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| Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter
VI.—Authorities in Support of the
Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of
Rome; Origen.
25. This then is the
sense in which they who met at Nicæa made use of these
expressions. But next that they did not invent them for themselves
(since this is one of their excuses), but spoke what they had received
from their predecessors, proceed we to prove this also, to cut off even
this excuse from them. Know then, O Arians, foes of Christ, that
Theognostus922
922 Athanasius elsewhere calls him ‘the admirable and
excellent.’ ad Serap. iv. 9. He was Master of the
Catechetical school of Alexandria towards the end of the third century,
being a scholar, or at least a follower of Origen. His seven books of
Hypotyposes treated of the Holy Trinity, of angels, and evil spirits,
of the Incarnation, and the Creation. Photius, who gives this account,
Cod. 106, accuses him of heterodoxy on these points; which Athanasius
in a measure admits, as far as the wording of his treatise went, when
he speaks of his ‘investigating by way of exercise.’
Eusebius does not mention him at all. [His remains in Routh,
Rell. iii. 409–414.] | , a learned man, did not decline the
phrase ‘of the essence,’ for in the second book of his
Hypotyposes, he writes thus of the Son:—
“The essence of the Son is not one procured
from without, nor accruing out of
nothing923
923 Vid.
above §15. fin. ‘God was alone,’ says Tertullian,
‘because there was nothing external to Him, extrinsecus;
yet not even then alone, for He had with Him, what He had in Himself,
His Reason.’ in Prax. 5. Non per adoptionem spiritus
filius fit extrinsecus, sed naturâ filius est. Origen.
Periarch. i. 2. n. 4. | , but it sprang from the Father’s
essence, as the radiance of light, as the vapour924
924 From Wisdom vii. 25. and so Origen,
Periarch. i. 2. n. 5. and 9. and Athan. de Sent. Dionys.
15. |
of water; for neither the radiance, nor the vapour, is the water itself
or the sun itself, nor is it alien; but it is an effluence of the
Father’s essence, which, however, suffers no partition. For as
the sun remains the same, and is not impaired by the rays poured forth
by it, so neither does the Father’s essence suffer change, though
it has the Son as an Image of Itself925
925 It is
sometimes erroneously supposed that such illustrations as this are
intended to explain how the Sacred Mystery in question is
possible, whereas they are merely intended to shew that the words we
use concerning it are not self-contradictory, which is the
objection most commonly brought against them. To say that the doctrine
of the Son’s generation does not intrench upon the Father’s
perfection and immutability, or negative the Son’s eternity,
seems at first sight inconsistent with what the words Father and Son
mean, till another image is adduced, such as the sun and radiance, in
which that alleged inconsistency is seen to exist in fact. Here one
image corrects another; and the accumulation of images is not, as is
often thought, the restless and fruitless effort of the mind to
enter into the Mystery, but is a safeguard against any
one image, nay, any collection of images being supposed
sufficient. If it be said that the language used concerning the
sun and its radiance is but popular not philosophical, so again the
Catholic language concerning the Holy Trinity may, nay must be,
economical, not adequate, conveying the truth, not in the tongues of
angels, but under human modes of thought and speech. | .”
Theognostus then, after previously investigating
in the way of an exercise926
926 ἐν
γυμνασί& 139·
ἐξέτασας. And so §27. of Origen, ξητῶν καὶ
γυμνάζων. Constantine too, writing to Alexander and Arius, speaks of
altercation, φυσικῆς
τινος
γυμνασίας
ἕνεκα. Socr. i. 7. In
somewhat a similar way, Athanasius speaks of Dionysius writing
κατ᾽
οἰκονομίαν, economically, or with reference to certain persons
addressed or objects contemplated, de Sent. D. 6. and
26. | , proceeds to lay down
his sentiments in the foregoing words. Next, Dionysius, who was Bishop
of Alexandria, upon his writing against Sabellius and expounding at
large the Saviour’s Economy according to the flesh, and thence
proving against the Sabellians that not the Father but His Word became
flesh, as John has said, was suspected of saying that the Son as a
thing made and originated, and not one in essence with the Father; on
this he writes to his namesake Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, to allege in
his defence that this was a slander upon him. And he assured him that
he had not called the Son made, nay, did confess Him to be even one in
essence. And his words ran thus:—
“And I have written in another letter a
refutation of the false charge they bring against me, that I deny that
Christ was one in essence with God. For though I say that I have not
found this term anywhere in Holy Scripture, yet my remarks which
follow, and which they have not noticed, are not inconsistent with that
belief. For I instanced human birth as being evidently homogeneous, and
I observed that undeniably parents differed from their children only in
not being the same individuals, otherwise there could be neither
parents nor children. And my letter, as I said before, owing to present
circumstances I am unable to produce; or I would have sent you the very
words I used, or rather a copy of it all, which, if I have an
opportunity, I will do still. But I am sure from recollection that I
adduced parallels of things kindred with each other; for instance, that
a plant grown from seed or from root, was other than that from which it
sprang, yet was altogether one in nature with it927
927 The
Arians at Nicæa objected to this image, Socr. i. 8. as
implying that the Son was a προβολὴ, issue or development, as Valentinus taught. Epiph.
