14. The blessed Apostle approves of the Corinthians because, he says, `ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I delivered them to you' (1 Cor. xi. 2); but they, as entertaining such views of their predecessors, will have the daring to say just the reverse to their flocks: `We praise you not for remembering your fathers, but rather we make much of you, when you hold not their traditions.' And let them go on to accuse their own unfortunate birth, and say, `We are sprung not of religious men but of heretics.' For such language, as I said before, is consistent in those who barter their Fathers' fame and their own salvation for Arianism, and fear not the words of the divine proverb, `There is a generation that curseth their father' (Prov. xxx. 11; Ex. xxi. 17), and the threat lying in the Law against such. They then, from zeal for the heresy, are of this obstinate temper; you, however, be not troubled at it, nor take their audacity for truth. For they dissent from each other, and, whereas they have revolted from their Fathers, are not of one and the same mind, but float about with various and discordant changes. And, as quarrelling with the Council of Nicaea, they have held many Councils themselves, and have published a faith in each of them, and have stood to none , nay, they will never do otherwise, for perversely seeking, they will never find that Wisdom which they hate. I have accordingly subjoined portions both of Arius's writings and of whatever else I could collect, of their publications in different Councils; whereby you will learn to your surprise with what object they stand out against an Ecumenical Council and their own Fathers without blushing.
Part II. History of Arian Opinions.
Arius's own sentiments; his Thalia and Letter to S. Alexander; corrections by Eusebius and others; extracts from the works of Asterius; letter of the Council of Jerusalem; first Creed of Arians at the Dedication of Antioch; second, Lucian's on the same occasion; third, by Theophronius; fourth, sent to Constans in Gaul; fifth, the Macrostich sent into Italy; sixth, at Sirmium; seventh, at the same place; and eighth also, as given above in §8; ninth, at Seleucia; tenth, at Constantinople; eleventh, at Antioch.
15. Arius and those with him thought and professed thus: `God made the Son out of nothing, and called Him His Son; `The Word of God is one of the creatures;' and `Once He was not;' and `He is alterable; capable, when it is His Will, of altering.' Accordingly they were expelled from the Church by the blessed Alexander. However, after his expulsion, when he was with Eusebius and his fellows, he drew up his heresy upon paper, and imitating in the Thalia no grave writer, but the Egyptian Sotades, in the dissolute tone of his metre , he writes at great length, for instance as follows:-
Blasphemies of Arius.
God Himself then, in His own nature, is ineffable by all men. Equal or like Himself He alone has none, or one in glory. And Ingenerate we call Him, because of Him who is generate by nature. We praise Him as without beginning because of Him who has a beginning. And adore Him as everlasting, because of Him who in time has come to he. The Unbegun made the Son a beginning of things originated; and advanced Him as a Son to Himself by adoption. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence. For He is not equal, no, nor one in essence with Him. Wise is God, for He is the teacher of Wisdom . There is full proof that God is invisible to all beings; both to things which are through the Son, and to the Son He is invisible. I will say it expressly, how by the Son is seen the Invisible; by that power by which God sees, and in His own measure, the Son endures to see the Father, as is lawful. Thus there is a Triad, not in equal glories. Not intermingling with each other are their subsistences. One more glorious than the other in their glories unto immensity. Foreign from the Son in essence is the Father, for He is without beginning. Understand that the Monad was; but the Dyad was not, before it was in existence. It follows at once that, though the Son not, the Father was God. Hence the Son, not being (for He existed at the will of the Father), is God Only-begotten , and He is alien from either. Wisdom existed as Wisdom by the will of the Wise God. Hence He is conceived in numberless conceptions : Spirit, Power, Wisdom, God's glory, Truth, Image, and Word. Understand that He is conceived to be Radiance and Light. One equal to the Son, the Superior is able to beget; but one more excellent, or superior, or greater, He is not able. At God's will the Son is what and whatsoever He is. And when and since He was, from that time He has subsisted from God. He, being a strong God, praises in His degree the Superior. To speak in brief, God is ineffable to His Son. For He is to Himself what He is, that is, unspeakable. So that nothing which is called comprehensible does the Son know to speak about; for it is impossible for Him to investigate the Father, who is by Himself. For the Son does not know His own essence, For, being Son, He really existed, at the will of the Father. What argument then allows, that He who is from the Father should know His own parent by comprehension? For it is plain that for that which hath a beginning to conceive how the Unbegun is, or to grasp the idea, is not possible.
