On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 33–44

But since they are so disposed both toward one another and toward those before them, come now, let us examine them and learn from them what absurdity they saw, or which term of those written they blame, that they have become disobedient to their parents and fight against an ecumenical council. “The ‘from the essence,’” they say, “and the ‘of the same essence’ did not please us; for these gave offense to some and troubled many.” So they wrote and said; and one might reasonably answer them thus: If the words in themselves were a cause of offense to these men, then it ought not to be that some were offended and many troubled, but we and all the others should have suffered the same from them as they did. But if all love the words, and those who wrote them were not ordinary men but those who assembled from the whole world, and the bishops now assembled at Ariminum, four hundred and more, bear witness to them, how does this not plainly refute those who speak against the council, showing that it is not the words that are the cause, but the malice of those who misinterpret such things? How many, reading the divine Scriptures badly and misunderstanding them, accuse the saints! Such were the Jews of that time, who did not receive the Lord, and such are the Manichees now, who blaspheme the law; and the Scriptures were not the cause for them, but their own perversity. If, then, you can show that the words are bad, do so, and let reason lead the proof; and do not make a pretext of those who are offended, lest you suffer the same as the Pharisees of that time. For when they too made a pretext of being offended at the Lord’s teachings, the Lord said to them, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” By saying this he showed that it was not the words of the Father, “planted” through him, that were an offense to them, but that they themselves, misinterpreting what was well said, were offended.

For—and it is well to ask them this—tell us, who are those whom you allege to be offended and troubled at these words? Of those who are pious toward Christ, none; for they honor and defend them. But if it is the Arians who suffer this, what wonder if they are vexed at what destroys their heresy? For the words are not an offense to them but a grief, because they stand inscribed like a pillar against their impiety. Stop, then, murmuring against the fathers and making such pretexts; otherwise it is time for you to find fault with the Lord’s cross too, because it is to Jews an offense and to Gentiles foolishness, as the apostle said. But as the cross is not bad—for to us who believe it is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” even if Jews rage—so the words of the fathers are not bad, but profitable to those who read them sincerely, and destructive of all impiety, even if the Arians burst with rage again and again at being condemned by them. Since, then, the pretext about those who are offended has been shown to be unpersuasive, tell us next why you are not pleased with the expression “from the essence.” This must be examined first—though you yourselves wrote that the Son was begotten from the Father. If, then, when you name the Father or say the name “God,” you do not signify essence, nor understand him who is to be what he is in essence, but signify by these words something else around him, or (not to say it myself) something worse, then you should not have written that the Son is from the Father, but from what is around him or in him; so that, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making the simple composite and conceiving of him in a bodily way, you might become inventors of a newer blasphemy. And thinking in this way, you necessarily consider the Word, and the term “Son,” to be not an essence but only a name; and so your notion goes no further than names; and what you say, you do not believe to exist, but think does not exist.

This is rather the daring of the Sadducees and of those among the Greeks who are called atheists. So you will not even say that creation is the work of God himself who is, if indeed “Father” and “God” signify not the very essence of him who is, but something else, which you fabricate. But this is impious and very unseemly even to think. But if, when we hear “I am He who is,” and “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord,” and “Thus says the Lord Almighty,” we understand nothing other than the very simple and blessed and incomprehensible essence of him who is—for even if we are unable to comprehend what it is, yet when we hear “Father” and “God” and “Almighty,” we understand nothing else than the very essence of him who is to be signified—and if you too have said that the Son is from God, then plainly you have said that he is from the essence of the Father. And since before you the Scriptures call the Lord Son of the Father, and before them the Father himself said, “This is my beloved Son,” and a son is nothing else than the offspring from the father, how do the fathers not appear to have spoken well in saying that the Son is from the essence of the Father, reckoning that to say rightly “from God” and to say “from the essence” are the same? For all creatures, even if they are said to have come to be from God, are not from God as the Son is; for they are not offspring but things made, by nature. At any rate, it is said that “in the beginning God” did not beget but “made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them”; and not “he who begets” but “he who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire.” And if the apostle has said, “One God, from whom are all things,” he does not say this numbering the Son with all things; but since among the Greeks some think that creation came together by chance and from a concourse of atoms and spontaneously from like parts, and has no cause, while others think that it came to be from a cause, but not through the Word, and each of the heretics fashioned what he wished and tells fables about creation, for this reason the apostle necessarily included “from God,” to make known the Maker and to show that the creation of all things is from his will. And so he at once adds, “and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” to set the Son apart from “all things”; for the things that are said to be God’s all came to be through the Son, and it is not possible for the things created to have one origin with their creator; and to teach that “from God,” said here, signifies something different when used of the works from what is understood when it is said of the Son. For he is offspring, they are works. Therefore the Son is the proper offspring of the essence, while they are the works of will.

