On the Synods 23–41

It was said to the apostles of the Lord: "Be wise as serpents and simple as doves." By this he wished the nature of animals differing from each other to be in us; but in such a way that the simplicity of the dove should temper the serpent's wisdom, and the serpent's wisdom should instruct the dove's simplicity, and there should be both a simple wisdom and a wise simplicity. This precept has been kept in the exposition of this faith. For the preceding judgment, of which we spoke, guarded against proclaiming a personal union through likeness of essence, lest the sameness of nature should destroy the birth of the Son, and he should be one and solitary in our thought because the one did not differ from the other in kind. But by the following judgment that serpent's wisdom, to which we are commanded to be conformed together with the dove's simplicity, is met again by a simple and apostolic wisdom: lest perhaps, because personal union is not accepted (since the Father is one and the Son another), the proclaiming of an unlike nature might creep in again; lest, because the one who sent is one and the one sent is another (since sender and sent are not one), the sent and the sender should be thought to be of distinct and unlike nature, though born and begetter cannot be of different essence. So in the Father and the Son the likeness of an undiffering nature is retained through the birth of the essence; yet the likeness of nature does no damage to the person so as to make sender and sent one. Nor again, in the property of person, since one cannot be called both Son and Father to himself, is likeness of nature taken away. And thus both the truth of the birth advances to the likeness of essence, and the likeness of essence does not lose the personal truth of the birth. Nor again does the confession of begetter and begotten exclude the likeness of essence; for though begetter and begotten cannot be one, yet born and begetter are not of different nature. X. "And if anyone understands God the Father of the only-begotten Son to be Father at some time, and not that the only-begotten Son existed without passion above times and above all human reckoning, as though going beyond the gospel proclamation, which rejected an interval of times concerning the Father and the Son and faithfully taught us that 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God': let him be anathema."

It is a devout confession that the Father is not contained within times; for the timeless truth of the name of Father exceeds every sense of understanding. Although the confession of the very name of Father, through which he is the impassible origin of the one born, is a matter of religion, yet it is not held in time; for God the Father, eternal and infinite, cannot be understood as temporal; and according to the gospel proclamation the only-begotten God the Word is known rather to be already in the beginning with God than to be born. XI. "And if anyone says that the Father is older in time than the Son only-begotten from him, and the Son younger than the Father: let him be anathema."

The likeness of essence, conformed in kind, is taught also to be undiffering in time: lest he who is the image of God, who is the Word, who is God with God in the beginning, who is like the Father, should not have in himself perfectly that he is image, Word, and God, because a time intervened between himself and the Father. For if he is proclaimed younger in time, he has lost the truth both of image and of likeness; for there would no longer be a likeness that is found unlike in time. Because the very fact that God is Father cannot have a time in which he was not Father, so in the Son there can be no time in which he was not Son. And for that reason neither should the Father be called older than the Son nor the Son younger than the Father, because the truth of each name cannot be without the other. XII. "And if anyone refers the timeless substance of the only-begotten Son from the Father to the unbegettable essence of God, as though calling the Son the Father: let him be anathema."

The preceding definition seemed to have given the heretics an occasion when it denied a time to the Son's birth (because it would be wicked if the Father were in time, and he would be in time if the Son were subjected to time): namely that, by this opportunity of a denied time, under the name of Son, the Father, who is unbegettable, should be proclaimed single and alone, himself both father and son to himself. For where a time of being born is excluded, there the opinion of unbegottenness seems to be admitted, so that one whose birth is not in time might be thought not to be born. Therefore, lest by this occasion of a denied time the (Sabellian) heresy of union should creep in, this impiety is condemned which dares to refer a timeless birth to the single and solitary substance of the unbegettable essence; since it is one thing to be timeless and another to be unborn. The one has birth (though outside time); the other is to itself, for what it is, the sole and same eternal author.