16. And what they wrote by letter to the blessed Alexander, the Bishop, runs as follows:-
To Our Blessed Pope and Bishop, Alexander, the Presbyters and Deacons send health in the Lord.
Our faith from our forefathers, which also we have learned from thee, Blessed Pope, is this:-We acknowledge One God, alone Ingenerate, alone Everlasting, alone Unbegun, alone True, alone having Immortality, alone Wise, alone Good, alone Sovereign; Judge, Governor, and Providence of all, unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of Law and Prophets and New Testament; who begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom He has made both the ages and the universe; and begat Him, not in semblance, but in truth; and that He made Him subsist at His own will, unalterable and unchangeable; perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; offspring, but not as one of things begotten; nor as Valentinus pronounced that the offspring of the Father was an issue ; nor as Manichaeus taught that the offspring was a portion of the Father, one in essence ; or as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, speaks of a Son-and-Father ; nor as Hieracas, of one torch from another, or as a lamp divided into two ; nor that He who was before, was afterwards generated or new-created into a Son , as thou too thyself, Blessed Pope, in the midst of the Church and in session hast often condemned; but, as we say, at the will of God, created before times and before ages, and gaining life and being from the Father, who gave subsistence to His glories together with Him. For the Father did not, in giving to Him the inheritance of all things, deprive Himself of what He has ingenerately in Himself; for He is the Fountain of all things. Thus there are Three Subsistences. And God, being the cause of all things, is Unbegun and altogether Sole, but the Son being begotten apart from time by the Father, and being created and founded before ages, was not before His generation, but being begotten apart from time before all things, alone was made to subsist by the Father. For He is not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has He His being together with the Father, as some speak of relations , introducing two ingenerate beginnings, but God is before all things as being Monad and Beginning of all. Wherefore also He is before the Son; as we have learned also from thy preaching in the midst of the Church. So far then as from God He has being, and glories, and life, and all things are delivered unto Him, in such sense is God His origin. For He is above Him, as being His God and before Him. But if the terms `from Him,' and `from the womb,' and `I came forth from the Father, and I am come ' (Rom. xi. 36; Ps. cx. 3; John xvi. 28), be understood by some to mean as if a part of Him, one in essence or as an issue, then the Father is according to them compounded and divisible and alterable and material, and, as far as their belief goes, has the circumstances of a body, Who is the Incorporeal God.
This is a part of what Arius and his fellows vomited from their heretical hearts.
17. And before the Nicene Council took place, similar statements were made by Eusebius and his fellows, Narcissus, Patrophilus, Maris, Paulinus, Theodotus, and Athanasius. of [A]nazarba . And Eusebius of Nicomedia wrote over and above to Arius, to this effect,`Since your sentiments are good, pray that all may adopt them; for it is plain to any one, that what has been made was not before its origination; but what came to be has a beginning of being.' And Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, in a letter to Euphration the Bishop , did not scruple to say plainly that Christ was not true God . And Athanasius of [A]nazarba uncloked the heresy still further, saying that the Son of God was one of the hundred sheep. For writing to Alexander the Bishop, he had the extreme audacity to say: `Why complain of Arius and his fellows, for saying, The Son of God is made as a creature out of nothing, and one among others? For all that are made being represented in parable by the hundred sheep, the Son is one of them. If then the hundred are not created and originate, or if there be beings beside that hundred, then may the Son be not a creature nor one among others; but if those hundred are all originate, and there is nothing besides the hundred save God alone, what absurdity do Arius and his fellows utter, when, as comprehending and reckoning Christ in the hundred, they say that He is one among others?' And George who now is in Laodicea, and then was presbyter of Alexandria, and was staying at Antioch, wrote to Alexander the Bishop; `Do not complain of Arius and his fellows, for saying, "Once the Son of God was not," for Isaiah came to be son of Amos, and, whereas Amos was before Isaiah came to be, Isaiah was not before, but came to be afterwards.' And he wrote to the Arians, `Why complain of Alexander the Pope, saying, that the Son is from the Father? for you too need not fear to say that the Son was from God.' For if the Apostle wrote (1 Cor. xi. 12), `All things are from God,' and it is plain that all things are made of nothing, though the Son too is a creature and one of things made, still He may be said to be from God in that sense in which all things are said to be `from God.' From him then those who hold with Arius learned to simulate the phrase `from God,' and to use it indeed, but not in a good meaning. And George himself was deposed by Alexander for certain reasons, and among them for manifest irreligion; for he was himself a presbyter, as has been said before.
