BOOK ONE. 1. When at the city of Nicaea in Bithynia, by three hundred and eighteen bishops, the faith of the Church was being confirmed out of the evangelical and apostolic doctrines by spiritual vigour, there the perfidy of Arius was exposed in the presence of the Emperor Constantine; and being refuted in the dogma of his perfidy by the sentence of those same bishops, he was separated from the Church, lest so impious a doctrine, long lurking in the Church, should insinuate itself into the minds of all. But when the emperor learned that the whole faith of the Church, as it had been handed down by the apostles, was being most holily confirmed by the Fathers, he ordered that same Arius, as a rebel against the sacred faith, to be banished into exile. But just as the serpent ensnared Eve in paradise by deceitful persuasions,
so too the perfidy of Arius, through a certain henchman, brought ruin upon Constantia, the sister of that same prince. And the venom of the devil lay hidden in her, until it should find the time of bursting forth with which it had filled her. She therefore, when on the last day of her death she enjoyed a visit from her brother, at once held out to him, with a word, the poisoned apple of innocence. And straightway, after the example of the first man, all unknowing he slips down the path of transgression; and lending his mind to the viperous requests, Arius—who had long before been banished by him as a sacrilegious man—was recalled from exile to the slaughter of faithful souls; and unfolding his faith to the prince with crafty disputations, he vainly asserted that he had not been condemned by the bishops.
For this very cause the same emperor ordered a synod to be assembled at Alexandria, so that, if a true assertion were recognized, pardon following upon the sentence might be restored to the Church; and so that all, rejoicing at his correction, might thereafter proceed more peaceably to the dedication of the Church of Jerusalem. Then, while his case was being deliberated by the bishops at greater length, that same Emperor Constantine, in a certain suburb called Nicomedia, having ordered his final judgment, in the thirty-first year of his reign closed his last day. 2. This ordinance of his testament he handed over to the aforesaid henchman of Arius, to be kept for Constantius.
And when he, coming after the death of his father, had taken up the empire, the henchman handed over the testament to Constantius, just as it had been entrusted by Constantine. Indeed, for the sake of this matter, that same presbyter Evangelus was held in such intimacy with him that he was now called not presbyter, but father of the empire; and he who had been raised to be emperor for the sake of ruling seemed to be made subject under the rule of this presbyter. By his request—nay rather, by his command—Arius was recalled into the Church;
and the untrained prince, retaining his doctrine with impious thoughts, rejected the catholic faith, and departing from the traditions of the fathers in a sacrilegious manner, is seen to have brought no light persecution upon the Church of God and upon the priests in his times. At which time also he made very many martyrs and many confessors. Others too he left half-alive, their eyes gouged out and their knees cut off; and not a few, seized by raging fury and madness, he condemned, banishing them from their own dwellings. In these the saying of the Lord is seen to be fulfilled: 'If,' He says, 'they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you' (John 15:20).
He therefore, before he should by guile assemble the priests of the Lord from the whole world at Ariminum or Seleucia, desiring to make everything one, ordered a certain judge named Probus, supported by his authority, to be present as arbiter between that same Arius and Athanasius—that man, indeed, whom he had found faithful in his realm and, beyond all other men, learned in all worldly arts. And he, with all public cares set far aside, chose to fulfil with all speed the task enjoined upon him, that he might both obey the imperial commands and prove the most truthful faith by his own examination.
And so, when he had come to the city of Laodicea in Syria in the second year of the reign of Constantius, sitting before the tribunal in the auditorium, with crowds standing about on this side and that, he addressed Arius and Athanasius in these words: 3. 'Admonished by the sacred command of the glorious and most pious Emperor Constantius, I have ordered that the matter of the faith be ventilated between you.' Arius and Athanasius said: 'And who is so senseless as to dare to refuse the imperial commands?' Probus the judge said: 'Then let the sacred letter of the venerable Augustus be read.' And it was recited thus: 'Constantine Constantius, pious, perpetual, victor and triumpher, ever Augustus, to Probus the judge, greeting.'