We have gone through, dearest brothers, all the published definitions of faith of the Eastern bishops, which they drew up, when gathered in synod, against the heresy that lately emerged. And we, as far as we could, have fitted the language of our exposition to the sense of their meaning, serving their words rather than wishing to be thought the authors of others' words. By these definitions they decree, against a new and profane impiety, these principles of their conscience and of a doctrine long since received; and they compelled those who had written this heresy at Sirmium, or had accepted it when written, to confess their ignorance and subscribe to such decrees. In them the Son is the perfect image of the Father; in them, under the property of an undiffering image, the Son is not abolished by a profane deceit … so as to be the Father; in them the Son, proclaimed the image of the Father through the truth of likeness, does not differ by difference of substance from the substance of the Father whose image he is; in them, through the life had by the Father and received by the Son, the Father has nothing different in substance, which is signified by "life", from what the Son received to have; in them the begotten Son is not a creature but is a substance undistinguished from the nature of the Father; in them, as there is undiffering power between the Father and the Son, so their essence admits no difference between them; in them the Father, by begetting the Son, does not degenerate from himself in him by a difference of nature; in them, though the likeness of nature differs in nothing in either, yet the property of the likeness rejects a union of the personal names, so that the one subsisting should not be one who is called both Father and Son; in them, because both the Father who sends and the Son who is sent are devoutly spoken of, yet no distinction of essence is made in anything between the Father and the Son, that is, between the one sent and the one sending; in them the truth of the name of Father is not contained within times; in them the Son is not later in time than the Father; in them a perfect birth beyond all time does not admit in itself the error of unbegottenness.

And this whole teaching of faith that has been published, dearest brothers, came forth from a few Easterners, few in proportion to the whole number, in almost the very days in which you rejected the heresy forced upon you. The reason for explaining it was that silence about the one substance was being decreed. But already at earlier and various times, many causes demanding it, it was necessary for other creeds to be written; what they are like will be understood from themselves. For when everything they have done is known, we shall the more easily and fully give a devout explanation, fitting for unity, of the matters about which there is a question among us. Exposition of the church's faith, set forth at the synod held at the dedication of the completed church of Antioch. The bishops present, ninety-seven, set it forth, since one of the bishops had come under suspicion of holding wrong views.

"We believe, in accordance with the gospel and apostolic tradition, in one God the Father almighty, the builder, maker, and provider of all things that are, from whom are all things; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, God, through whom are all things, who was begotten from the Father, God from God, whole from whole, one from one, perfect from perfect, king from king, Lord from Lord, the Word, the Wisdom, the Life, the true Light, the true Way, the Resurrection, the Shepherd, the Door, unchangeable and immutable, the unvarying image of the Godhead, essence, power, and glory, the firstborn of all creation, who always was in the beginning with God, God the Word, according to what is said in the Gospel, 'And the Word was God', through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together; who in the last days came down from above and was born of a virgin according to the Scriptures, and became the Lamb, the mediator between God and men, foreordained for our faith, and the leader of life. For he said: 'I have not come down from heaven to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.' Who suffered and rose for us on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit, who was given to believers for comfort, sanctification, and perfection, as also the Lord Jesus Christ commanded the disciples, saying: 'Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit': clearly, that is, of the Father who is truly Father, and certainly of the Son who is truly Son, and of the Holy Spirit who is truly Holy Spirit; these names not being set forth simply or idly, but carefully signifying the proper substance, order, and glory of each of those named, so that they are three in substance but one in agreement.

"Holding, then, this faith, and holding it from the beginning and to the end in the sight of God and of Christ, we anathematize every heretical and perverse sect. And if anyone teaches, beyond the sound and right faith of the Scriptures, saying that there either is or was a time, or a space, or an age before the Son was begotten: let him be anathema. And if anyone says that the Son is a thing made as one of the things made, or a birth as other births are, or a work as works are, and not as the divine Scriptures have handed down each of the things said above; and if anyone teaches or preaches anything other than what we have received: let him be anathema. For all that has been handed down in the divine Scriptures by the prophets and apostles we truly and with fear both believe and follow."

Perhaps this faith seems to have spoken less explicitly about the undiffering likeness of the Father and the Son, especially since it held, concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that the names signified the proper substance, order, and glory of each of those named, so that they are three in substance but one in agreement.