18. On the whole then such were their statements, as if they all were in dispute and rivalry with each other, which should make the heresy more irreligious, and display it in a more naked form. And as for their letters I had them not at hand, to dispatch them to you; else I would have sent you copies; but, if the Lord will, this too I will do, when I get possession of them. And one Asterius from Cappadocia, a many-headed Sophist, one of the fellows of Eusebius, whom they could not advance into the Clergy, as having done sacrifice in the former persecution in the time of Constantius's grandfather, writes, with the countenance of Eusebius and his fellows, a small treatise, which was on a par with the crime of his sacrifice, yet answered their wishes; for in it, after comparing, or rather preferring, the locust and the caterpillar to Christ, and saying that Wisdom in God was other than Christ, and was the Framer as well of Christ as of the world, he went round the Churches in Syria and elsewhere, with introductions from Eusebius and his fellows, that as he once made trial of denying, so now he might boldly oppose the truth. The bold man intruded himself into forbidden places, and seating himself in the place of Clergy , he used to read publicly this treatise of his, in spite of the general indignation. The treatise is written at great length, but portions of it are as follows:-
For the Blessed Paul said not that he preached Christ, His, that is, God's, `own Power' or `Wisdom,' but without the article, `God's Power and God's Wisdom' (1 Cor. i. 24), preaching that the own power of God Himself was distinct, which was con-natural and co-existent with Him unoriginately, generative indeed of Christ, creative of the whole world; concerning which he teaches in his Epistle to the Romans, thus, `The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and divinity' (Rom. i. 20). For as no one would say that the Deity there mentioned was Christ, but the Father Himself, so, as I think, His eternal power is also not the Only-begotten God (Joh. i. 18), but the Father who begat Him. And he tells us of another Power and Wisdom of God, namely, that which is manifested through Christ, and made known through the works themselves of His Ministry.
And again:-
Although His eternal Power and Wisdom, which truth argues to be Unbegun and Ingenerate, would appear certainly to be one and the same, yet many are those powers which are one by one created by Him, of which Christ is the First-born and Only-begotten. All however equally depend upon their Possessor, and all His powers are rightly called His, who created and uses them; for instance, the Prophet says that the locust, which became a divine punishment of human sin, was called by God Himself, not only a power of God, but a great power (Joel ii. 25). And the blessed David too in several of the Psalms, invites, not Angels alone, but Powers also to praise God. And while he invites them all to the hymn, he presents before us their multitude, and is not unwilling to call them ministers of God, and teaches them to do His will.
19. These bold words against the Saviour did not content him, but he went further in his blasphemies, as follows:
The Son is one among others; for He is first of things originate, and one among intellectual natures; and as in things visible the sun is one among phenomena, and it shines upon the whole world according to the command of its Maker. so the Son, being one of the intellectual natures, also enlightens and shines upon all that are in the intellectual world.
And again he says, Once He was not, writing thus:-`And before the Son's origination, the Father had pro-existing knowledge how to generate; since a physician too, before he cured, had the science of curing .' And he says again: `The Son was created by God's beneficent earnestness; and the Father made Him by the superabundance of His Power' And again: `If the will of God has pervaded all the works in succession, certainly the Son too, being a work, has at His will come to be and been made.' Now though Asterius was the only person to write all this, Eusebius and his fellows felt the like in common with him.
