PREFACE OF AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR. When this book — composed by a catholic priest, the blessed Athanasius of most approved life, against the heretics Sabellius, Photinus, and Arius — has come into the hands of an industrious reader, most blessed Pope Maternus, he will at once object: How can it be that Arius had a contest with the holy Athanasius, the successor of the blessed bishop Alexander, since it is established, as one reads in the Ecclesiastical History, that Arius was poured out by a most shameful death — that is, after the example of Judas, the betrayer of our Lord Jesus Christ — so that what he had conceived with a fetid mind he might end with a fetid end? But let him recall what Sulpicius Severus, of blessed memory, set down in his Chronicles, saying:
「Two Ariuses, like two serpents, hissed from one mouth」: he will plainly find that there were two Ariuses. From which it is understood that holy Athanasius had his contest either with Arius while still living — not with the one who was poured out — or with some Arian madman. Wherefore it is fitting that these things, a work (as we believe) accomplished by God, be read again and again by catholics, so that they may learn how they can avoid the poisons of the heretics, and (with God's help) may be able to guard their faith without any hesitation. PREFACE OF VIGILIUS.
While I was long and earnestly debating with myself concerning the truth of the faith, and seeking, by consideration of Scripture, in what manner I might refute the manifold and numerous questions of the heretics with brevity of reply, and overcome their sacrilegious sayings — spread out in various and lengthy treatises — by a compendious struggle of disputation, lest, answering longer matters with still longer, I should leave behind for readers an interminable and exceedingly laborious material, this appeared to me useful and very convenient: that I should introduce the person of each heretic together with the professions of his own doctrine, as though present men were dealing with present men.
And lest the prosecutions of the individuals should come into doubt with no one to examine them, I have caused a certain arbiter, by name Probus, invested with judicial authority, to be present; so that, with him impartially deciding each several point, the design of impious depravity might be brought to nothing. I therefore introduced Sabellius, Photinus, and Arius, and on our side Athanasius, so that the truth, refined by the supreme contest of the disputants, might come to the knowledge of all, and that the arrangement of this work, varied by the diversity of persons and of replies and interlocutions, might cut off tedium from the readers. I. Probus the judge said:
Perceiving that no majesty of the true Godhead resides in the worship of idols, I wish to submit myself to the Christian doctrines, by which it is taught that there is one and true God, who by the power of his Word created all things that are seen and that are not seen.
And since, although many are reckoned under the title of the Christian name, they are said to stray far from the truth of that faith — namely by holding diverse opinions and following various established doctrines — I now greatly desire to know what is the faith of right doctrine, to which, with all the evasions of doubt removed, I may cling tenaciously; lest, desiring to be stripped of the blindness of error, I be entangled in greater errors of darkness, if at random and without any discrimination of examination I should become an imitator of whatever sect first presents itself, which I do not know whether it be perverse or not, or supported by truth.
And therefore, if it please — nay rather, since it ought to please — let each one of you lay open before us the sentence of his own faith, so that, an examination having been held, to whatever is found firmer than all and truer we may all rightly yield, and this, the error of falsehood being spurned, we may undoubtingly follow. All said: How can we commit to you the secrets of so great a mystery, and place the arbitration of an untried matter in your hands, since you have not yet washed away the stains of heathenism 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 I ought to receive the sacred ordinances of the hidden mystery. For I do not now desire that the deep secrets of the mysteries be opened to me;
but I now demand that those things be shown to me which in your faith are held outwardly, and are publicly proclaimed. That is, that one and the same is the true God, the Maker of things visible and invisible. And since I am not ignorant that you profess this with one mouth, what cause has arisen that you are divided into so many various sects, so that which is true and which false cannot at all be understood by us, before, by your contest — conducted with a worthy moderation of patience — we more diligently learn what is fitting? II. Athanasius said:
Since you are steeped in every kind of letters and very thoroughly learned in the philosophical disciplines, you ought not to wonder at all that very many and various doctrines of novelties have arisen among us, since among you too there have emerged as many novelties of opinions as there are well-nigh names of their authors. For since there are in the world three religions — of the Jews, the pagans, and the Christians — each religion, departing from itself by many and widely differing diversities of opinions, has been divided into the various sects of its own institution; while each one, enticed by the sweetness of a more recent opinion, which sets forth not truth but the likeness of truth, abandons the line handed down of old by the fathers;
thereby straying irretrievably through trackless ways, in that he uses novelty in place of antiquity, as though walking by the ancient boundary and that handed down by the fathers. For he either presumes too much, or believes too little, and therefore knows not how to walk the middle and royal road. I have said these things by way of preface for this reason: to demonstrate to you the clearest indications for exploring the truth; so that you may very easily recognize him to be wrapped in the error of depravity, who, abandoning the ancient ordinances of the apostolic faith, himself dreams up for himself, according to the judgment of his own will, a faith that he ought to follow. Arius said: Most excellently does Athanasius profess that the error of perfidy consists in additions and newly-invented novelties of things, the apostle agreeing with this very point, when he says: 「Profane
profane novelties of words, avoid them」 (1 Tim. 6:20). Wherefore I beseech you not to depart from this path of inquiry, by investigating more diligently and more attentively who uses a new and who an ancient testimony of faith (or: sacrament of faith). Probus the judge said: That these things which you assert may very easily become known, and may come to the light of truth with all the fog of ambiguity removed, set forth the rule of the ancient faith, and convey it to our ears just as it was handed down by the apostles. III. All 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 handed down 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 (Matt. 28:19). Probus the judge said: Astonished, I am held fast in great amazement of wonder, seeing three gods proclaimed by you — to whom I had believed I must flee for refuge to the majesty of the singular power of the one God. Wherefore, what is the faith of this reasoning, or what do these names of three things and three appellations indicate, I pray you deign to instruct us briefly. Sabellius said: Plainly you have not heard three gods proclaimed by us, but we have professed simply that we believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as it has been handed down to us by the apostles.
For when we name the Father, we do not wish another Father, another Son to be understood, but we proclaim this same one to be both Father and Son. For God, by the ineffable power of his might, by which he fills all things, filling the womb of the Virgin Mary, and taking from himself — for the expiation of human sins — the substance of fleshly matter without any change of himself, visibly showed himself to human gaze, and in that very man whom he assumed he is called the Son; since not one and another, but the same Father is understood. And by this reasoning we worship one God, understanding not (as I have said) one and another, but professing this same one to be the one and true God. IV. Photinus said:
Impiously has Sabellius professed that God the Father was born through the Virgin, attaching I know not what flaw of extension to so great a majesty, so that, through that by which he was extended in the Virgin, he should be Father to himself and himself be Son — which no Christian would grant him. Wherefore rather do I say that God the Father has as Son the Lord Jesus Christ, taking his beginning from the Virgin Mary; who, through the most excellent and inimitable merit of his holy and blessed conversation, was adopted by God the Father into a Son, and was endowed with the singular honor of divinity. But God, inviolable and immense, neither begot from himself another, nor was himself ever begotten, so that he might rightly be believed either to have a Son of himself, or himself to be a Son to himself.
But he is unique and singular, neither subject to passion by begetting, nor increased by extending himself, nor subjected to division by deriving a portion of himself in the Virgin. Arius said: For I confess that the unbegotten Father, before all ages, ineffably begot the Son, through whom and in whom he made the visible creatures and the invisible; who, in the last times, sent by the Father for the salvation of the human race, bore a true man in the world, whom he took inviolably from the Virgin Mary without any mingling of human shame. Who, although he is the God and Lord of his own creation, nevertheless cannot either be compared in all things to his begetter, or be made equal to him in anything, whom he professes to be both his God and the Author of his origin.