Hær. 69. 7. Athanasius elsewhere uses it
himself. | :
and that a stream flowing from a fountain, gained a new name, for that
neither the fountain was called stream, nor the stream fountain, and
both existed, and the stream was the water from the fountain”
26. And that the Word of God is not a work or
creature, but an offspring proper to the Father’s essence and
indivisible, as the great Council wrote, here you may see in the words
of Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, who, while writing against the
Sabellians, thus inveighs against those who dared to say so:—
“Next, I may reasonably turn to those who
divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the
Church of God, the Divine Monarchy928
928 By the
Monarchy is meant the doctrine that the Second and Third Persons in the
Ever-blessed Trinity are ever to be referred in our thoughts to the
First as the Fountain of Godhead, vid. §15. note 9, and §19,
note 6. It is one of the especial senses in which God is said to be
one. Cf. Orat. iii. §15. vid. also iv. §1. ‘The
Father is union, ἕνωσις,’
says S. Greg. Naz. ‘from whom and unto whom are the
others.’ Orat. 42. 15. also Orat. 20. 7. and Epiph.
Hær. 57. 5. Tertullian, before Dionysius, uses the word
Monarchia, which Praxeas had perverted into a kind of Unitarianism or
Sabellianism, in Prax. 3. Irenæus too wrote on the
Monarchy, i.e. against the doctrine that God is the author of evil.
Eus. Hist. v. 20. [see S. Iren. fragment 33, Ante-Nic.
Lib.] And before him was Justin’s work de Monarchia, where
the word is used in opposition to Polytheism. The Marcionites, whom
Dionysius presently mentions, are also specified in the above extract
by Athan. vid. also Cyril. Hier. Cat. xvi. 3. Epiphanius says
that their three origins were God, the Creator, and the evil spirit.
Hær. 42, 3. or as Augustine says, the good, the just, and
the wicked, which may be taken to mean nearly the same thing.
Hær. 22. The Apostolical Canons denounce those who baptize
into Three Unoriginate; vid. also Athan. Tom. ad Antioch. 5.
Naz. Orat. 20. 6. Basil denies τρεῖς
ἀρχικαὶ
ὑποστάσεις, de Sp. S. 38. which is a Platonic
phrase. | , making it as it
were three powers and partitive subsistences929
929 And so
Dionysius Alex. in a fragment preserved by S. Basil, ‘If because
the subsistences are three, they say that they are partitive,
μεμερισμένας, still three there are, though these persons dissent, or
they utterly destroy the Divine Trinity.’ de Sp. S. n. 72.
Athan. expresses the same more distinctly, οὐ τρεῖς
ὑποστάσεις
μεμερισμένας, Expos. Fid. §2. In S. Greg. Naz. we
find ἀμέριστος
ἐν
μεμερισμένοις
ἡ θεότης.
Orat. 31. 14. Elsewhere for μεμ. he substitutes
ἀπεῤ&
191·ηγμένας. Orat. 20. 6. ἀπεξενωμένας
ἀλλήλων καὶ
διεσπασμένας. Orat. 23. 6. as infr. ξένας
ἀλλήλων
παντάπασι
κεχωρισμένας. The passage in the text comes into question in the
controversy about the ἐξ
ὑποστάσεως ἢ
οὐσίας of the
Nicene Creed, of which infr. on the Creed itself in Eusebius’s
Letter. | and
god-heads three. I am told that some among you who are catechists and
teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are
diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius’s opinions; for
he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and the Father the
Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred
Monad into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly
separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the Universe, the
Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose930
and habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the
Universe, must the Divine Triad931
931 The
word τριὰς, usually
translated Trinity, is first used by Theophilus, ad Autol. ii.