20. These are the doctrines for which they are contending; for these they assail the ancient Council, because its members did not propound the like, but anathematized the Arian heresy instead, which they were so eager to recommend. This was why they put forward, as an advocate of their irreligion, Asterius who sacrificed, a sophist too, that he might not spare to speak against the Lord, or by a show of reason to mislead the simple. And they were ignorant, the shallow men, that they were doing harm to their own cause. For the ill savour of their advocate's idolatrous sacrifice betrayed still more plainly that the heresy is Christ's foe. And now again, the general agitations and troubles which they are exciting, are in consequence of their belief, that by their numerous murders and their monthly Councils, at length they will undo the sentence which has been passed against the Arian heresy . But here too they seem ignorant, or to pretend ignorance, that even before Nicea that heresy was held in detestation, when Artemas was laying its foundations, and before him Caiaphas's assembly and that of the Pharisees his contemporaries. And at all times is this gang of Christ's foes detestable, and will not cease to be hateful, the Lord's Name being full of love, and the whole creation bending the knee, and confessing `that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father' (Phil. ii. 11).
21. Yet so it is, they have convened successive Councils against that Ecumenical One, and are not yet tired. After the Nicene, Eusebius and his fellows had been deposed; however, in course of time they intruded themselves without shame upon the Churches, and began to plot against the Bishops who withstood them, and to substitute in the Church men of their own heresy. Thus they thought to hold Councils at their pleasure, as having those who concurred with them, whom they hail ordained on purpose for this very object. Accordingly, they assemble at Jerusalem, and there they write thus:-
The Holy Council assembled in Jerusalem by the grace of God, &c... their orthodox teaching in writing , which we all confessed to be sound and ecclesiastical. And he reasonably recommended that they should be received and united to the Church of God, as you will know yourselves from the transcript of the same Epistle, which we have transmitted to your reverences. We believe that yourselves also, as if recovering The very members of your own body, will experience great joy and gladness, in acknowledging and recovering [your own bowels, your own brethren anti lathers; since not only the Presbyters, Arius and his fellows, are given back to you, but also the whole Christian people and the entire multitude, which on occasion of the aforesaid men have a long time been in dissension among you. Moreover it were fitting, now that you know for certain what has passed, and that the men have communicated with us and have been received by so great a Holy Council, that you should with all readiness hail this your coalition and peace with your own members, specially since the articles of the faith which they have published preserve indisputable the universally confessed apostolical tradition and teaching.
22. This was the beginning of their Councils, and in it they were speedy in divulging their views, and could not conceal them. For when they said that they had banished all jealousy, and, after the expulsion of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, recommended the reception of Arius and his friends, they shewed that their measures against Athanasius himself then, and before against all the other Bishops who withstood them, had for their object their receiving Arius and his fellows, and introducing the heresy into the Church. But although they had approved in this Council all Arius's malignity, and had ordered to receive his party into communion, as they had set the example, yet feeling that even now they were short of their wishes, they assembled a Council at Antioch under colour of the so-called Dedication and, since they were in general and lasting odium for their heresy, they publish different letters, some of this sort, and some of that and what they wrote in one letter was as follows:-
We have not been followers of Arius,-how could Bishops, such as we, follow a Presbyter?-nor did we receive any other faith beside that which has been handed down from the beginning. But, after taking on ourselves to examine and to verify his faith, we admitted him rather than followed him; as you will understand from our present avowals.
For we have been taught from the first, to believe in one God, the God of the Universe, the Framer and Preserver of all things both intellectual and sensible.
And in One Son of God, Only-begotten, who existed before all ages, and was with the Father who had begotten Him, by whom all things were made, both visible and invisible, who in the last days according to the good pleasure of the Father came down; and has taken flesh of the Virgin, and jointly fulfilled all His Father's will, and suffered and risen again, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and cometh again to judge quick and dead, and remaineth King and God unto all ages.