First, it must be known that the council at Antioch met not against the heresy that dared to proclaim the Father and the Son of unlike substance, but against the one which, after the holy synod of Nicaea, had broken out so far as to wish to ascribe three names to the Father; of this we shall treat in its place. For I remember that at the beginning of my discourse I asked for the patience and fairness of readers and hearers until all I have said is complete, so that no one should rashly become my judge before learning the whole discourse. The assembled synod of saints, then, wishing to destroy that impiety which evaded the truth of the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by their number (so that, there being no subsisting reality behind each name, the threefold naming should hold a union under the falsehood of the names, and the Father alone and one should himself have the name both of Holy Spirit and of Son), said for that reason that there are three substances, teaching by "substances" the persons of those who subsist, not separating the substance of the Father and the Son by the difference of an unlike essence. And what was said, "so that they are three in substance but one in agreement", gives no ground for slander; because, since the Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, is named with them, it is fitting that the unity be proclaimed as one of agreement rather than of essence through likeness of substance.

Besides, the whole preceding statement in no way separated the Father and the Son by a difference of essence and nature. For where it says "God from God, whole from whole", there is no doubt that the whole God was born from the whole God. For the nature of God from God does not differ; and the whole from the whole is himself in those things in which the Father is. "One from one" excludes the sufferings of human childbirth and conception, so that, being one from one, he who is one from one, perfect from perfect, is not from elsewhere, nor different, nor other. Birth does not differ from unbegottenness except in the cause of origin, since the perfection of each does not differ. "King from King": a power named by one and the same name does not admit unlikeness of power. "Lord from Lord": lordship too is equal in the Lord, and a dominion confessed in both without difference does not admit difference. And what is added after many other things, "unchangeable and immutable, the unvarying image of the Godhead, essence, power, and glory", is complete. For since God from God, whole from whole, one from one, perfect from perfect, king from king, Lord from Lord, the Son also, being born, subsists in all that glory and nature of divinity in which the Father abides, he has this too from the Father's substance, that he does not become changeable. For in his being born, the nature from which he was born was not changed; but the one born obtained an unchangeable essence from the authority of an unchangeable nature. For though he is an image, yet he is an unvarying image (that is, the nature in him was not changed by unlikeness to the Father's essence from which he was begotten), because the image of the Father's essence was born in him. And further, when he is taught to be the firstborn of all creation, and he himself is said always to have been in the beginning with God, God the Word: in that he is firstborn, he is shown to have been born; in that he always was, he is not separated from the Father by time. The division of substances, then, cannot seem to have been introduced to separate a different substance in the Son and in the Father, since this synod sought nothing else than to exclude, by the name of three substances, the union of a threefold name; for the exposition of the whole faith does not distinguish the Father and the Son, the unbegettable and the only-begotten, by time, name, essence, dignity, or dominion. It is worthy of our common conscience to know also the other creeds of the same Eastern bishops, written at various places and times, so that the sincerity of their conscience may be understood through several confessions. The creed according to the synod of the East. The holy synod gathered at Serdica from various provinces of the Eastern regions, Thebais, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Mesopotamia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Bithynia, Hellespont, Asia, the two Phrygias, Pisidia, the Cyclades islands, Pamphylia, Caria, Lydia, Europa, Thrace, Haemimontus, Moesia, and the two Pannonias: we have set forth this faith.

"We believe in one God the Father almighty, creator and maker of all things, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named. We believe also in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and the true Light; and who in the last days was made flesh for our sake, and was born of the holy Virgin; who was crucified, and died, and was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, and was received into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his works; whose kingdom endures without ceasing to boundless ages. For he sits at the right hand of the Father not only in this age but also in the age to come. We believe also in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, whom, having promised him to the apostles, he sent after his return to heaven to teach them and to remind them of all things; through whom also the souls of those who sincerely believe in him are sanctified. But those who say that the Son of God is from things that did not exist, or from another substance and not from God, and that there was a time or an age when he was not, the holy and catholic church knows to be strangers. Likewise those who say that there are three gods, or that Christ is not God, and not before the ages, and that he is neither Christ nor the Son of God; or that he himself is Father and Son and Holy Spirit; or an unbegettable Son; or that the Father begot the Son neither by counsel nor by will: these the holy and catholic church anathematizes."

The exposition of this faith used brief but most complete definitions. For in condemning those who said that the Son is from things that did not exist, it gave him an origin not begun but abiding. And lest this abiding origin from which he was born should be understood to be some other substance rather than God's, it also pronounces blasphemers those who said that the Son was born from some other substance and not from God. And so, since he did not come to subsist from nothing, nor came to exist from anywhere other than from God, who is, there can be no doubt that he was born in the things that are God's; for the only-begotten essence of the Son is begotten neither from things that did not exist nor from anything other than the unbegettable and eternal substance of the Father. It rejects also intervals of times and ages, so that he who does not differ by nature cannot be separable by time.