Nor, however, are there on that account two gods, because this one too is God; nor is he on that account not God, because the Father alone is God. Just as he is not on that account 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, by the Son's own profession, is good; so it is not taken away 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 Father's goodness, so his deity does no harm to the Father, that he should not be the one and singular God. And in this way we profess one God, not by denying (as I have said) that the Son is God, but by establishing the authority of the one divinity in the Father alone. V. Athanasius said:
That the Father ineffably begot the Son from himself before all ages, Arius has well defined by his profession; but whether he wishes to assert that the Son was begotten from the very essence or nature of the Father, or from elsewhere, he has for the present kept silent in this his discourse. For I confess that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one substance and one nature: so that I believe the Son was begotten from the Father — not out of nothing, nor out of something — and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. And although I profess that there are three subsisting in their own propriety as persons, nevertheless of these there is proved to be one nature and one divinity. Probus the judge said:
Although this varied and far-differing diversity of your opinions strikes a great fog of confusion into our minds, nevertheless, that we may be quickly stripped of these evasions, and that we may learn what is the profession of the true faith, deign to fortify the opinions of your assertions by clearer testimonies of divine Scripture. And lest, by a long circuit of speech, you wander far afield through the diffusion of mingled disputation, let each one of you contend singly against the rest:
so that all, taking up the weapons of questions against one, in those matters which you know to be common to you, may support one another in turn against the one who dissents from you. Further, if you have nothing in common in the faith, let each one strive for his own professions, so that it may easily become clear whether in those matters which he condemns in another he himself does not utterly stumble. If it please, then, enter into contest with Sabellius, and let him in turn vindicate his own positions against you: so that, if you are able to overcome him, he may depart vanquished. After whom Photinus ought to give himself to the struggle, and to defend his faith by truthful testimonies. Against whom you all ought to make firm the battle-line of contest; so that, if he too gives way overcome, he may leave the place of disputation to the others who follow.
And in this way I judge that we can arrive as quickly as possible at the tracking-down of the truth. Let it therefore be permitted, as I have said, that Sabellius approve his faith by heavenly proofs. VI. Sabellius said: Since you have bidden me to engage with all, let them answer whether they confess God to be of simple nature. Arius said: What impious man would deny this? Sabellius said: Let them also answer whether all things which are said of God are to be received according to substance. Arius said: These things are known to be proper to our faith. Photinus said: I assent that all things are said of God according to substance. Athanasius said:
I would not rashly pronounce that all things which are said of God ought to be received according to substance, on account of certain relative cases of names, uttered according to the customary speech of human discourse, which are not properly fitted to God, but to persons and times or to whatever kinds of things. That is, when he says that he does not know, or when he again admits that he has come to know; or when he bears repentance for the things made by himself, and now shows himself angry, now appeased. All of which, if we should wish to receive according to essence, we shall without doubt profess the divine nature to be passible and improvident, into which falls either ignorance, or knowledge arisen in time; which sad things cast down by repenting, and glad things lift up by quickening.
And what else will this be, but to undergo mutable things, and to flow this way and that with unstable mobility? Whence it is most manifestly proved that not all things ought to be said of God according to substance, but that some things, corresponding to dispensation, not befitting his nature, are to be professed with utmost certainty. Probus the judge said: Although you have replied sufficiently and most learnedly with praiseworthy brevity, that not all things are said of God according to substance, nevertheless I desire to hear these matters from you more fully, when the time for the disputation of your turn shall have come. Now meanwhile (as I said before) let Sabellius continue as he had begun. VII. Sabellius said: The profession of our faith, as I said above, proclaims this same one to be both Father and Son, God;
lest we be convicted of asserting two gods after the manner of the heathen, if another Father, and by us another Son, be proclaimed. Wherefore, from these very things which by those who do not understand or who feel too little are thought to be against us, I shall most plainly demonstrate that there is one person of the supreme and almighty God. For what else is 「The Father remaining in me does the works」 (John 14:10), but 「I remaining in myself do the works」? And 「He who sees me, sees also the Father」 (John 14:9), that is, I am the very Father who am the Son; so that through one contemplation of divinity you may understand there to be one person? But also that which he says, 「I am in the Father and the Father in me」; or that which Isaiah speaks to the same one, saying, 「In you is God, and there is no God beside you」 (Isa.
45:14) — this without doubt he wished to indicate more manifestly: that, without the mingling of another person, he ineffably remains in himself. For if, as they themselves also concede and as they confessed above, the divine nature is simple, it cannot be that, as though inwardly empty, it should contain in itself the person of another nature, and itself in turn be contained by the other. For it is necessary that it either contract itself by diminishing, or empty itself by evacuating, or spread itself abroad by dilating: since this is the condition of things received or receiving, that either the one about to receive be dilated in space for the receiving of another; or the one about to be received be diminished by some contraction, so that it may be able to be contained within a nature emptied for receiving it.