The council, seeing this and knowing the difference that arises from the ambiguity, wrote more clearly that the Son is “from the essence,” lest anyone suppose that the Son too is said to be “from God” in the way creation is. For from this the true genuineness of the Son in relation to the Father is made known; while from saying simply “from God” the will of the Creator in his work of creation is signified. If, then, they too wrote that the Word is from the Father with such a meaning, let them not blame the council; but if they think of “from God,” said of the Son, in the way it is written of creation, then, since they take what is said of creation, they should not say “Son,” lest they seem to mix blasphemy with piety; and they should either not number the Lord with the creatures, or not write things unworthy and unfitting of the Son. For if he is Son, he is not a creature; and if he is a creature, he is not Son. Thinking such things, they will doubtless deny the holy washing too, since it is given into Father and Son, and not into Creator and creature, as they think. “But these are not written,” they say, “and we reject the terms as unscriptural.” But this again is a shameless pretext of theirs. For if they think that what is not written must be rejected, why, when Arius’s party invented on unscriptural grounds such a heap of little phrases—“from nothing,” and “the Son was not before he was begotten,” and “there was once when he was not,” and “he is changeable,” and “the Father is ineffable and invisible to the Son,” and “the Son does not know even his own essence,” and all that Arius vomited out in his ridiculous and impious Thalia—have they not contradicted them, but rather fight for them, and for their sake fight against their own fathers? And from what Scripture did they themselves find “unoriginate,” and the name “essence,” and “there are three hypostases,” and “Christ is not true God,” and “he is one of the hundred sheep,” and “the wisdom of God is unbegotten and without beginning, but there are many created powers, of which Christ is one”? Or how is it that at the so-called Dedication, Acacius’s and Eusebius’s party, using unscriptural terms and calling the firstborn of creation the exact image of the essence and power and will and glory, murmur against the fathers for having used unscriptural terms and mentioned essence? They ought either to murmur against themselves, or to blame the fathers for nothing.

If others had made pretexts of the council’s terms, they might somehow have been suspected of ignorance or of scruple. About George the Cappadocian, who was driven out of Alexandria, there is nothing to say—a man without the testimony of a former life, and not a Christian at all, but merely assuming the name to suit the times and thinking godliness a means of gain. So no one could reasonably blame him for stumbling about the faith, a man who knows neither what he says nor what he asserts, but, as it is written, follows everyone like a gull. But Acacius and Eudoxius and Patrophilus, saying these things, how are they not worthy of every condemnation? For they themselves write unscriptural things, and have often accepted the name “essence” as good, especially because of the letter of Eusebius, yet now they accuse those before them of using such terms. And though they themselves have said that the Son is God from God, and living Word, and exact image of the Father’s essence, they accuse those at Nicaea who said that the one begotten is “from the essence” and “of the same essence” as the one who begot him. What wonder if they fight with those before them and with their own fathers, when, contradicting themselves, they stumble against their own words? For having set forth at the so-called Dedication at Antioch that the Son is the exact image of the Father’s essence, and having sworn that they thought so and anathematized those who thought otherwise, and moreover having written in Isauria, “We do not shun the authentic faith set forth at the Dedication at Antioch” (and in it the name “essence” was written), as if they had forgotten these things, a little later in the same Isauria they wrote the opposite, saying, “We reject ‘of the same essence’ and ‘of like essence’ as alien to the Scriptures,” and “we remove the name ‘essence,’ as not found in the Scriptures.” [38] Who, then, will any longer consider such men Christians? Or what faith is there among those who have no firm word, no firm writing, but change and alter everything to suit the times? For if, Acacius and Eudoxius, you do not shun the faith set forth at the Dedication, and in it is written, “The Son is the exact image of the essence,” how do you write in Isauria, “We reject ‘of the same essence’”? For if the Son is not like the Father in essence, how is he the exact image of the essence? But if you have changed your minds about having written “exact image of the essence,” how do you anathematize those who say that the Son is unlike? For if he is not like in essence, he is altogether unlike; and the unlike could not be an image. And if this is so according to you, then he who has seen the Son has not seen the Father, since there is so very great a difference, or rather, since the one is wholly unlike the other; and the unlike cannot be called like. By what device, then, do you call the unlike like, and think the like unlike, and pretend to say that the Son is the image of the Father? For if the Son is not like the Father in essence, something is lacking to the image, and it is not a full image, nor a perfect radiance. How then do you read, “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and “From his fullness we have all received”? How do you cast out Aetius the Arian as a heretic, though you say the same as he? For he is your companion, Acacius, and he became Eudoxius’s teacher in such impiety; for which reason Leontius the bishop made him a deacon, so that, using the name of the diaconate like sheep’s clothing, he might vomit out the words of blasphemy freely.