On every side to which concern could turn itself, access is blocked to the ingenuity of the heretics, lest any difference be proclaimed in the Son. For it anathematizes those who say there are three gods, because, according to the truth of nature, this substance does not admit a number of names, except as happens among men and angels, when the name is given out of the honor of merits, while the substance of nature differs between them and God; and for that reason there are many gods. But in the nature of God, God is one; yet in such a way that the Son also is God, because in him the nature is not different; and since he is God from God, both cannot but be God, whose essence is not distinguished, through the sameness of kind. But a number in the name is rejected in naming, because there is no difference in the quality of nature. Since, then, he is anathema who speaks of gods, and he is anathema who denies that the Son is God, it is shown completely that the unity of the one name for both comes from the property of an undiffering substance; since in confessing the unbegettable God the Father and the only-begotten God the Son, neither differing from the other by unlikeness of essence, though each is God, yet God is one, to be believed and proclaimed. The faith of the bishops, then, with great and careful caution, guards the sameness of the begotten and begetting nature, confirming it by the unity of the name.

Yet lest, in turn, the proclaiming of one God should seek to affirm a single substance of a solitary God without his offspring, it at once condemns the rashness which, because God is one, would confess God the Father as one and solitary, having in himself the name both of Father and of Son; whereas in the begetting Father and the born Son one God is to be proclaimed on account of the substance of a nature not differing in either. The faith of the saints also knows nothing of an unbegettable Son, because the nature of the Son exists only from birth. And the nature of the birth in him is so perfect that he who was born from the substance of God is also born from his counsel and will. For it is from will and counsel, not from the passion of a bodily nature, that the essence of God begotten from the essence of God has its complete perfection. It follows that we should now review the faith that was written not long ago, when Photinus was deposed from the episcopate. Copy of the creed written at Sirmium by the Easterners against Photinus.

