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| To Alexander, Bishop of the City of Constantinople.
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Epistles2403
| 2403
[a.d. 321.] Apud. Theodoritum,
Hist. Eccl., book i. chap. 4. |
on the Arian Heresy
And
the Deposition of Arius.
————————————
I.—To Alexander, Bishop of the
City of Constantinople.
To the most reverend and like-minded brother, Alexander,
Alexander sends greeting in the Lord:
1. The ambitious and
avaricious will of wicked men is always wont to lay snares against
those churches which seem greater, by various pretexts attacking the
ecclesiastical piety of such. For incited by the devil who works
in them, to the lust of that which is set before them, and throwing
away all religious scruples, they trample under foot the fear of the
judgment of God. Concerning which things, I who suffer, have
thought it necessary to show to your piety, in order that you may be
aware of such men, lest any of them presume to set foot in your
dioceses, whether by themselves or by others; for these sorcerers know
how to use hypocrisy to carry out their fraud; and to employ letters
composed and dressed out with lies, which are able to deceive a man who
is intent upon a simple and sincere faith. Arius, therefore, and
Achilles,2404
| 2404 [See
p. 290, note 1, supra.] | having lately
entered into a conspiracy, emulating the ambition of Colluthus, have
turned out far worse than he. For Colluthus, indeed, who
reprehends these very men, found some pretext for his evil purpose; but
these, beholding his2405
| 2405
Colluthus, being a presbyter of Alexandria, puffed up with
arrogance and temerity, had acted as a bishop, and had ordained many
priests and deacons. But in the synod that was assembled at
Alexandria all his acts of ordination were rescinded; and those who had
been ordained by him degraded to the rank of laymen.—Tr. |
battering of Christ, endured no longer to be subject to the Church; but
building for themselves dens of thieves, they hold their assemblies in
them unceasingly, night and day directing their calumnies against
Christ and against us. For since they call in question all pious
and apostolical doctrine, after the manner of the Jews, they have
constructed a workshop for contending against Christ, denying the
Godhead of our Saviour, and preaching that He is only the equal of all
others. And having collected all the passages which speak of His
plan of salvation and His humiliation for our sakes, they endeavour
from these to collect the preaching of their impiety, ignoring
altogether the passages in which His eternal Godhead and unutterable
glory with the Father is set forth. Since, therefore, they back
up the impious opinion concerning Christ, which is held by the Jews and
Greeks, in every possible way they strive to gain their approval;
busying themselves about all those things which they are wont to deride
in us, and daily stirring up against us seditions and
persecutions. And now, indeed, they drag us before the tribunals
of the judges, by intercourse with silly and disorderly women, whom
they have led into error; at another time they cast opprobrium and
infamy upon the Christian religion, their young maidens disgracefully
wandering about every village and street. Nay, even
Christ’s indivisible tunic, which His executioners were unwilling
to divide, these wretches have dared to rend.2406
| 2406
[Perhaps a quotation, and hence a token of verity as to what is
narrated of Peter, p. 263, note 4, supra.] |
2. And we, indeed, though we discovered
rather late, on account of their concealment, their manner of life, and
their unholy attempts, by the common suffrage of all have2407
| 2407
It is inferred from these words that this letter of Alexander was
written after the Synod of Alexandria in which Arius and his companion
were condemned. But Alexander convened two synods of the bishops
of Egypt against Arius and his friends.—Tr. | cast them forth
from the congregation of the Church which adores the Godhead of
Christ. But they, running hither and thither against us, have
begun to betake themselves to our colleagues who are of the same mind
with us; in appearance, indeed, pretending to seek for peace and
concord, but in reality seeking to draw over some of them by fair words
to their own diseases, asking long wordy letters from them, in order
that reading these to the men whom they have deceived, they
may make them impenitent in the
errors into which they have fallen, and obdurate in impiety, as if they
had bishops thinking the same thing and siding with them.
