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| Synodical letter to the Emperor Jovian concerning the Faith.
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Chapter
III.—Synodical letter to the Emperor
Jovian concerning the Faith.
To Jovianus Augustus most devout, most humane, victorious,
Athanasius, and the rest of the bishops assembled, in the name of all
the bishops from Egypt to Thebaid, and Libya. The intelligent
preference and pursuit of holy things is becoming to a prince beloved
of God. Thus may you keep your heart in truth in God’s hand and
reign for many years in peace.669
| 669 Scarcely a prophecy, even if we read ἕξεις, “you shall
keep;” a bare wish if we read ἔχοις, “may you
keep.” Vide preceding note. In Athanasius we find ἕξεις. Valesius says
“The latter part of this sentence is wanting in the common
editions of Athanasius, and Baronius supposes it to have been added by
some Arian, with the object of ridiculing Athanasius as a false
prophet. As a fact the reign of Jovian was short. But I see nothing
low, spurious or factitious. Athanasius is not in fault because Jovian
did not live as long as he had wished.” | Since your piety
has recently expressed a wish to learn from us the faith of the
Catholic Church, we have given thanks to the Lord and have determined
before all to remind your reverence of the faith confessed by the
fathers at Nicæa. This faith some have set at nought, and have
devised many and various attacks on us, because of our refusal to
submit to the Arian heresy. They have become founders of heresy and
schism in the Catholic Church. The true and pious faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ has been made plain to all as it is known and read from
the Holy Scriptures. In this faith the martyred saints were perfected,
and now departed are with the Lord. This faith was destined everywhere
to stand unharmed, had not the wickedness of certain heretics dared to
attempt its falsification; for Arius and his party endeavoured to
corrupt it and to bring in impiety for its destruction, alleging the
Son of God to be of the nonexistent, a creature, a Being made, and
susceptible of change. By these means they deceived many, so that even
men who seemed to be somewhat,670
were led away by
them. Then our holy Fathers took the initiative, met, as we said, at
Nicæa, anathematized the Arian heresy, and subscribed the faith of
the Catholic Church so as to cause the putting out of the flames of
heresy by proclamation of the truth throughout the world. Thus this
faith throughout the whole church was known and preached. But since
some men who wished to start the Arian heresy afresh have had the
hardihood to set at naught the faith confessed by the Fathers at
Nicæa, and others are pretending to accept it, while in reality
they deny it, distorting the meaning of the ὁμοούσιον and thus blaspheming the Holy Ghost, by alleging it to be a
creature and a Being made through the Son’s means, we, perforce
beholding the harm accruing from blasphemy of this kind to the people,
have hastened to offer to your piety the faith confessed at Nicæa,
that your reverence may know with what exactitude it is drawn up, and
how great is the error of them whose teaching contradicts it. Know, O
holiest Augustus, that this faith is the faith preached from
everlasting, this is the faith that the Fathers assembled at Nicæa
confessed. With this faith all the churches throughout the world are in
agreement, in Spain, in Britain,671
| 671 Christianity thus appears more or less constituted in Britain more
than 200 years before the mission of Augustine. But by about 208 the
fame of British Christianity had reached Tertullian in Africa. The
date, that of the first mention of the Church in Britain, indicates a
probable connexion of its foundation with the dispersion of the victims
of the persecution of the Rhone cities. The phrase of Tertullian,
“places beyond the reach of the Romans, but subdued to
Christ,” points to a rapid spread into the remoter parts of the
island. Vide Rev. C. Hole’s “Early Missions,” S. P.
C. K. | in Gaul, in
all Italy and Campania, in Dalmatia and Mysia, in Macedonia, in all
Hellas, in all the churches throughout Africa, Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete,
Pamphylia and Isauria, and Lycia, those of all Egypt and Libya, of
Pontus, Cappadocia and the neighbouring districts and all the churches
of the East except a few who have embraced Arianism. Of all those above
mentioned we know the sentiments after trial made. We have letters and
we know, most pious Augustus, that though some few gainsay this faith
they cannot prejudice672
the decision of
the whole inhabited world.
After being long under the
injurious influence of the Arian heresy they are the more contentiously
withstanding true religion. For the information of your piety, though
indeed you are already acquainted with it, we have taken pains to
subjoin the faith confessed at Nicæa by these three hundred and
eighteen bishops. It is as follows.
We believe in one God, Father
Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, that is of the
substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very
God: begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom
all things were made both in Heaven and in earth. Who for us men and
for our salvation came down from Heaven, was incarnate and was made
man. He suffered and rose again the third day. He ascended into Heaven,
and is coming to judge both quick and dead. And we believe in the Holy
Ghost; the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who
say there was a time when the Son of God was not; that before He was
begotten He was not; that He was made out of the non-existent, or that
He is of a different essence or different substance, or a creature or
subject to variation or change. In this faith, most religious Augustus,
all must needs abide as divine and apostolic, nor must any strive to
change it by persuasive reasoning and word battles, as from the
beginning did the Arian maniacs in their contention that the Son of God
is of the non-existent, and that there was a time when He was not, that
He is created and made and subject to variation. Wherefore, as we
stated, the council of Nicæa anathematized this heresy and
confessed the faith of the truth. For they have not simply said that
the Son is like the Father, that he may be believed not to be simply
like God but very God of God. And they promulgated the term
“Homoüsion” because it is peculiar to a real and true son of a
true and natural father. Yet they did not separate the Holy Spirit from
the Father and the Son, but rather glorified It together with the
Father and the Son in the one faith of the Holy Trinity, because the
Godhead of the Holy Trinity673
| 673 “Τρίας is either
the number Three, or a triplet of similar objects, as in the
phrase κασιγνήτων
τριάς (Rost u.
Palm’s Lexicon. s.v.) In this sense it is applied by Clement of
Alexandria (Strom. IV. vii. 55) to the Triad of Christian graces,
Faith, Hope, and Charity. As Gregory of Nazianzus says (Orat. xiii. p.
24) Τριὰς
οὐ πραγμάτων
ἀνίσων
ἀπαρίθμησις,
ἀλλ᾽ ἴσων
καὶ ὁμοτίμων
σύλληψις. The first instance of its application to the Three Persons in
the one God is in Theophilus of Antioch (Ad Autol. ii. 15)”
[†. c. 185] “Similarly the word Trinitas, in its proper
force, means either the number Three or a triad. It is first applied to
the mystery of the Three in One by Tertullian, who says that the Church
‘proprie et spiritualiter ipse est spiritus, in quo est Trinitas
unius divinitatis, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.’ De
Pudicita 21.” [† c. 240] Archd. Cheetham. Dict. Christ.
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