, as the Lord himself taught: “My Father is greater than I.” And accordingly we believe that the Son is always from the Father; for he is “the radiance of the glory and the exact imprint of the Father's hypostasis.” But let no one take “always” to suggest unbegotten, as those whose soul's senses are dulled suppose. For neither “was,” nor “always,” nor “before the ages” is the same as unbegotten. Nor does any name that human thought may strive to coin express the unbegotten (as I believe you too understand it, and I am confident of the right purpose of you all), since none of these names expresses the unbegotten in any way. For these names seem to be, as it were, an extension of times, yet they cannot signify the divinity, and as it were the antiquity, of the only-begotten as it deserves; while the holy men, each as he was able, strove to make the mystery plain, and asked pardon of their hearers with a reasonable defence, saying: “so far as we have attained.” But if these men expect something greater than human speech uttered through the lips, saying that what is known in part will be done away, it is clear that “was,” “always,” and “before the ages” fall far short of what is hoped for; and whatever it may be, it is not the same as the unbegotten. Therefore to the unbegotten Father his proper dignity must be kept, by saying that no one is the cause of his being; and to the Son the fitting honour must be given, by ascribing to him a begetting from the Father without beginning and, as we said, by paying him reverence, saying “was,” “always,” and “before the ages” of him only piously and reverently, not refusing his divinity, but ascribing to him, as the image and imprint of the Father, an exact likeness in all things, and holding that being unbegotten is a property belonging to the Father alone, since the Saviour himself says: “My Father is greater than I.”

Besides this pious opinion about the Father and the Son, as the divine Scriptures teach us, we confess one Holy Spirit, who renewed both the holy men of the Old Testament and the divine teachers of what is called the New; one and only catholic, apostolic church, always indestructible though the whole world should plan to make war on it, and victorious over every most impious uprising of the heterodox, since its Master makes us bold by crying out: “Take courage; I have overcome the world.” After this we know the resurrection from the dead, of which our Lord Jesus Christ became the firstfruits, who bore a body truly and not in appearance, from Mary the God-bearer; who at the consummation of the ages came to dwell among the human race for the putting away of sin, was crucified and died, yet was not on this account made less in his own divinity; who rose from the dead, was taken up into the heavens, and sits at the right hand of the Majesty.

These things I have engraved in part in this letter, thinking it tiresome, as I said, to write each point in detail, since they have not escaped your holy diligence either. These things we teach, these we proclaim; these are the apostolic doctrines of the church, for which we would even die, caring little for those who try to force us to forswear them, even if they compel us by tortures, and not turning away from the hope that is in them. Having become opponents of these, Arius and Achillas and those with them who are enemies of the truth have been driven out of the church, having become strangers to our pious teaching, according to the blessed Paul, who says: “If anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed,” even if he pretends to be an angel from heaven; and also: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up, knowing nothing,” and so on. Let none of you, then, receive these men, who have been anathematized by the brotherhood, nor tolerate what they say or write. For the cheats lie in everything; they will never speak the truth. They go round the cities, eager for nothing else than, under the pretence of friendship and in the name of peace, to give and receive letters through hypocrisy and flattery, in order by them to lead astray the few “silly women laden with sins” whom they have deceived, and so on. These men, then, who have dared so much against Christ, who have publicly disparaged Christianity and are eager to show themselves off before the courts, who in time of peace have stirred up persecution against us as far as in them lies, who have enervated the ineffable mystery of Christ's begetting: turn away from them, beloved and like-minded brothers, and join your votes against their mad audacity, like our fellow ministers who were indignant and wrote to me against them and signed the tome with me. These I have sent you by my son Apis the deacon: those of all Egypt and the Thebaid, and those of Libya and the Pentapolis and Syria, and further of Lycia and Pamphylia, Asia, Cappadocia, and the other neighbouring regions; and I trust that I shall receive the like from you too. For among the many remedies I have provided for those who have been harmed, this too has been found an antidote for the people deceived by them: persuaded by the assent of our fellow ministers, they are eager to come to repentance through it. Greet one another together with the brotherhood that is with you. I pray that you are well in the Lord, beloved; may I have joy of your Christ-loving soul.

The heretics who have been anathematized are, of the presbyters, Arius; of the deacons, Achillas, Euzoius, Aithales, Lucius, Sarmates, Julius, Menas, another Arius, and Helladius.”

He wrote in the same sense to Philogonius, president of the church of the Antiochenes, to Eustathius, who was then entrusted with governing Beroea, and to the others who were advocates of the apostolic doctrines. But Arius did not keep quiet either. He too wrote to those whom he thought to be of one mind with him. That the divine Alexander wrote nothing false against him, Arius himself has testified in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia. I shall insert this letter too in my history, in order to make the sharers of his impiety known to those who are unaware of them.