Moreover, the things which amongst us they have wrongly taught and
done, and on account of which they have been expelled by us, they do
not at all confess to them, but they either pass them over in silence,
or throwing a veil over them, by feigned words and writings they
deceive them. Concealing, therefore, their pestilent doctrine by
their specious and flattering discourse, they circumvent the more
simple-minded and such as are open to fraud, nor do they spare in the
meanwhile to traduce our piety to all. Hence it comes to pass
that some, subscribing their letters, receive them into the Church,
although in my opinion the greatest guilt lies upon those ministers who
venture to do this; because not only does the apostolic rule not allow
of it, but the working of the devil in these men against Christ is by
this means more strongly kindled. Wherefore without delay,
brethren beloved, I have stirred myself up to show you the
faithlessness of these men who say that there was a time when the Son
of God was not; and that He who was not before, came into existence
afterwards, becoming such, when at length He was made, even as every
man is wont to be born. For, they say, God made all things from
things which are not, comprehending even the Son of God in the creation
of all things rational and irrational. To which things they add
as a consequence, that He is of mutable nature, and capable both of
virtue and vice. And this hypothesis being once assumed, that He
is “from things which are not,” they overturn the sacred
writings concerning His eternity, which signify the immutability and
the Godhead of Wisdom and the Word, which are Christ.
3. We, therefore, say these wicked men, can
also be the sons of God even as He. For it is written, “I
have nourished and brought up children.”2408
But when what follows was objected
to them, “and they have rebelled against me,” which indeed
is not applicable to the nature of the Saviour, who is of an immutable
nature; they, throwing off all religious reverence, say that God, since
He foreknew and had foreseen that His Son would not rebel against Him,
chose Him from all. For He did not choose Him as having by nature
anything specially beyond His other sons, for no one is by nature a son
of God, as they say; neither as having any peculiar property of His
own; but God chose Him who was of a mutable nature, on account of the
carefulness of His manners and His practice, which in no way turned to
that which is evil; so that, if Paul and Peter had striven for this,
there would have been no difference between their sonship and
His. And to confirm this insane doctrine, playing with Holy
Scripture, they bring forward what is said in the Psalms respecting
Christ: “Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest
wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the
oil of gladness above Thy fellows.”2409
4. But that the Son of God was not made
“from things which are not,” and that there was no
“time when He was not,”2410
| 2410
[The two tests, or criteria, of Arianism. The Arians
affirmed (1) the formula ἐξ
οὐκ ὄντων , and (2)
the ἦν ποτε ὅτε
οὐκ ἦν. | the evangelist John sufficiently shows,
when he thus writes concerning Him: “The only-begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father.”2411
For since that divine teacher
intended to show that the Father and the Son are two things inseparable
the one from the other, he spoke of Him as being in the bosom of the
Father. Now that also the Word of God is not comprehended in the
number of things that were created “from things which are
not,” the same John says, “All things were made by
Him.” For he set forth His proper personality, saying,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without Him
was not anything made that was made.”2412
For if all things were made by Him,
how comes it that He who gave to the things which are made their
existence, at one time Himself was not. For the Word which makes
is not to be defined as being of the same nature with the things which
are made; since He indeed was in the beginning, and all things were
made by Him, and fashioned “from things which are
not.” Moreover, that which is seems to be contrary to and
far removed from those things which are made “from things which
are not.” For that indeed shows that there is no interval
between the Father and the Son, since not even in thought can the mind
imagine any distance between them. But that the world was created
“from things which are not,” indicates a more recent and
later origin of substance, since the universe receives an essence of
this sort from the Father by the Son. When, therefore, the most
pious John contemplated the essence of the divine Word at a very great
distance, and as placed beyond all conception of those things that are
begotten, he thought it not meet to speak of His generation and
creation; not daring to designate the Creator in the same terms as the
things that are made. Not that the Word is unbegotten, for the
Father alone is unbegotten, but because the inexplicable subsistence of
the only-begotten Son transcends the acute comprehension of the
evangelists, and perhaps also of angels.
5.
