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| Of the Creed sent by the Eastern Bishops to those in Italy, called the Lengthy Creed. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XIX.—Of the
Creed sent by the Eastern Bishops to those in Italy, called the Lengthy
Creed.295
295This creed was called μακρόστιχος
from its length, and the date of its promulgation must be put after the
Council of Sardica, according to Hefele. See Hefele, History of the
Church Councils, Vol. II. p. 85, 89, and 180 (ed. T. & T.
Clark).
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After the lapse of about three
years from the events above recorded, the Eastern bishops again
assembled a Synod, and having composed another form of faith, they
transmitted it to those in Italy by the hands of Eudoxius, at that time
bishop of Germanicia, and Martyrius, and Macedonius, who was bishop of
Mopsuestia296
296Μόψου
ἑστία, lit. ‘the hearth of
Mopsus,’ son of Apollo and Manto, daughter of Tiresias, according
to the Greek mythology. Mopsuestia has become famous in the history of
the church through its great citizen, Theodore. Cf. Smith and Wace,
Dict. of Christ. Biog.
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in Cilicia. This expression of the Creed, being written in more lengthy
form, contained many additions to those which had preceded it, and was set forth
in these words:
‘We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the
Creator and Maker of all things, of whom the whole family in heaven and
upon earth is named; and in his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ our
Lord, who was begotten of the Father before all ages; God of God; Light
of Light; through whom all things in the heavens and upon the earth,
both visible and invisible, were made: who is the Word, and Wisdom, and
Power, and Life, and true Light: who in the last days for our sake was
made man, and was born of the holy virgin; who was crucified, and died,
and was buried, and rose again from the dead on the third day, and
ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and shall come at the consummation of the ages, to judge the living and
the dead, and to render to every one according to his works: whose
kingdom being perpetual shall continue to infinite ages; for he sits at
the right hand of the Father, not only in this age, but also in that
which is to come. We believe also in the Holy Spirit, that is, in the
Comforter, whom the Lord according to his promise sent to his apostles
after his ascension into heaven, to teach them and bring all things to
their remembrance, through whom also the souls of those who sincerely
believe on him are sanctified. But those who assert that the Son was
made of things not in being, or of another substance, and not of God,
or that there was a time or age when he did not exist,297
297This is the end of the first creed adopted at
Antioch, as given in the preceding chapter; it is couched in almost
identical terms in both these versions. The rest of the version here
given is the addition that constitutes the characteristic of the
‘Lengthy Creed.’
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the holy catholic Church accounts as aliens. The holy and catholic
Church likewise anathematizes those also who say that there are three
Gods, or that Christ is not God before all ages, or that he is neither
Christ, nor the Son of God, or that the same person is Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, or that the Son was not begotten, or that the Father begat
not the Son by his own will or desire. Neither is it safe to affirm
that the Son had his existence from things that were not, since this is
nowhere declared concerning him in the divinely inspired Scriptures.
Nor are we taught that he had his being from any other pre-existing
substance besides the Father, but that he was truly begotten of God
alone; for the Divine word teaches that there is one unbegotten
principle without beginning, the Father of Christ. But those who
unauthorized by Scripture rashly assert that there was a time when he
was not, ought not to preconceive any antecedent interval of time, but
God only who without time begat him; for both times and ages were made
through him. Yet it must not be thought that the Son is
co-inoriginate,298
298συνάναρχον
. It has been thought advisable to retain the above uncouth rendering
of this word, as also of one or two others immediately following, on
the ground that the etymological precision at which they aim
compensates for their non-classical ring.
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or co-unbegotten299
with the Father: for there is properly no father of the co-inoriginate
or co-unbegotten. But we know that the Father alone being inoriginate
and incomprehensible,300
has ineffably and incomprehensibly to all begotten, and that the Son
was begotten before the ages, but is not unbegotten like the Father,
but has a beginning, viz. the Father who begat him, for “the head
of Christ is God.”301
Now although according to the Scriptures we acknowledge three things or
persons, viz. that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, we do not on that account make three Gods: since we know that
that there is but one God perfect in himself, unbegotten, inoriginate,
and invisible, the God and Father of the only-begotten, who alone has
existence from himself, and alone affords existence abundantly to all
other things. But neither while we assert that there is one God, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten, do we therefore
deny that Christ is God before the ages, as the followers of Paul of
Samosata do, who affirm that after his incarnation he was by exaltation
deified, in that he was by nature a mere man. We know indeed that he
was subject to his God and Father: nevertheless he was begotten of God,
and is by nature true and perfect God, and was not afterwards made God
out of man; but was for our sake made man out of God, and has never
ceased to be God. Moreover we execrate and anathematize those who
falsely style him the mere unsubstantial word of God, having existence
only in another, either as the word to which utterance is given, or as
the word conceived in the mind: and who pretend that before the ages he
was neither the Christ, the Son of God, the Mediator, nor the Image of
God; but that he became the Christ, and the Son of God, from the time
he took our flesh from the virgin, about four hundred years ago.302
302“There has arisen in our days a certain
Marcellus of Galatia, the most execrable of all heretics, who with a
sacrilegious mind and impious mouth and wicked argument will needs set
bounds to the perpetual, eternal, and timeless kingdom of our Lord
Christ, saying that he began to reign four hundred years since, and
shall end at the dissolution of the present world.’ This is the
description given of the heresy here hinted at by the synodical letter
of the Oriental bishops at Sardica. On Marcellus and the various
opinions concerning him, see Zahn, Marcellus von Ancyra, Gotha,
1867; also monographs on Marcellus by Rettberg (1794) and by Klose
(1837 and 1859). Cf. Neander, Hist. of Chr. Ch. Vol. II. p.