What, then, has persuaded you to fall into contradiction with yourselves and bring such shame upon yourselves? You could give no reasonable answer; this alone is left to think, that you now play the hypocrite in everything and fabricate everything by pretense, for the sake of Constantius’s patronage and the gain to be had from such a man. And you readily accuse the fathers, and simply make a pretext of the terms as unscriptural; and, as it is written, “you have spread your legs to every passer-by,” so that you change as often as those who hire you and pay you wish. Yet even if someone speaks unscriptural terms, it makes no difference, so long as he has a pious meaning. But the heretical man, even if he uses the terms of the Scriptures, being no less suspect and corrupt in mind, will hear from the Spirit: “Why do you recount my statutes and take my covenant in your mouth?” So the devil, though speaking from the Scriptures, was silenced by the Savior; while the blessed Paul, even when he speaks from outside sources—“Cretans are always liars,” and “For we are also his offspring,” and “Bad company corrupts good morals”—nevertheless, being a saint, has a pious meaning; and, having the mind of Christ, he is a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, and what he says he utters with piety. What plausibility, then, is there even in the Arian little phrases, in which the caterpillar and the locust are preferred to the Savior, and he is reviled by them: “You once were not,” and “You were created,” and “You are foreign to God in essence”—and in general nothing of slander is left out in them? And what did the fathers leave out in reverent speech? Is not a lofty meaning and Christ-loving piety rather to be found with them? And yet of these they wrote, “We reject,” while they tolerate those insults against the Lord, and make it plain to all that they fight against that great council for no other reason than that it condemned the Arian heresy. For this is why they slander the term “of the same essence,” thinking wrongly about it as well. For if they believed rightly, and truly confessed the Father as Father, and believed the Son to be genuine Son and by nature the true Word and Wisdom of the Father; and if, in saying that the Son is from God, they did not say it of him as it is said of the creatures, but understood him to be the proper offspring of the Father’s essence, as the radiance is from the light, then none of them would accuse the fathers; but they would be confident that the council wrote well, and that this is the right faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

“But the meaning of such terms,” they say, “is unclear to us.” For they made this a pretext too, saying, “Since we cannot understand their interpretation, we reject these terms.” But if they were speaking the truth, they should not have said, “We reject them,” but should have asked to learn from those who understand; since otherwise they ought to reject whatever they do not understand in the divine Scriptures as well, and to accuse those who wrote them. But this is the daring of heretics rather than of us Christians. For what we do not understand in the oracles we do not reject; we seek out those to whom the Lord has revealed it and ask to learn from them. But since even so they make a pretext of the obscurity of such terms, let them at least confess what immediately follows, and anathematize those who hold that the Son is from nothing, and “he was not before he was begotten,” and that the Word of God is a creature and a thing made, and “he is changeable by nature,” and “from another hypostasis”; and, in short, let them anathematize the Arian heresy, which invented such impiety. And then let them not say, “We reject the terms,” but, “We do not yet understand them,” so that they may have some plausible pretext for declining them. But I know well and am persuaded—and they themselves know this—that if they confess these things and anathematize the Arian heresy, they will not deny those terms of the council either. For this is why the fathers too, having said that the Son was begotten from the essence and is of the same essence as the Father, at once added, “But those who say” the things mentioned above, which belong to the Arian heresy, “we anathematize”: to show that it was said by them as an equivalent, and that those terms signify these things; and whoever confesses the former will certainly understand the latter; while those who neither hold the latter and also slander the former are convicted on every side as Christ-fighters.