Wherefore I do not think that he is to be reckoned amongst the pious
who presumes to inquire into anything beyond these things, not
listening to this saying: “Seek not out the things that are
too hard for thee, neither search the things that are above thy
strength.”2413
For if
the knowledge of many other things that are incomparably inferior to
this, are hidden from human comprehension, such as in the apostle Paul,
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him.”2414
As also
God said to Abraham, that “he could not number the
stars;”2415
and that passage,
“Who can number the sand of the sea, and the drops of
rain.”2416
How shall
any one be able to investigate too curiously the subsistence of the
divine Word, unless he be smitten with frenzy? Concerning which
the Spirit of prophecy says, “Who shall declare his
generation?”2417
And our Saviour Himself, who
blesses the pillars of all things in the world, sought to unburden them
of the knowledge of these things, saying that to comprehend this was
quite beyond their nature, and that to the Father alone belonged the
knowledge of this most divine mystery. “For no man,”
says He, “knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither knoweth
any man the Father, save the Son.”2418
Of this thing also I think that
the Father spoke, in the words, “My secret is to Me and
Mine.”
6. Now that it is an insane thing to think
that the Son was made from things which are not, and was in being in
time, the expression, “from things which are not,” itself
shows, although these stupid men understand not the insanity of their
own words. For the expression, “was not,” ought
either to be reckoned in time, or in some place of an age. But if
it be true that “all things were made by Him,” it is
established that both every age and time and all space, and that
“when” in which the “was not” is found, was
made by Him. And is it not absurd that He who fashioned the times
and the ages and the seasons, in which that “was not” is
mixed up, to say of Him, that He at some time was not? For it is
devoid of sense, and a mark of great ignorance, to affirm that He who
is the cause of everything is posterior to the origin of that
thing. For according to them, the space of time in which they say
that the Son had not yet been made by the Father, preceded the wisdom
of God that fashioned all things, and the Scripture speaks falsely
according to them, which calls Him “the First-born of every
creature.” Conformable to which, that which the
majestically-speaking Paul says of Him: “Whom He hath
appointed heir of all things. By whom also He made the
worlds. But by Him also were all things created that are in
heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were
created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all
things.”2419
7. Wherefore, since it appears that this
hypothesis of a creation from things which are not is most impious, it
is necessary to say that the Father is always the Father. But He
is the Father, since the Son is always with Him, on account of whom He
is called the Father. Wherefore, since the Son is always with
Him, the Father is always perfect, being destitute of nothing as
regards good; who, not in time, nor after an interval, nor from things
which are not, hath begotten His only-begotten Son. How, then, is
it not impious to say, that the wisdom of God once was not which speaks
thus concerning itself: “I was with Him forming all things;
I was His delight;”2420
or that the power of God once did not exist; or that His Word was at
any time mutilated; or that other things were ever wanting from which
the Son is known and the Father expressed? For he who denies that
the brightness of the glory existed, takes away also the primitive
light of which it is the brightness. And if the image of God was
not always, it is clear also that He was not always, of which it is the
image. Moreover, in saying that the character of the subsistence
of God was not, He also is done away with who is perfectly expressed by
it. Hence one may see that the Sonship of our Saviour has nothing
at all in common with the sonship of the rest. For just as it has
been shown that His inexplicable subsistence excels by an incomparable
excellence all other things to which He has given existence, so also
His Sonship, which is according to the nature of the Godhead of the
Father, transcends, by an ineffable excellence, the sonship of those
who have been adopted by Him. For He, indeed, is of an immutable
nature, every way perfect, and wanting in nothing; but these since they
are either way subject to change, stand in need of help from Him.
For what progress can the wisdom of God make? What increase can
the truth itself and God the Word receive? In what respect can
the life and the true light be made better? And if this be so,
how much more unnatural is it that wisdom should ever be capable of
folly; that the power of God should be conjoined with infirmity; that
reason should be obscured by unreason; or that darkness should be mixed
up with the true light? And the apostle says, on this place,
“What communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath
Christ with Belial?”2421
And Solomon says, that it is not
possible that it should come to pass that a man should comprehend with
his understanding “the way of a serpent upon a rock,” which
is Christ, according to the opinion of Paul. But men and angels,
who are His creatures, have received His blessing that they might make
progress, exercising themselves in virtues and in the commandments of
the law, so as not to sin. Wherefore our Lord, since He is by
nature the Son of the Father, is by all adored. But these, laying
aside the spirit of bondage, when by brave deeds and by progress they
have received the spirit of adoption, being blessed by Him who is the
Son by nature, are made sons by adoption.