15. Gibbon remarks that the doctrine of ‘a numerical rather than
a generical unity,’ which has been explicitly put forth by the
Latin Church, is favoured by the Latin language; τριὰς seems to excite the idea of substance, trinitas of
qualities.’ ch. 21. note 74. It is certain that the Latin view of
the sacred truth, when perverted, becomes Sabellianism; and that the
Greek, when perverted, becomes Arianism; and we find Arius arising in
the East, Sabellius in the West. It is also certain that the word
Trinitas is properly abstract; and expresses τριὰς or
‘a three,’ only in an ecclesiastical sense. But Gibbon does
not seem to observe that Unitas is abstract as well as Trinitas; and
that we might just as well say in consequence, that the Latins held an
abstract unity or a unity of qualities, while the Greeks by
μονὰς taught the doctrine of ‘a one’ or a numerical
unity. ‘Singularitatem hanc dico (says S. Ambrose), quod
Græce μονότης dicitur; singularitas ad personam pertinet, unitas ad
naturam.’ de Fid. v. 1. It is important, however, to
understand, that ‘Trinity’ does not mean the state
or condition of being three, as humanity is the condition of
being man, but is synonymous with three persons. Humanity does
not exist and cannot be addressed, but the Holy Trinity is a three, or
a unity which exists in three. Apparently from not considering this,
Luther and Calvin objected to the word Trinity, ‘It is a common
prayer,’ says Calvin: ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on
us. It displeases me, and savours throughout of barbarism.’
Ep. ad Polon. p. 796. | be gathered up and
brought together. For it is the
doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine
Monarchy into three origins,—a devil’s teaching, not that
of Christ’s true disciples and lovers of the Saviour’s
lessons. For they know well that a Triad is preached by divine
Scripture, but that neither Old Testament nor New preaches three Gods.
Equally must one censure those who hold the Son to be a work, and
consider that the Lord has come into being, as one of things which
really came to be; whereas the divine oracles witness to a generation
suitable to Him and becoming, but not to any fashioning or making. A
blasphemy then is it, not ordinary, but even the highest, to say that
the Lord is in any sort a handiwork. For if He came to be Son, once He
was not; but He was always, if (that is) He be in the Father, as He
says Himself, and if the Christ be Word and Wisdom and Power (which, as
ye know, divine Scripture says), and these attributes be powers of God.
If then the Son came into being, once these attributes were not;
consequently there was a time, when God was without them; which is most
absurd. And why say more on these points to you, men full of the Spirit
and well aware of the absurdities which come to view from saying that
the Son is a work? Not attending, as I consider, to this circumstance,
the authors of this opinion have entirely missed the truth, in
explaining, contrary to the sense of divine and prophetic Scripture in
the passage, the words, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His
ways unto His works932 .’ For the sense
of ‘He created,’ as ye know, is not one, for we must
understand ‘He created’ in this place, as ‘He set
over the works made by Him,’ that is, ‘made by the Son
Himself.’ And ‘He created’ here must not be taken for
‘made,’ for creating differs from making. ‘Is not He
thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee and created
thee933 ?’says Moses in his great song in
Deuteronomy. And one may say to them, O reckless men, is He a work, who
is ‘the First-born of every creature, who is born from the womb
before the morning star934 ,’ who said, as
Wisdom, ‘Before all the hills He begets me935 ?’ And in many passages of the divine
oracles is the Son said to have been936 generated, but
nowhere to have937 come into being;
which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s
generation, who presume to call His divine and ineffable generation a
making938 . Neither then may we divide into three
Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with the name of
‘work’ the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but
we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His
Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe
the Word is united939
939 This
extract discloses to us (in connexion with the passages from Dionysius
Alex. here and in the de Sent. D.) a remarkable anticipation of
the Arian controversy in the third century. 1. It appears that the very
symbol of ἦν ὅτε οὐκ
ἦν, ‘once He was not,’
was asserted or implied; vid. also the following extract from Origen,
§27. and Origen Periarchon, iv. 28. where mention is also
made of the ἐξ οὐκ
ὄντων, ‘out of
nothing,’ which was the Arian symbol in opposition to ‘of
the substance.’ Allusions are made besides, to ‘the Father
not being always Father,’ de Sent. D. 15. and ‘the
Word being brought to be by the true Word, and Wisdom by the true
Wisdom;’ ibid. 25. 2. The same special text is used in defence of
the heresy, and that not at first sight an obvious one, which is found
among the Arians, Prov. viii. 22. 3. The same texts were
used by the Catholics, which occur in the Arian controversy.