'Having by divine gift obtained the paternal empire, this is what must first of all be sought by us: that, with heretical conduct wiped from the minds of the perfidious, the whole world, joined to our sacred faith, may rejoice—since he who shall convert the impious from the way of error will save his soul, and will cover the multitude of their sins. And since we now find very many associates in this crime, cultivating this perfidy with sacrilegious rite, asserting that they retain the whole rule of the faith, who not only deceive men by impious seduction, but also do injury to the unbegotten majesty, joining the created substance of the Son to the divinity:
'We admonish that, having received the authority of our clemency, you cause the examination of this matter to be conducted between Arius the venerable presbyter and Athanasius, bishop of the same error. Persuading them especially that, with perversity of spirit laid aside, both should submit their necks to a faith of true and proved character: lest, despising the commands of our piety and clemency with their wonted audacity of rashness, they provoke us to grave wrath. And although you have not yet received the laying-on of hands of this faith, yet by the wisdom in which you excel beyond others, we trust that you can faithfully define everything without acceptance of any person, in a manner more pleasing to God than to man.' And in another hand: 'We wish you good health. Given at Constantinople on the twelfth day before the Kalends of January.' 4.
And when it had been recited, Probus the judge said: 'Let the sacred letter of the venerable prince which has been read be entered into the records.' He added: 'Perceiving that in the worship of idols there resides no majesty of true godhead, I wish to subject myself to the Christian doctrines, by which it is established that there is one and true God, who created all things that are seen and that are not seen by the power of His word. And since, though many are reckoned under the title of the Christian name, they are said to wander far from the truth of His faith—namely by thinking diverse things and following various established dogmas—I now greatly desire to know what is the faith of right doctrine, to which, with all the windings of doubt removed, I may tenaciously cling;
'lest, desiring to be stripped of error by blindness, I be entangled in the greater errors of darkness, if at random and without any discernment of examination I become the imitator of some sect, whichever first presents itself—not knowing whether it be proved true or supported by truth. And therefore, if it please—nay rather, since it ought to please—let each one of you set forth in our sight the opinion of his faith; so that, an examination being held, that which is found firmer than all and truer, to this let us all by right yield, and let us follow this without hesitation, the error of falsehood set apart.' Arius and Athanasius said:
'How can we crush small for you the secrets of so great a mystery, and lodge the judgment of an untried matter with you, who have not yet washed away the stains of paganism by the perception of true doctrine?' Probus the judge said: 'This is indeed what I desire with all my strength to know: what is the right and truthful doctrine, in which it behoves me to receive the sacraments of the hidden mystery. For I do not now desire that the deep secrets of the mysteries be laid open to me; but I now demand that those things be demonstrated which are held outwardly in your faith and are publicly preached. That is, that one and the same is the true God, the Maker of things visible and invisible.
'And because I am not unaware that you profess this with one mouth, what cause has arisen that you are divided into so many varied sects, so that which is true and which is false cannot at all be understood by us—before, by your contest, held with a worthy moderation of patience, we more diligently learn what is fitting? 5. Athanasius said: 'Since you are imbued with every kind of letters and exceedingly learned in philosophic disciplines, you ought by no means to marvel that among us very many and varied dogmas of novelties have arisen, when among you too as many novelties of opinions have emerged as there are well-nigh the names of their authors.
'For since there are three religions in the world—of the Jews, of the pagans, and of the Christians—each single religion, by many and far-separated diversities of opinions, departing from itself, has been divided into various sects of its own peculiar institution; while each one, allured by the sweetness of a more recent opinion which presents not the truth but the likeness of truth, abandons the line handed down of old by the fathers: thereby irremediably wandering through trackless ways, in that he uses novelty in place of antiquity, as though he were treading the path of the ancient boundary and of the way handed down by the fathers. For either he thinks too much, or he believes too little, and therefore knows not how to walk the middle and straight road.