8. And His proper and peculiar, natural and
excellent Sonship, St. Paul has declared, who thus speaks of God:
“Who spared not His own Son, but for us,” who were not His
natural sons, “delivered Him up.”2422
For to distinguish Him from those
who are not properly sons, He said that He was His own Son. And
in the Gospel we read: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased.”2423
Moreover, in the Psalms the
Saviour says: “The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art my
Son.”2424
Where,
showing that He is the true and genuine Son, He signifies that there
are no other genuine sons besides Himself. And what, too, is the
meaning of this: “From the womb before the morning I begat
thee”?2425
Does He
not plainly indicate the natural sonship of paternal bringing forth,
which he obtained not by the careful framing of His manners, not by the
exercise of and increase in virtue, but by property of nature?
Wherefore, the only-begotten Son of the Father, indeed, possesses an
indefectible Sonship; but the adoption of rational sons belongs not to
them by nature, but is prepared for them by the probity of their life,
and by the free gift of God. And it is mutable as the
Scripture recognises: “For when the sons of God saw the
daughters of men, they took them wives,”2426
etc. And in another place:
“I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled
against Me,”2427
as we find God speaking by the prophet
Isaiah.
9. And though I could say much more,
brethren beloved, I purposely omit to do so, as deeming it to be
burdensome at great length to call these things to the remembrance of
teachers who are of the same mind with myself. For ye yourselves
are taught of God, nor are ye ignorant that this doctrine, which hath
lately raised its head against the piety of the Church, is that of
Ebion and Artemas; nor is it aught else but an imitation of Paul of
Samosata, bishop of Antioch, who, by the judgment and counsel of all
the bishops, and in every place, was separated from the
Church.2428
To whom
Lucian succeeding, remained for many years separate from the communion
of three bishops.2429
| 2429 [By
the canons three bishops were necessary to ordain one to the
episcopate, nor was communion with fewer than these Catholic.] | And
now lately having drained the dregs of their impiety, there have arisen
amongst us those who teach this doctrine of a creation from things
which are not,2430
| 2430 [See
p. 292, note 3, supra.] | their hidden
sprouts, Arius and Achilles, and the gathering of those who join in
their wickedness. And three bishops in Syria, having been, in
some manner, consecrated on account of their agreement with them,
incite them to worse things. But let the judgment concerning
these be reserved for your trial. For they, retaining in their
memory the words which came to be used with respect to His saving
Passion, and abasement, and examination, and what they call His
poverty, and in short of all those things to which the Saviour
submitted for our sakes, bring them forward to refute His supreme and
eternal Godhead. But of those words which signify His natural
glory and nobility, and abiding with the Father, they have become
unmindful. Such as this: “I and My Father are
one,”2431
which indeed
the Lord says, not as proclaiming Himself to be the Father, nor to
demonstrate that two persons are one; but that the Son of the Father
most exactly preserves the expressed likeness of the Father, inasmuch
as He has by nature impressed upon Him His similitude in every respect,
and is the image of the Father in no way discrepant, and the expressed
figure of the primitive exemplar. Whence, also, to Philip, who
then was desirous to see Him, the Lord shows this abundantly. For
when he said, “Show us the Father,”2432
He answered: “He that hath
seen Me, hath seen the Father,” since the Father was Himself seen
through the spotless and living mirror of the divine image.
Similar to which is what the saints say in the Psalms: “In
Thy light shall we see light.”2433
Wherefore he that honoureth the
Son, honoureth the Father also;”2434
and with reason, for every impious word
which they dare to speak against the Son, has reference to the
Father.
10. But after these things, brethren beloved, what
is there wonderful in that which I am about to write, if I shall set
forth the false calumnies against me and our most pious laity?