Which things, since they can by no means befit that simple and ineffable nature — being so impious and so absurd — it without doubt remains to be understood that one and the same, remaining in himself, seems to speak singularly of himself: 「I am in the Father and the Father in me」 (John 10:38); and 「He who sees me, sees also the Father」 (John 14:9): lest, if you should wish to receive it as said of two, you be convicted of asserting two gods nonetheless, separately distinguished.
Or if you so defend that they remain in one another, that you say of both there is one nature, you will be seen to profess I know not what two-formedness of persons, like some monster, projecting from the beginning of one thing; or dwelling confused and mingled in the substance of one nature, and by this reasoning to defend the simple and undefiled nature of the divine power as composed of unworthy qualities. Recur rather to those singular heavenly proclamations of the saints, by which the divinity of the one remaining in one person is proclaimed, as Moses admonishes, saying: 「Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one」 (Deut. 6:4). And as God himself also frequently attests:
See, see, that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Deut. 32:39). And again: You are witnesses, whether there is any other God beside me (Isa. 43:10). We ought not to frustrate, by the confession of another God, a sentence drawn down to us from heaven by so great an authority, lest, annulling the command of so great a proclamation to our own destruction, we undergo the torments due to the worshippers of gods. VIII. Probus the judge said: If you think anything can be brought against so strong a discourse, deign to plead it fully. Arius said:
While Sabellius, by the indeed probable and very useful confession of one God, attempts to strip himself of the error of a twofold deity, he runs into the nefarious impiety of the Jewish understanding, denying with a sacrilegious mind that the Son of God, who is God, remains in his own substance and has his own person. The audacity of which most insane madness I will bridle — by whatever compendium of brevity I shall be able to use — by the authority of heavenly testimonies, to demonstrate the properly subsisting person of the Son: not taking up those things which they cavil as befitting the man assumed, but bringing forward into the midst those testimonies which all alike confess to befit his divinity without any scruple of doubtful understanding.
In Genesis we read that the Lord said: Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). Behold, he said in the plural, 「let us make,」 clearly indicating another to whom the word of the speaking God was directed. For it is not to be understood so absurdly that he spoke so as to say to himself 「let us make,」 which is properly the trait of those who incur the affliction of madness. And so that Scripture might show that one spoke to another, it immediately added, saying: And God made man: to the image of God he made him (Gen. 1:27). If there were one, he would be said to have made him to his own image. But now another is more plainly described as having made him to the image of another.
Likewise when, on account of the many crimes of nefarious wickedness, the divinity had decreed that the Sodomites with their inhabitants of those lands should be burned with fiery showers, it is thus reported. 「The Lord,」 it says, 「rained from the Lord fire and brimstone」 (Gen. 19:24). Nothing could be more evidently intimated by way of law for showing the Father and demonstrating the Son, where one, not one from himself, hurled sulphurous flames from heaven against the other. IX. Likewise the Son himself speaks to Jacob, saying: I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God (Gen. 31:13). He could say, 「who appeared to you in my place,」 if one person of the speaker were understood. Likewise: Go up, he says, to Bethel, and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you (Gen. 35:1).
Nor can this in any way befit a single person, where one so distinct from the other commands a sanctuary to be set up. For to a solitary one it would have been fitting to say: 「Make an altar to me, the God who appeared to you.」 Likewise God the Father speaks through Hosea the prophet concerning the peoples to be saved in God the Son, saying: And I will save them in the Lord their God (Hos. 1:7). Likewise David speaking to the Son of God: Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a rod of equity is the rod of your kingdom. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps. 44[45]:7-8). What could be said more manifestly for removing the error of the confession, where God is described as having anointed God?