'I have premised these things for this reason, that I might demonstrate to you the clearest signs for exploring the truth, so that you may most easily recognize that he is enwrapped in the error of depravity who, abandoning the ancient institutions of the apostolic faith, himself dreams up for himself, according to the judgment of his own will, the faith which he ought to follow.' Arius said: 'Most excellently does Athanasius profess that the error of perfidy consists in abject and newly-invented novelties of things, the apostolic testimony agreeing with this very point, where it says: ''Avoid profane novelties of words'' (1 Tim. 6:20). Wherefore I beseech you not to depart from this track of inquiry, by investigating more diligently and attentively who uses a new, and who an ancient, sacrament of the faith.' Probus the judge said:
'In order that these things which you assert may easily become known, and may come to the light of truth, with all the mist of ambiguity removed, set forth the rule of the ancient faith, and, just as it was handed down by the apostles, make it known to our ears.' Arius and Athanasius said: 'We believe in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. This is the rule of our faith, which the Lord delivered to the apostles by heavenly teaching, saying: ''Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.''' 6. Probus the judge said:
'I am held fast, stunned with great astonishment at the miracle, perceiving that three gods are proclaimed by you, whereas I had believed that one must take refuge in the majesty of the singular power of one God. Wherefore, what is the reason of this faith, or what these names of three things and of three appellations indicate, I beseech you, deign to inform us briefly.' Arius and Athanasius said: 'We do not confess three gods in the professions of our faith, but we faithfully profess that we believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.' Probus the judge said: 'Set forth, then, your faith more fully, and declare what or of what sort is the belief in this faith of yours.' Arius said:
'For I confess that the unbegotten Father, before all times, ineffably begot the Son, through whom and in whom He made the visible creatures and the invisible: who in the last times, for the salvation of the human race, sent by the Father, bore a true man in the world, whom He inviolably received of the Virgin Mary without admixture of human shame. Who, although He is God and Lord of His creature, yet cannot be either compared in all things to His begetter or made equal to Him in anything—Him whom He professes both as His God and as the author of His origin. Nor yet for that reason are there two gods, because this one too is God; nor for that reason is He not God, because the Father alone is God. Just as not for that reason is He not good, because the Father alone is good;
'since the Son too is not only good, but also the creator of good things. And just as it is not taken from Him that He should not be good, although the Father alone is good by the very profession of the Son, so it is not taken from Him that He should not be God, although the Father alone is God. And just as the goodness of the Son does not prejudice the singularity of the paternal goodness, so His deity does not stand in the way of the Father's being the only and singular God. And in this manner we profess one God—not denying, as I have said, that the Son is God, but placing in the Father alone the authority of the one divinity.' Athanasius said: 'Well has Arius defined by his profession that the Father from Himself ineffably begot the Son before all times;
'but whether he means to assert that the Son was begotten of the very essence or nature of the Father, or from elsewhere, this for the moment he has kept silent in his discourse. For I confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one substance and of one nature—so that I believe the Son to be begotten not out of nothing, nor out of something, but of the Father; and the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father. And although I profess that there are three persons subsisting in their own property, yet the nature of these is one, and one divinity is proved.' 7. Probus the judge said:
'Although this varied and far-dissimilar diversity of your opinions strikes a great mist of confusion into our minds, yet, so that we may quickly be stripped of these ambiguities and may learn what is the profession of the true faith, deign to fortify the opinions of your assertions with clearer testimonies of divine Scripture. And lest by a long compass of speech you wander far off in the confusion of intermixed disputation, set forth your faith singly, as I have said. But now let Arius proceed, and let him not be loath to build up his faith with truthful testimonies.' Arius said: 'Since you have commanded me to engage first, let Athanasius answer whether God is of a simple nature.' Athanasius said: 'What impious man would deny this?'
Arius said: 'Let him answer whether also all things that are said of God are to be taken according to essence.' Athanasius said: 'I would not rashly pronounce that all things which are said of God ought to be taken according to essence; except for certain relative cases of nouns, uttered according to the customary expression of human speech, which are not properly fitted to God, but to persons and times, or to whatever kinds of things. That is, when He says He does not know, or again confesses that He has come to know. Or when He bears repentance for things done by Himself, and now shows Himself angry, now appeased. All of which, if we wish to take according to essence, we without doubt profess the divine nature to be passible and improvident;
'into which either ignorance, or a knowledge arisen in time, should fall; which both sadness by repenting should consume, and gladness by exalting and quickening should sustain. And what else will this be, than to suffer changeable things, and by instability to flow this way and that? Whence it is most manifestly proved that not all things ought to be understood as said of God according to essence; but we profess, more surely than sure, that some things correspond to the dispensation, not befitting His nature.' Probus the judge said: 'Although you have answered sufficiently and learnedly, with praiseworthy brevity, that not all things are said of God according to essence, yet I desire to hear these things from you more at large, when the time of the disputation of your turn shall be at hand.