For those who have set themselves in array against the Godhead of
Christ, do not scruple to utter their ungrateful ravings against
us. Who will not either that
any of the ancients should be compared with them, or suffer that any of
those whom, from our earliest years, we have used as instructors should
be placed on a level with them. Nay, and they do not think that
any of all those who are now our colleagues, has attained even to a
moderate amount of wisdom; boasting themselves to be the only men who
are wise and divested of worldly possessions, the sole discoverers of
dogmas, and that to them alone are those things revealed which have
never before come into the mind of any other under the sun. Oh,
the impious arrogance! Oh, the immeasurable madness! Oh,
the vainglory befitting those that are crazed! Oh, the pride of
Satan which has taken root in their unholy souls. The religious
perspicuity of the ancient Scriptures caused them no shame, nor did the
consentient doctrine of our colleagues concerning Christ keep in check
their audacity against Him. Their impiety not even the demons
will bear, who are ever on the watch for a blasphemous word uttered
against the Son.
11. And let these things be now urged
according to our power against those who, with respect to matter which
they know nothing of, have, as it were, rolled in the dust against
Christ, and have taken in hand to calumniate our piety towards
Him. For those inventors of stupid fables say, that we who turn
away with aversion from the impious and unscriptural blasphemy against
Christ, of those who speak of His coming from the things which are not
assert, that there are two unbegottens. For they ignorantly
affirm that one of two things must necessarily be said, either that He
is from things which are not, or that there are two unbegottens; nor do
those ignorant men know how great is the difference between the
unbegotten Father, and the things which were by Him created from things
which are not, as well the rational as the irrational. Between
which two, as holding the middle place, the only begotten nature of
God, the Word by which the Father formed all things out of nothing, was
begotten of the true Father Himself. As in a certain place the
Lord Himself testified, saying, “Every one that loveth Him that
begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.”2435
12. Concerning whom we thus believe, even as
the Apostolic Church believes. In one Father unbegotten, who has
from no one the cause of His being, who is unchangeable and immutable,
who is always the same, and admits of no increase or diminution; who
gave to us the Law, the prophets, and the Gospels; who is Lord of the
patriarchs and apostles, and all the saints. And in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; not begotten of things
which are not, but of Him who is the Father; not in a corporeal manner,
by excision or division as Sabellius and Valentinus thought, but in a
certain inexplicable and unspeakable manner, according to the words of
the prophet cited above: “Who shall declare His
generation?”2436
Since that His subsistence no
nature which is begotten can investigate, even as the Father can be
investigated by none; because that the nature of rational beings cannot
receive the knowledge of His divine generation by the Father. But
men who are moved by the Spirit of truth, have no need to learn these
things from me, for in our ears are sounding the words before uttered
by Christ on this very thing, “No man knoweth the Father, save
the Son; and no man knoweth who the Son is, save the
Father.”2437
That
He is equally with the Father unchangeable and immutable, wanting in
nothing, and the perfect Son, and like to the Father, we have learnt;
in this alone is He inferior to the Father, that He is not
unbegotten. For He is the very exact image of the Father, and in
nothing differing from Him. For it is clear that He is the image
fully containing all things by which the greatest similitude is
declared, as the Lord Himself hath taught us, when He says, “My
Father is greater than I.”2438
And according to this we
believe that the Son is of the Father, always existing.
“For He is the brightness of His glory, the express image of His
Father’s person.”2439
But let no one take that word
always so as to raise suspicion that He is unbegotten, as they
imagine who have their senses blinded. For neither are the words,
“He was,” or “always,” or “before all
worlds,” equivalent to unbegotten. But neither can the
human mind employ any other word to signify unbegotten. And thus
I think that you understand it, and I trust to your right purpose in
all things, since these words do not at all signify unbegotten.