394.
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For they assert that Christ had the beginning of his kingdom from that
time, and that it shall have an end after the consummation of all
things and the judgment. Such persons as these are the followers of
Marcellus and Photinus, the Ancyro-Galatians, who under pretext of
establishing his sovereignty, like the Jews set aside the eternal existence and deity of Christ, and
the perpetuity of his kingdom. But we know him to be not simply the
word of God by utterance or mental conception, but God the living Word
subsisting of himself; and Son of God and Christ; and who did, not by
presence only, co-exist and was conversant with his Father before the
ages, and ministered to him at the creation of all things, whether
visible or invisible, but was the substantial Word of the Father, and
God of God: for this is he to whom the Father said, “Let us make
man in our image, and according to our likeness:” who in his own
person appeared to the fathers, gave the law, and spake by the
prophets; and being at last made man, he manifested his Father to all
men, and reigns to endless ages. Christ has not attained any new
dignity; but we believe that he was perfect from the beginning, and
like his Father in all things; and those who say that the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, are the same person, impiously supposing the three
names to refer to one and the same thing and person, we deservedly
expel from the church because by the incarnation they render the
Father, who is incomprehensible and insusceptible of suffering, subject
to comprehension and suffering. Such are those denominated
Patropassians303
303Cf. Tertull. Adv. Prax. i. and ii.; Epiph.
Hær. LVII.
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among the Romans, and by us Sabellians. For we know that the Father who
sent, remained in the proper nature of his own immutable deity; but
that Christ who was sent, has fulfilled the economy of the incarnation.
In like manner those who irreverently affirm that Christ was begotten
not by the will and pleasure of his Father; thus attributing to God an
involuntary necessity not springing from choice, as if he begat the Son
by constraint, we consider most impious and strangers to the truth
because they have dared to determine such things respecting him as are
inconsistent with our common notions of God, and are contrary indeed to
the sense of the divinely-inspired Scripture. For knowing that God is
self-dependent and Lord of himself we devoutly maintain that of his own
volition and pleasure he begat the Son. And while we reverentially
believe what is spoken concerning him;304
304Prov. viii.
22. The ancient bishops quote
the LXX verbatim. The English versions (Authorized and Revised)
follow the Hebrew, ‘The Lord possessed
me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.’
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“The Lord created me the beginning of his ways on account of his
works”: yet we do not suppose that he was made similarly to the
creatures or works made by him. For it is impious and repugnant to the
church’s faith to compare the Creator with the works created by
him; or to imagine that he had the same manner of generation as things
of a nature totally different from himself: for the sacred Scriptures
teach us that the alone only-begotten Son was really and truly
begotten. Nor when we say that the Son is of himself, and lives and
subsists in like manner to the Father, do we therefore separate him
from the Father, as if we supposed them dissociated by the intervention
of space and distance in a material sense. For we believe that they are
united without medium or interval, and that they are incapable of
separation from each other: the whole Father embosoming the Son; and
the whole Son attached to and eternally reposing in the Father’s
bosom. Believing, therefore, in the altogether perfect and most holy
Trinity, and asserting that the Father is God, and that the Son also is
God, we do not acknowledge two Gods, but one only, on account of the
majesty of the Deity, and the perfect blending and union of the
kingdoms: the Father ruling over all things universally, and even over
the Son himself; the Son being subject to the Father, but except him,
ruling over all things which were made after him and by him; and by the
Father’s will bestowing abundantly on the saints the grace of the
Holy Spirit. For the Sacred Oracles inform us that in this consists the
character of the sovereignty which Christ exercises.
‘We have been compelled, since the publication of
our former epitome, to give this more ample exposition of the creed;
not in order to gratify a vain ambition, but to clear ourselves from
all strange suspicion respecting our faith which may exist among those
who are ignorant of our real sentiments. And that the inhabitants of
the West may both be aware of the shameless misrepresentations of the
heterodox party; and also know the ecclesiastical opinion of the
Eastern bishops concerning Christ, confirmed by the unwrested testimony
of the divinely-inspired Scriptures, among all those of unperverted
minds.’ E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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