'Now meanwhile (as I have already premised before) let Arius, as he had begun, proceed.' 8. Arius said: 'If you carefully attend to those things which I set forth at the beginning, there you will find the whole belief of our faith.' Athanasius said: 'That the Son subsists before the ages, Arius truly professes. But that He was born of the Father, he concedes only by the sound of the voice and a feigned confession of words, not by the property of truth—while he separates Him too far from the substance of the paternal nature, and affirms Him to be subject to the Father by the condition of nature, not by the reason of dispensation.' Probus the judge said:
'Give a most clear sign of your faith, and signify by a brief discourse how you believe, so that the matter of disputation may also be fitted to the standard of the proposed confession.' Athanasius said: 'Lest I burden your senses with too long a discourse, I conclude my faith in a brief speech. I confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in deity, in power, in greatness, in nature. Nor do I assert anything new or strange in this Trinity, as though it had not existed before but was afterward added; but (as I have said) I believe it to be of one nature and of one substance.' Arius said: 'I, just as I confess three persons remaining in their own property, so I confess three substances—of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
'For one is the substance of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. Nor can the begotten nature of the Son, or the created nature of the Holy Spirit, in any way be compared to the unbegotten substance of the Father. Whence neither equal in power, nor similar in greatness, nor partners in nature, are they believed by us in faithful confession.' Probus the judge said: 'If this is the whole in which you seem to dissent from one another—namely, that one says the substances of the Trinity are diverse, the other that it is one—the reason of the disputation now demands that you fortify your assertions more robustly, not with the subtlety of arguments coming designedly from the industry of the dialectic art, but with the simple and pure documents of divine Scripture.' 9. Arius said:
'I believe that forgetfulness has by no means withdrawn from the mindful senses of your prudence the prosecution of Athanasius, by which he most elegantly pleaded that he ought to be branded with the error of depravity who follows new and unaccustomed inventions of words, adding to the apostolic dogmas what it is agreed was not handed down by them.' Probus the judge said: 'So I remember.' Arius said: 'Then let the decrees of the Council of Nicaea be set forth by reading; and you will recognize that Athanasius, or his authors, corrupted the apostolic faith by the addition of new words, to such an extent that, having used royal favour, they decreed that those who clung to the ancient doctrines of the fathers should be banished by edicts.' Probus the judge said:
'If the reason of the present matter requires that the decree of the Council of Nicaea be brought forth into the midst, let Athanasius too signify this by his prosecution, so that by the assent of the will of both, if there is anything in what is referred to, it may be recited openly.' Athanasius said: 'It befits the case that the opportunity of reading what was done be not denied.' Probus the judge said: 'Then, as he desires, let the reading of the aforesaid decree be ventilated.' And it was read thus: 'We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father, only-begotten—that is, of the substance of the Father: God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made:
'of one substance with the Father (which the Greeks call homoousion): through whom all things were made, whether those in heaven or those on earth. Who for our salvation descended, and was incarnate, was made man, suffered, rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say: ''There was a time when He was not, and before He was born He was not,'' and that He was made of things not existing, or of another substance or essence—saying that God is mutable or convertible—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.' 10. Arius said: 'You perceive, most excellent Probus, that the decrees of this council were written down with the audacity of rashness, to the insult of the apostolic
'faith. For what need was there that this new word homoousion be inserted into the ancient rules of dogma? For shall we say that the apostles, or their disciples, and all the successors in order who, living in the confession of Christ until that time, were ignorant of the word homoousion, followed the sacrilege of impiety in the truth of the faith—namely for this reason, that, deprived of the notion of this name, they went on to Christ without the assertion of this very preaching?
'For if, as these men utterly lie, a new doctrine was being introduced by us against the statutes of the apostles, it would surely have been fitting that the new doctrine brought in by us should run counter to the ancient doctrines of the apostles, and that novelty should be barred by antiquity—not that antiquity should be perverted by novelty. Why does he impose this name upon me to be followed? Why does he more violently drag me to a novelty of this kind? Why does he add this word to the apostolic faith, of which neither the prophets indeed, nor the apostles, anywhere make mention? What, I ask, is that name, without which the faith cannot be whole, without which Christians are stripped of the honour of the Christian religion? For one of two things must necessarily be followed in this case.'