Concerning those who deny the council altogether, these few words are enough for their refutation; but toward those who accept everything else written at Nicaea and doubt only about “of the same essence,” one must not be disposed as toward enemies. For we too do not oppose them as Ariomaniacs, nor as men fighting against the fathers, but we discuss with them as brothers with brothers, since they have the same meaning as we do and hesitate only about the name. For since they confess that the Son is from the essence of the Father and not from another hypostasis, and that he is not a creature or a thing made, but a genuine and natural offspring, and that he coexists eternally with the Father, being Word and Wisdom, they are not far from accepting the term “of the same essence” too. Such is Basil of Ancyra, who wrote about the faith. For to say only “like in essence” does not altogether signify “from the essence,” by which rather, as they themselves have said, the genuineness of the Son in relation to the Father is signified. For tin is only like silver, and a wolf like a dog, and gilded brass like true gold; but tin is not from silver, nor would a wolf be thought the offspring of a dog. But since they have said that he is both “from the essence” and “of like essence,” what else do they signify by these than “of the same essence”? For just as one who says only “of like essence” does not altogether make known “from the essence” as well, so one who says “of the same essence” signifies the meaning of both, of “of like essence” and of “from the essence.” And they themselves, opposing in turn those who say that the Word is a creature and will not have him be a genuine Son, have drawn their proofs against them from the human examples of son and father, with this exception, that God is not as man, nor is the generation of the Son as human generation, but as befits God and as it is fitting for us to think. For they have called the Father the fountain of wisdom and of life, and the Son the radiance of eternal light and the offspring from the fountain, as he says, “I am the life,” and “I, Wisdom, have made counsel my dwelling.” But the radiance from the light, and the offspring from the fountain, and the Son from the Father—how could one name these fittingly except as “of the same essence”? Must we, then, since the offspring of men are of the same essence as their parents, be cautious lest the Son too, being called “of the same essence,” be thought to be a human offspring? Far from it! It is not so. This too has a quick solution. For the Son is the Word and Wisdom of the Father, from which the impassibility and indivisibility of the generation from the Father is made known. For not even a human word is a part of men, nor does it proceed from them by passion, much less the Word of God, whom the Father declared to be his Son; so that, again, no one hearing only “Word” should think him to be such as the human word is, without subsistence; but hearing that he is Son, should know him to be living Word and essential Wisdom.

Next, just as when we say “offspring” we do not understand it in a human way, and knowing God to be Father we form no bodily notion of him, but we hear the illustrations and such terms and think of God fittingly—for God is not as man—so too when we hear “of the same essence” we ought to rise above all sense and, according to the Proverb, understand intelligently what is set before us, so as to know that the Son is genuinely from the Father not by will but in truth, as life from a fountain and radiance from light. Or why do we understand “offspring” and “Son” not in a bodily way, but take “of the same essence” as said of bodies, especially when the things said are not about different subjects, but “of the same essence” was said of the very one of whom “offspring” was said? It is fitting to keep the same sense for both terms as applied to the Savior, and not to interpret “offspring” in a good sense and “of the same essence” otherwise; for it would follow that you, being so disposed, and calling the Son Word and Wisdom of the Father, should take these too in different senses, and understand the Word in one way and Wisdom in another. But as this is absurd—for the Son is the Word and Wisdom of the Father, and the offspring from the Father is one and proper to his essence—so the sense of “offspring” and of “of the same essence” is one; and whoever thinks of the Son as offspring rightly thinks of him also as of the same essence.

These things are sufficient to show that the meaning of the beloved men is not foreign to “of the same essence” nor far from it. But since, as they themselves say (for I do not have the letter), the bishops who condemned the Samosatene said in writing that the Son is not of the same essence as the Father, and so they, out of reverence and honor toward those who said it, are disposed as they are toward the term, it is good to consider this too with them reverently. To set these fathers against those is unseemly, for all are fathers; and again to distinguish them, as if these spoke well and those the opposite, is not holy, for all fell asleep in Christ. One must not be contentious, nor compare the numbers of those who assembled, lest the three hundred seem to overshadow the fewer; nor again measure the dates, lest those who came first seem to eclipse those who came after. For all, as was said before, are fathers; and yet not even the three hundred wrote as holding anything new, nor did they champion unscriptural terms trusting in themselves, but they too set out from fathers and used their words. For there were two named Dionysius, long before the seventy who deposed the Samosatene, of whom one was bishop of Rome, the other of Alexandria. Now, when some accused the bishop of Alexandria before the bishop of Rome of saying that the Son is a thing made and not of the same essence as the Father, the council at Rome was indignant, and the bishop of Rome wrote the opinion of them all to his namesake. And he, in turn, defending himself, entitled his book Of Refutation and Defense; and he writes this to him:

“And in another letter I wrote, in which I refuted the charge they bring against me, which is false, that I do not say that Christ is of the same essence as God. For even if I say that I have not found or read this name anywhere in the holy Scriptures, yet my arguments that followed, which they have passed over in silence, are not out of keeping with this meaning. For I set forth human generation, plainly as being of the same kind, saying that parents differ from their children only in this, that they are not themselves the children; otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. The letter, as I said before, I cannot produce because of circumstances; otherwise I would have sent you the very words I used then, or rather a copy of the whole, which I will do if I am able. But I know and remember that I added more comparisons with kindred things. For I said that a plant coming up from a seed or a root is other than that from which it sprang, and yet is entirely of the same nature with it; and that a river flowing from a spring has taken a different form and name—for neither is the spring called river, nor the river spring—and that both exist, and the spring is as it were father, while the river is what is begotten from the spring.” So the bishop said.