e.g. Bible:John.10.30 Bible:John.14.10">Deut. xxxii. 6. against Prov.
viii. 22. and such as Ps. cx. 3. Prov. viii. 25. and the two John x.
30. and xiv. 10. 4. The same Catholic symbols and statements are found,
e.g. ‘begotten not made,’ ‘one in essence,’
‘Trinity,’ ἀδιαίρετον,
ἄναρχον,
ἀειγενες, ‘light from light,’ &c. Much might be said on
this circumstance, as forming part of the proof of the very early date
of the development and formation of the Catholic theology, which we are
at first sight apt to ascribe to the 4th and 5th centuries. [But see
Introd. to de Sent. Dion.] | . For ‘I,’
says He, ‘and the Father are one;’ and, ‘I in the
Father and the Father in Me.’ For thus both the Divine Triad, and
the holy preaching of the Monarchy, will be preserved.”
27. And concerning the everlasting co-existence
of the Word with the Father, and that He is not of another essence or
subsistence, but proper to the Father’s, as the Bishops in the
Council said, you may hear again from the labour-loving940
940 φιλοπόνου, and so Serap. iv. 9. [This place is referred to by
Socr. vi. 13.] | Origen also. For what he has written as if
inquiring and by way of exercise, that let no one take as expressive of
his own sentiments, but of parties who are contending in investigation,
but what he941
941 ἃ μὲν
ὡς ζητῶν καὶ
γυμνάζων
ἔργαψε, ταῦτα
μὴ ὡς αὐτοῦ
φρονοῦντος
δεχέσθω τις,
ἀλλὰ τῶν
πρὸς ἔριν
φιλονεικούντων
ἐν τῷ ζητεῖν,
ἀδεῶς ὁρίζων
ἀποφαίνεται,
τοῦτο τοῦ
φιλοπόνου τὸ
φρόνημα ἐστι.
῾ἀλλὰ. Certe
legendum ἀλλ᾽ ἃ,
idque omnino exigit sensus. Montfaucon. Rather for ἀδεῶς read
ἃ δὲ ὡς, and put the
stop at ζητεῖν instead of δεχέσθω
τις. | definitely declares, that is the
sentiment of the labour-loving man. After his prolusions then (so to
speak) against the heretics, straightway he introduces his personal
belief, thus:—
“If there be an Image of the Invisible God,
it is an invisible Image; nay, I will be bold to add, that, as being
the likeness of the Father, never was it not. For when was that God,
who, according to John, is called Light (for ‘God is
Light’), without a radiance of His proper glory, that a man
should presume to assert the Son’s origin of existence, as if
before He was not? But when was not that Image of the Father’s
Ineffable and Nameless and Unutterable subsistence, that Expression and
Word, and He that knows the Father? for let him understand well who
dares to say, ‘Once the Son was not,’ that he is saying,
‘Once Wisdom was not,’ and ‘Word was not,’ and
‘Life was not.’”
And again elsewhere he says:—
“But it is not innocent nor without peril,
if because of our weakness of understanding we deprive God, as far as
in us lies, of the Only-begotten Word ever co-existing with Him; and
the Wisdom in which He rejoiced; else He must be conceived as not
always possessed of joy.”
See, we are proving that this view has been
transmitted from father to father; but ye, O modern Jews and disciples
of Caiaphas, how many fathers can ye assign to your phrases? Not one of
the understanding and wise; for all abhor you, but the devil alone942 ; none but he is your father in this apostasy,
who both in the beginning sowed you with the seed of this irreligion, and now persuades you to slander
the Ecumenical Council943
943 vid.
supr. §4. Orat. i. §7. Ad Afros. 2, twice.