For these words seem to denote simply a lengthening out of time, but
the Godhead, and as it were the antiquity of the only-begotten, they
cannot worthily signify; but they have been employed by holy men,
whilst each, according to his capacity, seeks to express this mystery,
asking indulgence from the hearers, and pleading a reasonable excuse,
in saying, Thus far have we attained. But if there be any who are
expecting from mortal lips some word which exceeds human capacity,
saying that those things have been done away which are known in part,
it is manifest that the words, “He was,” and
“always,” and “before all ages,” come far short
of what they hoped. And whatever word shall be employed is not
equivalent to unbegotten. Therefore to the unbegotten
Father, indeed, we ought to
preserve His proper dignity, in confessing that no one is the cause of
His being; but to the Son must be allotted His fitting honour, in
assigning to Him, as we have said, a generation from the Father without
beginning, and allotting adoration to Him, so as only piously and
properly to use the words, “He was,” and
“always,” and “before all worlds,” with respect
to Him; by no means rejecting His Godhead, but ascribing to Him a
similitude which exactly answers in every respect to the Image and
Exemplar of the Father. But we must say that to the Father alone
belongs the property of being unbegotten, for the Saviour Himself said,
“My Father is greater than I.”2440
And besides the pious opinion
concerning the Father and the Son, we confess to one Holy Spirit, as
the divine Scriptures teach us; who hath inaugurated both the holy men
of the Old Testament, and the divine teachers of that which is called
the New. And besides, also, one only Catholic and Apostolic
Church, which can never be destroyed, though all the world should seek
to make war with it; but it is victorious over every most impious
revolt of the heretics who rise up against it. For her Goodman
hath confirmed our minds by saying, “Be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world.”2441
After this we know of the
resurrection of the dead, the first-fruits of which was our Lord Jesus
Christ, who in very deed, and not in appearance merely, carried a body,
of Mary Mother of God, who in the end of the world came to the human
race to put away sin, was crucified and died, and yet did He not thus
perceive any detriment to His divinity, being raised from the dead,
taken up into heaven, seated at the right hand of majesty.
13. These things in part have I written in
this epistle, thinking it burdensome to write out each accurately, even
as I said before, because they escape not your religious
diligence. Thus do we teach, thus do we preach. These are
the apostolic doctrines of the Church, for which also we die, esteeming
those but little who would compel us to forswear them, even if they
would force us by tortures, and not casting away our hope in
them. To these Arius and Achilles opposing themselves, and those
who with them are the enemies of the truth, have been expelled from the
Church, as being aliens from our holy doctrine, according to the
blessed Paul, who says, “If any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that ye have received, let him be accursed; even though he
feign himself an angel from heaven.”2442
And also, “If any man teach
otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is
proud, knowing nothing,”2443
and so forth. These, therefore,
who have been anathematized by the brotherhood, let no one of you
receive, nor admit of those things which are either said or written by
them. For these seducers do always lie, nor will they ever speak
the truth. They go about the cities, attempting nothing else but
that under the mark of friendship and the name of peace, by their
hypocrisy and blandishments, they may give and receive letters, to
deceive by means of these a few “silly women, and laden with
sins, who have been led captive by them,”2444
and so forth.
14. These men, therefore, who have dared such
things against Christ; who have partly in public derided the Christian
religion; partly seek to traduce and inform against its professors
before the judgment-seats; who in a time of peace, as far as in them
lies, have stirred up a persecution against us; who have enervated the
ineffable mystery of Christ’s generation; from these, I say,
beloved and like-minded brethren, turning away in aversion, give your
suffrages with us against their mad daring; even as our colleagues have
done, who being moved with indignation, have both written to us letters
against these men, and have subscribed our letter. Which also I
have sent unto you by my son Apion the deacon, being some of them from
the whole of Egypt and the Thebaid, some from Libya and
Pentapolis. There are others also from Syria, Lycia, Pamphylia,
Asia, Cappadocia, and the other neighbouring provinces. After the
example of which I trust also that I shall receive letters from
you. For though I have prepared many helps towards curing those
who have suffered injury, this is the especial remedy that has been
devised for healing the multitudes that have been deceived by them,
that they may comply with the general consent of our colleagues, and
thus hasten to return to repentance. Salute one another, together
with the brethren who are with you. I pray that ye may be strong
in the Lord, beloved, and that I may profit by your love towards
Christ. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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