If the affirmation of the homousion is true, then the preaching of the apostles will be false, which for long ages flourished without this name. But if the apostolic faith, lacking this name, is true (as indeed it is), then this teaching will without doubt be false, which has added the novelty of a name to the ancient faith. Turn over all the volumes of the New and the Old Testament, to see whether anywhere you can find the word homousion set down in the sacred pages. XI. Probus the judge said: What is brought against these things? Athanasius said: Do you take offense only at the novelty of the name, or do you also shrink from the very power of the thing which has obtained this word? Arius said: I do not sufficiently understand what you mean. Athanasius said:
Since an ancient thing has received a new name, the power of the new thing did not accrue by means of the new word; this then is what I ask: whether the thing, which is ancient, is to be condemned by you together with the novelty of the name. Arius said: You speak tortuous things, worthy of every marvel of folly. For if homousion is a new name, there is no doubt that the thing too is new which it appears to signify. Athanasius said: So you condemn the thing and the name alike? Arius said: Just so, plainly. Athanasius said: Then if I shall have shown that a new name has been attached to a thing that is ancient and handed down by the apostles, will you at last confess yourself defeated? Or even so do you condemn the ancient thing together with the novelty of the name? Arius said: This you will not show. Probus the judge said:
And what reason of cause demanded that an ancient thing should receive a new name? For surely, before it obtained the designation of this name, did it not remain without the property of a name? This seems to me to have no logical consequence. Arius said: Excellently put. Athanasius said: It is always the way of ecclesiastical discipline, whenever some new doctrine of heretics arises, that against the insolent novelties of their questions—while the realities remain unchangeably the same—it changes the designations of names and expresses the natures of things more significantly; yet in such a way that these accord with the powers of the existing realities, and rather demonstrate that those same realities existed of old, and do not insinuate any novelty of origin.
And, to make what I say plainer, I will use an example. At the very beginning of the preaching of the Christian religion, all who believed in our Lord Jesus Christ were called not Christians, but only disciples. And because many authors of new dogmas arose, opposing the apostolic teaching, and all of them called their followers disciples, there was no distinction of name between true and false disciples; since whether they were followers of Christ, or of Dositheus, or of Cephas, or of Theudas, or of a certain Judas, or even of John—men who professed that they believed, as it were, in Christ—they were all reckoned under the one name of disciples.
Then the apostles, meeting together at Antioch, as their Acts (in Luke's narration) indicate, called all the disciples by a new name, that is, Christians, distinguishing them from the common designation of false disciples; so that also the word of the divine oracle through Isaiah might be fulfilled, in which he says: 'On those who serve me a new name shall be called' (Isaiah 65:15, according to the Septuagint). XII. Holding fast, then, to this form handed down by the apostles—of using new names—the Church, against the various heretics, as the principle of sound faith required, issued various novelties of names. Finally, the Church imposed upon the Father the new name of 'unbegottenness.'
For when the Sabellian heresy wished to assert that the Father was begotten of the Virgin, the Church, confessing the contrary, handed down that the Father is unbegotten. And indeed in the divine Scriptures we nowhere read of the Father as 'unbegotten.' Therefore Sabellius can turn his audacity against this charge in the form of a question, and use the same kind of proposition as you do, in which he may say: Why do you, without any regard for shame, do violence to the divine Scriptures by professing the Father to be unbegotten—something which you cannot show to be written?
Likewise, because that same Sabellius professes by impious dogma that He was not only begotten but also suffered, you—when you assembled together, among the other sanctions of faith which you promulgated—declared that the Father is impassible, which we approve that you established religiously and holily. But this very thing that man cries out against: How far do you extend the audacity of your license, by professing what you have not read written—the Father impassible—which neither the prophets handed down, nor the authority of the authentic creed transmitted, but which was presumed by your rashness? Again you go on, and you established this faith of religious confession concerning the Son, calling Him God of God, light of light.