Apol. contr. Arian. 7. ad Ep. Æg. 5. Epiph.
Hær. 70. 9. Euseb. Vit. Const. iii. 6. The Council
was more commonly called μεγάλη,
vid. supr. §26. The second General Council, a.d. 381, took the name of ecumenical. vid. Can. 6. fin.
but incidentally. The Council of Ephesus so styles itself in the
opening of its Synodical Letter. | , for committing to
writing, not your doctrines, but that which from the beginning those
who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word have handed down to
us944
944 The
profession under which the decrees of Councils come to us is that of
setting forth in writing what has ever been held orally or implicitly
in the Church. Hence the frequent use of such phrases as ἐγγραφῶς
ἐξετέθη with reference to them. Thus Damasus, Theod. H. E. v. 10.
speaks of that ‘apostolical faith, which was set forth in
writing by the Fathers in Nicæa.’ On the other hand,
Ephrem of Antioch speaks of the doctrine of our Lord’s perfect
humanity being ‘inculcated by our Holy Fathers, but not as yet
[i.e. till the Council of Chalcedon] being confirmed by the
decree of an ecumenical Council.’ Phot. 229. p. 801.
(ἐγγραφῶς, however, sometimes relates to the act of subscribing; Phot.
ibid. or to Scripture, Clement. Strom. i. init. p. 321.)
Hence Athan. says ad Afros. 1. and 2. that ‘the Word of
the Lord which was given through the ecumenical Council in Nicæa
remaineth for ever;’ and uses against its opposers the
texts, ‘Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have
set’ (vid. also Dionysius in Eus. H. E. vii. 7.), and
‘He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to
death.’ Prov. xxii. 28. Ex. xxi. 17. vid. also Athan. ad
Epict. 1. And the Council of Chalcedon professes to ‘drive
away the doctrines of error by a common decree, and renew the
unswerving faith of the Fathers,’ Act. v. p. 452. [t. iv. 1453
ed. Col.] ‘as,’ they proceed, ‘from of old the
prophets spoke of Christ, and He Himself instructed us, and the creed
of the Fathers has delivered to us,’ whereas ‘other faith
it is not lawful for any to bring forth, or to write, or to draw up, or
to hold, or to teach.’ p. 456. [1460 ed. Col.] vid. S. Leo. supr.
p. 5. note m. This, however, did not interfere with their adding
without undoing. ‘For,’ says Vigilius, ‘if it
were unlawful to receive aught further after the Nicene statutes, on
what authority venture we to assert that the Holy Ghost is of one
substance with the Father, which it is notorious was there
omitted?’ contr. Eutych. v. init.; he gives other
instances, some in point, others not. vid. also Eulogius, apud Phot.
Cod. 23. pp. 829. 853. Yet to add to the confession of the
Church is not to add to the faith, since nothing can be added to
the faith. Leo, Ep. 124. p. 1237. Nay, Athan. says that the
Nicene faith is sufficient to refute every heresy, ad Max. 5.
fin. (also Leo. Ep. 54. p. 956. and Naz. Ep. 102. init.)
excepting, however, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; which
explains his meaning. The Henoticon of Zeno says the same, but with the
intention of dealing a blow at the Council of Chalcedon. Evagr. iii.
14. p. 345. Aetius at Chalcedon says that at Ephesus and Chalcedon the
Fathers did not profess to draw up an exposition of faith, and that
Cyril and Leo did but interpret the Creed. Conc. t. 2. p. 428.
[t. iv. 1430, 1431 ed. Col. See this whole subject very amply treated
in Dr. Pusey’s On the Clause, And the Son, pp. 76 sqq.]
Leo even says that the Apostles’ Creed is sufficient against all
heresies, and that Eutyches erred on a point ‘of which our Lord
wished no one of either sex in the Church to be ignorant,’ and he
wishes Eutyches to take the plentitude of the Creed ‘puro et
simplici corde.’ Ep. 31. p. 857, 8. | . For the faith which the Council has
confessed in writing, that is the faith of the Catholic Church; to
assert this, the blessed Fathers so expressed themselves while
condemning the Arian heresy; and this is a chief reason why these apply
themselves to calumniate the Council. For it is not the terms which
trouble them945 , but that those terms prove them to be
heretics, and presumptuous beyond other heresies.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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