These few things meanwhile I have plucked from the Old Testament. For I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, many and clearer things, by which it is proved clearer than light that both the Father and the Son exist with distinct and most separate proprieties of their substances. But as for the fact that Sabellius, from this which he says, 「I am in the Father, and the Father in me」 (John 10:38), has striven to demonstrate one nature or person — namely that one cannot be within another without the mingling of confusion, or apart from the other kinds of vices which, after the manner of sophisms, he wished to bring forward as questions — these things do not indicate that the substance or person is one, just as the nature of God and of men cannot be one, concerning whom it is said that they are in God and God in them.
Finally the same Son, speaking to the Father concerning believers, says: That as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they also may be in us (John 17:21). And again: He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, remains in me, and I in him (John 6:56). The Apostle also says concerning the unbeliever: And falling prostrate, he says, he will confess that God is truly in you (1 Cor. 14:25).
Just as therefore, when the guilty one is in us, and we are in God, it is not by confusion of person, not by unity of nature, not by accession of increase, not by subtraction of decrease, not by any composed or ordered quality of mutable substance, but by the sanctity of a pure and simple faith, that we prepare a dwelling-place for the Lord in us, and he receives us into his own abode, while by doing his will we remain in him; so the Father and the Son are known to remain in one another by the indissoluble covenant of will. X. Probus the judge said:
Since by such most clear documents of testimonies you have demonstrated that the Father and the Son properly subsist (which Sabellius, by spreading fogs of questions over human minds, was denying), this is now required of your side: how, by professing both God the Father and God the Son separately and more distinctly, you may not be seen to introduce a plural number of divinity. And although in your previous discourse you have briefly touched on a few things concerning this, nevertheless the proof of a question of this kind ought to be broad and proper. Which you will then have to expound more copiously, when the examination of disputation shall have begun to be stirred up between you and Athanasius.
And since now (as I said) the perfidy of Sabellius has been refuted by a truthful assertion, let Photinus assist his own faith with certain testimonies, if he can. Photinus said: I attribute a beginning to our Lord Jesus Christ, and I affirm that he was a mere man, and that through the most excellent merit of his blessed life he attained the honor of divinity. For who, carried in a female womb, is brought forth through birth? Who, having experienced the cradles of childbirth, and nourished by the food of the milky cup, was carried in maternal arms? Who received the advance of age?
Who fulfilled all the conditions of bodily frailty, while he suffers hunger, while he is struck by the temptation of the most wicked spirit, while he is wearied with fatigue, while he is loosed into sleeps, while, seized, he is bound with bonds, while he is beaten with scourges and palms, while he is harassed with the mockeries of those who insult him, while he is hung on the gibbet of the cross, and undergoes the losses of death:
whom the human condition subjected to parents, whose brotherly names of either sex are designated, who is deceived concerning the knowledge of places, who inquires about the name of the evil spirit, who confesses that he does not know the day of judgment, who testifies that he does not have the power of bestowing the seats, who complains that he is forsaken on the cross, who is shaken with the dread of suffering and the terror of death — on account of which he also prays that the cup be taken from him — and how many things (which it would be long to recount) befitting humanity he suffers: who is so foolish as to judge that these things befit God? XI. For those miracles of mighty works must be believed to have been performed not by his own power, but by God through him, just as he himself says:
The Father remaining in me, does the works (John 14:10). And again: The Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19). For because he was much accepted by God, whatever he wished he obtained by prayers. For if life was restored to the dead, if light to the blind, if strength to the feeble, if cleanness to the lepers, if the sea and winds gave way, if the creature of food felt the increase of a multiplied yield — all these are known to have been elicited by no other means than the gift of prayer. And in a like manner the prophets accomplished certain perfect works in the name of God. But because this one showed himself so worthy of God, and dearer by persevering in his commandments, as he himself says: I always do the things that are pleasing to him (John
(VIII, 29), and as the Father too speaks to him through an angel, saying (as it is written in Zechariah): The Angel of the Lord, it says, stood and bore witness to Jesus: Thus says the Lord God of hosts: If you walk in my ways and keep my charge, you also shall judge my house (Zech. III, 5); and as he bore death for the salvation of the world with equanimity—for this reason, I say, because he showed himself so great and such a one, the God of all things gave him power, and appointed him God of the whole creation, as the Apostle teaches, saying: He humbled himself even unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name;