On the Synods

Contents

Reading pages: 0–22 · 23–41 · 42–72 · 73–92

1. 0Hilary greets the bishops, clergy, and people of Gaul and Britain.
2. 1Hilary explains that he had meant to stop writing to the Gallic bishops because of their long silence.
3. 2Hilary rejoices that the Gallic bishops have kept the faith, refused communion to Saturninus, and condemned the Sirmian creed.
4. 3The Gauls' steadfastness has shamed some Eastern bishops into condemning the Sirmian creed and forcing its signers to recant.
5. 4The Gauls keep communion only among the faithful and refuse to share in the exile of orthodox bishops by silent assent.
6. 5Some of the Gallic bishops asked Hilary to report the Eastern creeds and give his judgment on them.
7. 6Hilary asks readers not to judge his letter before reading it to the end.
8. 7Hilary will set out every creed since Nicaea with explanations, as a messenger and not as their author.
9. 8Hilary writes before the coming synods so that the Gauls may understand the Eastern bishops' position and terms.
10. 9Hilary will give the Eastern bishops' decrees in a clear rather than word-for-word translation.
11. 10Hilary summarizes the aims of the Sirmian creed of 357 before quoting it.
12. 11The text of the Second Creed of Sirmium (357), which forbids talk of substance and calls the Father greater than the Son.
13. 12Hilary defines essence and substance and quotes the first anathema of the Eastern bishops against identifying the Son with the Father.
14. 13Hilary explains that the image implies a real distinct Son, and quotes the second anathema, which distinguishes giver and receiver of life.
15. 14The giver and receiver of life are distinct persons; the third anathema requires confessing the Son like the Father in essence.
16. 15The Son's likeness to the Father in nature is real and complete; the fourth anathema requires likeness in essence.
17. 16The Son's life from the Father implies likeness of essence; the fifth anathema rejects reading Proverbs 8 as making the Son a creature.
18. 17Proverbs 8 joins "created" and "begot" to show that the Son's birth is real yet without bodily change in the Father.
19. 18"Created" and "begotten" together express a perfect birth; the sixth anathema condemns granting the Son likeness in working but not in essence.
20. 19Likeness of power implies likeness of nature; the seventh anathema condemns a Father of a Son unlike in essence.
21. 20A Father unlike his Son in nature is a Father in name only; the eighth anathema rejects identity, partition, and emanation.
22. 21Some heretics use the Son's likeness to the Father to argue that they are one and the same.
23. 22The Son's birth excludes both union with the Father and partition or emanation; the ninth anathema forbids using the distinction of persons to deny likeness of essence.
24. 23Like the serpent and dove, the creed guards both against merging the persons and against making their natures unlike; the tenth anathema denies a time when God became Father.
25. 24The name of Father is timeless; the eleventh anathema forbids making the Father older than the Son.
26. 25Likeness in essence implies no difference in time; the twelfth anathema forbids making the timeless Son the unbegotten Father.
27. 26The twelfth anathema guards against the Sabellian inference that a timeless Son must be the unbegotten Father.
28. 27Hilary sums up the twelve anathemas of the Eastern bishops point by point.
29. 28Hilary turns to the earlier creeds, beginning with the creed of the Dedication Council of Antioch.
30. 29The text of the Dedication Creed of Antioch (341).
31. 30The anathemas that close the Dedication Creed of Antioch.
32. 31Hilary raises the objection that the Antiochene creed seems to make three substances.
33. 32The Antiochene "three substances" was aimed against Sabellianism and meant three persons, not three unlike essences.
34. 33Hilary shows the Antiochene creed teaches no difference of essence, then introduces the creed of the Eastern bishops at Serdica.
35. 34The text of the Eastern creed of Serdica (343).
36. 35Hilary explains that the Serdican creed's anathemas make the Son's origin eternal and from God's own substance.
37. 36Condemning both "three gods" and denial of the Son's deity implies one God in an undiffering substance.
38. 37The creed rejects a solitary God without a Son and teaches the Son born by the Father's will; Hilary introduces the First Creed of Sirmium against Photinus.
39. 38The text of the First Creed of Sirmium (351) with its twenty-seven anathemas against Photinus and others.
40. 39The Sirmian creed multiplied its anathemas to meet every trick of Photinus's renewed heresy.
41. 40The first anathema secures the Son's eternal origin from God's own substance.
42. 41Denying both two gods and a non-divine Son implies one essence of Father and Son.
43. 42The one name of God does not abolish the person of the Son, so the unbegotten God was not born of Mary.
44. 43The fifth anathema condemns those who say the Son pre-existed only in God's foreknowledge.
45. 44God, being spirit, does not expand or contract.