"We believe in one God the Father almighty, creator and maker, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named. And in his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was born from the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and the true Light; who in the last days took a body for our sake, and was born of the holy Virgin, and was crucified, and died, and was buried; who also rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his works; whose kingdom, continuing without end, endures to everlasting ages. For he will be sitting at the right hand of the Father not only in this age but also in the age to come. And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, whom, having promised him to the apostles, he sent after he ascended into heaven, to teach them and remind them of all things; through whom also the souls of those who believe sincerely in him are sanctified. I. But those who say: the Son is from nothing existing, or from another substance and not from God; and that there was a time or an age when he was not: the holy and catholic church knows to be strangers. II. If anyone says that the Father and the Son are two gods: let him be anathema. III. And if anyone, saying that God is one, does not confess that Christ, God before the ages, the Son of God, served the Father in the creation of all things: let him be anathema. IV. And if anyone dares to say that the unbegettable God, or a part of him, was born of Mary: let him be anathema. V. And if anyone says that the Son is from Mary according to foreknowledge or predestination, and not born from the Father before the ages and with God, and that all things were made through him: let him be anathema. VI. If anyone says that the substance of God expands and contracts: let him be anathema. VII. If anyone says that the expanded substance of God makes the Son, or calls the Son the expansion of his substance, as he thinks fit: let him be anathema. VIII. If anyone calls the Son of God the indwelling or the uttered word: let him be anathema. IX. If anyone says that the Son from Mary is only a man: let him be anathema. X. If anyone, saying that God and man was born of Mary, understands thereby the unbegettable God: let him be anathema. XI. If anyone, hearing 'The Word became flesh', thinks that the Word was changed into flesh, or says that he took flesh by undergoing change: let him be anathema. XII. If anyone, hearing that the only Son of God was crucified, says that his deity underwent corruption, or passibility, or change, or diminution, or death: let him be anathema. XIII. If anyone says that 'Let us make man' was said not by the Father to the Son, but that God spoke to himself: let him be anathema. XIV. If anyone says that it was not the Son who was seen by Abraham, but the unbegettable God, or a part of him: let him be anathema. XV. If anyone says that it was not the Son who wrestled with Jacob as a man, but the unbegettable God, or a part of him: let him be anathema. XVI. If anyone does not understand 'The Lord rained from the Lord' of the Son and the Father, but says that he rained from himself: let him be anathema. For the Lord the Son rained from the Lord the Father. XVII. If anyone, because 'the Lord from the Lord', says that the Lord and the Lord, the Father and the Son, are two gods: let him be anathema. For we do not make the Son equal or comparable to the Father, but understand him as subject. For he did not come down to Sodom without the Father's will, nor did he rain from himself but from the Lord, that is, by the Father's authority; nor does he sit at the right hand of himself, but hears the Father saying, 'Sit at my right hand.' XVIII. If anyone says that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one person: let him be anathema. XIX. If anyone, calling the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, calls him the unbegettable God: let him be anathema. XX. If anyone does not say, as the Lord taught us, that the Paraclete is other than the Son, for he said, 'And the Father will send you another Paraclete, whom I will ask': let him be anathema. XXI. If anyone says that the Holy Spirit is a part of the Father or of the Son: let him be anathema. XXII. If anyone says that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three gods: let him be anathema. XXIII. If anyone understands in a Jewish way what was said, 'I am God the first, and I am God the last, and besides me there is no God', which was said to destroy idols and those who are not gods, so as to destroy the only-begotten God before the ages: let him be anathema. XXIV. If anyone says that the Son was made by the will of God as one of the creatures: let him be anathema. XXV. If anyone says that the Son was born against the Father's will: let him be anathema. For the Father was not compelled against his will, or led by natural necessity, to beget the Son when he did not wish; but as soon as he willed, he showed him begotten from himself without time and without passion. XXVI. If anyone says that the Son is unbegettable and without beginning, as though saying two without beginning and two unbegettable and two unbegotten, and so makes two gods: let him be anathema. For the head, which is the beginning of all things, is the Son; and the head, which is the beginning of Christ, is God: for so, to the one who is without beginning, the beginning of all things, we refer all things through the Son. XXVII. And again, confirming the understanding of Christianity, we say: if anyone does not say that Christ, God, the Son of God, subsisted before the ages and served the Father in the perfecting of all things, but says that from the time he was born of Mary he was named Christ and Son and received the beginning of being God: let him be anathema."

Necessity and the times urged those who had then assembled to arrange the exposition of the faith more broadly and fully through many questions, because the heresy that was being renewed through Photinus was trying to creep into the catholic house by many hidden tunnels; so that, by each kind of undefiled and unharmed faith, each kind of heretical and furtive deceit might be opposed, and there might be as many clarifications of the faith as there were occasions sought for unbelief. And first, after that general and undoubted exposition of the mysteries, the setting forth of the faith against the heretics begins here. I. "But those who say: the Son is from nothing existing, or from another substance and not from God; and that there was a time or an age when he was not: the holy and catholic church knows to be strangers."

What room is there here for ambiguity? Or what is left wanting to the conscience of a sincere faith? He is not from things that did not exist, so that his origin is existing. No other substance exists for his origin except only the one that is God's, so that nothing else can have been born in him than all that is God's; because, existing not from nothing, he does not subsist from elsewhere. He does not differ in time, so that the Son is timeless with the Father. Everything is inseparable, then, between the unbegettable Father and the only-begotten Son, whom, equal in time, the very sameness of the one and only existing paternal essence, from which the birth is taken, distinguishes in nothing. II. "But if anyone says that the Father and the Son are two gods: let him be anathema. III. And if anyone, saying that God is one, does not confess that Christ, God before the ages, the Son of God, served the Father in the creation of all things: let him be anathema."

The devout profession of the name itself gives us a complete understanding of the matter. For since it is under condemnation to call the Father and the Son two gods, and again it is anathema to deny that the Son is God, the opinion of a substance differing one from the other is excluded in proclaiming two gods. For there is no other essence than that of God the Father, from which the Son of God, God, was born without time. For since we necessarily confess God the Father, and absolutely proclaim Christ the Son of God as God, and between these lies the irreligious confession of two gods, they cannot, according to the sameness of nature and of name, not be one in the kind of essence, whose name of essence may only be one. IV. "If anyone dares to say that the unbegettable God, or a part of him, was born of Mary: let him be anathema."