Synodal Letter

Even before the letter from your love was brought to us, report had announced to us both the purity of your faith, braced against dangers and steadfast in the sufferings endured for Christ, and your love for God, and the firmness in you of the hope to come. And when we had also read the letter of your piety, we saw truly the stamp of an apostolic church, the zeal of good shepherds, and an unflagging earnestness befitting true Christians. For your not counting the length of the journey, and not presenting your questions piecemeal, but making the inquiry jointly by letter, has made us very hopeful that, having written in agreement, you will also receive the answers from us in agreement; and we have received the agreement in your letter as a kind of prelude to a more perfect concord. And it was our prayer both to receive in the synod, present in person, the most admirable bishop Basil, whose name is spoken with all reverence, and to have him as partner, or rather as leader, of the letter to you. But since an excessive weakness of body prevented him from coming, it belongs to your perfect love not to disregard the letter of our

littleness. Nor have we let your holy church go without a share in his voice too; but having a treatise of his worked out by him specially on this very subject, we have him too, through the writing, speaking with us in unison. What, then, is the answer to the question? We recognize the holy synod of the fathers at Nicaea as a synod truly catholic and apostolic, and we keep the faith set forth by the fathers at that time unmoved, and I pray that it may remain for ever unrent. It became more necessary for the fathers at that time to explain more broadly the glory of the Only-begotten, since they were eager to cut out the heresy of Arius, then newly sprouting, destroying its first seeds before the thorn should grow fully rough. But since the question concerning the Spirit was not raised at that time, for this reason they added nothing more broadly; yet to those who read with understanding, the teaching about the Spirit in that creed is sufficient. As they decreed that we believe in the Father and the Son, so they decreed that we believe also in the Spirit, neither bringing any other nature into the divine and blessed Trinity, nor cutting off anything of the Trinity in the exposition of the faith. But since Satan, recently attempting to shake the churches, has cast into some people a doubt about the Spirit, it is necessary to run back to the source of the faith, from which the fathers at Nicaea also drew when they made their exposition of the faith. What, then, is the perfection of our faith? The tradition of the Lord, which after the resurrection from the dead he commanded his holy disciples, ordering: "Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." It is plain that we received the commandment not only to baptize so, but also to make disciples so. So that through this commandment the disease of Sabellius is shut out, the three hypostases having been purely handed down to us; and the mouths of the Anomoeans and the Arians and the Pneumatomachi are stopped, the persons and the hypostases being declared three, while the nature and the Godhead are confessed one. We must therefore baptize as we were taught, believe as we were baptized, and glorify as we have believed. For when we survey many things with our mind and turn our reasonings in every direction, we can conceive of nothing between the Creator and the creation; so that if we separate the Spirit from the Godhead,

we must of necessity count it with the creatures. But if we should dare to call it a creature, how can it be mingled in baptism? We condemn polytheism as we do atheism; and we proclaim neither three principles, nor three gods, nor three different natures; but, knowing the one principle of all things, we set aside none of the three hypostases, revering both the dignity of the three [names] and the testimonies concerning each. But since it is beyond the measure of a letter to discuss these things in detail, and we trust that your love will be content with the main point of our exposition and will add the rest from its own resources (for "give," it says, "an opportunity to a wise man, and he will be wiser"), we think that we have written these things sufficiently. To them it is enough to add a brief exhortation. For we exhort you to remain sons of peace, so that you may fulfil the apostolic commandment, being of one soul, thinking one thing, and having shared in the sufferings for Christ. Do not give the evil one leave to disjoin what is well joined, nor make yourselves easier prey for the wolves by dissension, confirming their prayers. For we have learned how many contests you have endured for orthodoxy. Having overcome, then, the threats and constraints of your opponents, give no opportunity to division, lest a hatred flowing in little by little, if it finds room, should set great precipices beneath you. But also in the doxologies glorify the Spirit together with the Father and the Son, and know this: that those who commit the unforgivable sin through blasphemy against the Spirit refuse communion with the Arians in vain; for they will be condemned with them. We pray that you, having guarded without contention the body of the church undivided, may spend the time that remains in the present age peacefully, and stand gloriously at the judgment seat of Christ on the day of judgment.