46. 45The seventh anathema condemns the theory that the Son is an expansion of the Father's substance into the Virgin.
47. 46The eighth anathema rejects making the Son a mere spoken word; the ninth and tenth guard the confession of God and man born of Mary.
48. 47The God in the man born of Mary is truly God, but not the unbegotten Father.
49. 48In becoming flesh the Word lost nothing of his divinity, as his miracles, transfiguration, and resurrection show.
50. 49The Word suffered in the flesh without his divine nature becoming passible; anathemas XIII–XVI follow.
51. 50Anathemas XIII–XVI were aimed at Photinus's denial of the Son's pre-existence; anathema XVII follows.
52. 51The Son's subjection to the Father is one of obedience and name, not a lesser essence.
53. 52Anathema XVIII rejects one person under two names.
54. 53The Spirit sent by the Son cannot be the unbegotten God.
55. 54The Son's praying for "another Paraclete" shows that the Spirit is distinct from the Son.
56. 55The Holy Spirit is not a part of the Father or the Son.
57. 56Three gods are excluded even more than two; anathema XXIII follows.
58. 57"Besides me there is no God" excludes false gods, not the Son born from God's own essence.
59. 58Creatures exist by God's will, but the Son exists by birth from God's nature.
60. 59The Son is born neither by bare will nor by compulsion of nature, but by the Father's willing, impassible begetting.
61. 60There cannot be two unbegotten; the one God is proclaimed through the one unbegotten Father.
62. 61The final anathema sums up the faith against Photinus: the Son is not separated from the Father in any way.
63. 62The many creeds and definitions were needed because brief formulas about the infinite God easily mislead.
64. 63Hilary laments the state of the Eastern churches and praises the Gauls, who held the apostolic faith without needing written creeds.
65. 64Hilary states his own faith in a series of balanced affirmations and denials about Father and Son.
66. 65Hilary apologizes for the inadequacy of his words, not of his faith.
67. 66Hilary turns from the creeds to the terms that cause misunderstanding between East and West.
68. 67"One substance" is orthodox when it means equality of nature without abolishing the persons or dividing the substance.
69. 68"One substance" can be misread in three heretical ways: one person, a divided substance, or a prior substance shared by two.
70. 69One should affirm one substance only after confessing the Son's birth, likeness, subjection, and deity.
71. 70Truths about Christ must be stated together, not in isolation; so too "one substance" must follow the doctrine of the Son's birth and likeness.
72. 71Hilary urges that "one substance" be held on the basis of the Son's birth and likeness, not as union or division.
73. 72Likeness and equality amount to the same thing, and neither implies a solitary being.
74. 73From Adam and Seth (Genesis) and John 5:18, Hilary shows that likeness by birth is equality of nature.
75. 74Those who grant likeness but deny equality contradict themselves, since a nature like the Father's is his own nature.
76. 75From John 5:19 Hilary shows that the Son's obedience to the Father goes with an equal power of nature.
77. 76Likeness and one substance, rightly understood, imply each other.
78. 77Hilary turns to address the Eastern bishops directly.
79. 78Hilary praises the Eastern bishops for opposing the heresy that had deceived the unbaptized emperor Constantius.
80. 79Hilary rejects the claim of Valens and Ursacius that they forbade the terms through ignorance, pointing to the Sirmian creed's other errors.
81. 80Hilary asks the Eastern bishops to hear his concerns about their statements at Sirmium with indulgence.
82. 81Hilary reviews the three Eastern objections to homoousion: a prior substance, its condemnation in Paul of Samosata, and its absence from Scripture.
83. 82Hilary agrees with the Easterners in condemning the heretical senses of homoousion.
84. 83Homoousion was adopted at Nicaea precisely against the Arian denial of the Son's birth from God's substance.
85. 84Hilary quotes the Nicene Creed and shows that its homoousion means only that the Son is born from the Father's substance and not from elsewhere.
86. 85If misuse by heretics disqualified a word, much of Scripture itself would have to be discarded.
87. 86The 318 bishops of Nicaea who accepted homoousion against Arius outweigh the eighty who rejected it against Paul of Samosata.
88. 87Silence about homoousion would logically mean silence about homoiousion too, leaving nothing against the heretics.
89. 88Hilary explains his own understanding of homoousion and urges the Easterners to accept it rightly defined.
90. 89Mere likeness can deceive, like gilt or look-alike milk; only likeness from a shared nature is true.
91. 90Hilary warns that some statements of the Ancyra creed, quietly dropped at Sirmium, must not be revived.
92. 91Condemning homoousion would condemn the Nicene fathers and the bishops' own ordination; Hilary held both terms in the same sense from the Gospels.
93. 92Hilary closes by asking for prayers in his exile and commending the Gauls to God.