Epigrams 5 part 3/8

I ask, therefore, since this pertains to the matter at hand, what those things were which had not long before befallen the Roman Church and which Acacius turned into a charge against this same Basil as the principal author. Most people pass over the matter untouched, as if it were set in obscurity: but Tillemont, from whom nothing of diligence escapes, suspects that in this passage the intrusion of Felix is indicated, and that the blame for that affair is transferred from Acacius to Basil. But how could Acacius reproach Basil for the ordination of Felix, of which he himself—at Milan, together with the other Arians who controlled Constantius—was, if we believe Jerome, the chief author and promoter?

But I, for my part, wonder why no one has touched upon that one true cause which offers itself spontaneously, and openly explained the force of those words: for by them we understand to be expressed, not obscurely, those seditions, and perhaps even the murders, which Socrates and Sozomen, and the supplication of Marcellinus and Faustus, recall as having arisen and been perpetrated at Rome, when Felix—whom Acacius had raised up—was expelled from his see upon the return of Liberius; and that in that passage Basil was charged with the blame for these, inasmuch as he had been the one and principal author of bringing back that pontiff.

But if Liberius was summoned from Beroea through the agency of this same Basil, if he subscribed to the faith proposed by him, if, these things then being completed, he was restored to his see, I think there will henceforth be no one who would raise a dispute against this pontiff concerning the Sirmian blasphemy, unless he first persuades himself that it was championed by Basil, and moreover that Constantius—who presided over the conduct of this affair, who had ordered the Antiochene formula to be retained, who had punished Eudoxius and Aetius, leaders of that same blasphemy throughout the East, who had compelled Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius to abjure it—permitted the Roman pontiff to confirm it at the same time;

I cannot, therefore, sufficiently marvel at the rash judgment of those who, although they are so far removed from the age of the events, could make Liberius—what no ancient writer dared—guilty of having subscribed to the second Sirmian formula. § VII.—The question first proposed by Tillemont is examined: namely, whether Liberius not only kept silent about the homoousion, but even condemned it? The reasons on account of which that most learned writer shows himself doubtful are set forth. Sozomen is brought forward for the truer view and is elucidated: whether it is to be held for certain that the Synod of Antioch, which was held against Paul of Samosata, condemned the homoousion. Hilary and Victorinus, not rightly understood by Tillemont, are adduced and explained.

No one had brought this doubt into the open before Tillemont, who first proposed it when he was treating of the Arians, and, having turned it over on both sides and at last left it unresolved, leaves it to a more learned man—worthy, as he says with his singular modesty, of such a man. Why he doubted thus, these few words of Sozomen, which have already been recited, bring about: 'Constantius, having convened the priests who were in the court, began to compel Liberius to profess that the Son IS NOT consubstantial with the Father.' For he takes them in such a way as to think that Liberius was forced by Constantius not only to abandon the profession of the homoousion, but even openly to condemn it. There was indeed a reason, as he suspects, why the emperor would want this.

For if Basil and the other Semiarians had in the Council of Ancyra pronounced anathema against this word, if they then possessed and controlled the mind of Constantius, it could also easily have happened that, using the favor of the times and the authority of that same emperor, they drew that pontiff into this opinion. Yet there is one thing that keeps Tillemont in doubt about this matter, and it is this: that Basil and the other legates of the Synod of Ancyra had determined that the anathema ought to be kept secret, and had expunged this decree from the definitions promulgated at Sirmium.

Then he brings forward reasons, or conjectures, on account of which he judges that they, seizing the opportunity, withdrew from that resolved plan, and loosed free reins to that anathema; first, because Hilary writes that Ursacius, Valens, and Germinius demanded of the same Basil that the letter on the exposition of the homoousion and the homoeousion be read; which the learned man supposes to be that very one which had been written by the Synod of Ancyra, recited by Epiphanius, and which, asserting the homoeousion, had proscribed the homoousion with an anathema;

secondly, because Victorinus teaches us that letters were written by the Easterns to the Africans, that they—together with all the Easterns and the Africans themselves who had so determined—should cast the homoousion out of the Church, and he laments that in those letters not reasons sought from sacred Scripture, but command and threats, were added; for if all, as we have seen, had subscribed with Liberius to one and the same formula, the judgment concerning all must surely be the same; and if the African bishops and the Easterns are said to have then proscribed the homoousion from the Church, no reason can be brought why Liberius should be exempted from that charge. These, then, are the reasons on account of which that most careful man seemed to leave this matter in uncertainty;

yet, that it may be placed in clear light, I must first inquire what Sozomen meant by the words just recited, and then the force of the adduced conjectures must be weighed. As regards the first point, namely concerning Sozomen's meaning, I do not indeed contend that Constantius and those Semiarian bishops did not urge Liberius not to profess the Son to be consubstantial with the Father (ὁμοούσιον). But the question is what the force of these words is—whether, namely, they imply an open execration of the homoousion, or merely a bare silence about it laid out; and this, when the whole sequence of the deed which Sozomen relates has been rightly weighed, I judge most true and manifest.

For it is established that Basil of Ancyra proposed for subscription those things which had been decreed at Sirmium against Paul of Samosata and against Photinus the bishop, and besides the formula of faith issued at the dedication of the Antiochene Church, joined together in one writing, and nothing else. And what you would conclude from this is not obscure. For if the Sirmian formula with its appended anathematisms, if the Philippopolitan faith, if that Antiochene one which is, so to speak, the fount and origin of all the rest, only establish the homoeousion, but, although they suppress the homoousion, by no means condemn it, then neither did Basil wish that this word be condemned by Liberius, nor can Liberius be seen to have condemned it, but to have wrapped it in mere silence;

and this was the one force of the formula offered and confirmed by him. Yet I see one thing that might perhaps be objected against this view from Sozomen himself. Eudoxius, in order to seek patrons for the heresy then bursting forth, had spread among the common people that Liberius and the Westerns had both rejected the homoousion and, besides, confessed the Son to be unlike the Father. You see, then, that the calumny is two-headed. But what does Liberius do? He declares those who assert that the Son is not similar to the Father according to substance and in all things to be alienated from the Church. Since, therefore, you see this pontiff clearing himself by the profession of the homoeousion alone, he leaves his flank exposed to the other head of the calumny. But it is by no means necessary that we should say this:

for Eudoxius, who rightly understood that one and the same faith was expressed and asserted by both words, had proscribed the homoousion as much as the homoeousion, and had falsely summoned Liberius into the fellowship of that crime: therefore only this was then being done, that the same pontiff should assert the catholic faith against the deceits of Eudoxius, and go to overthrow the calumny spread abroad against himself. And since this was abundantly attained by the single open profession of the homoeousion—both among the Eudoxians and among the Catholics themselves, for whom at that time both words had one and the same force—there was no need that he should add anything also about the homoousion, or then put forth his own opinion.

Moreover, when you see Liberius subscribing to the formula offered by the Semiarians, declaring only the Anomoeans to be alienated from the Church, you also clearly understand that he held the homoousians and the homoeousians in equal esteem and place, and you also gather, not obscurely, what his opinion besides about that word was, when he was doing these things. But, that the discourse may return to that formula to which we have seen Liberius subscribe, it is asked by the learned whether it was at that time composed and forged entirely anew, or whether those which already existed—the Antiochene of the Dedication, and the Sirmian—simply copied out again, and bound together in one writing and one document, were offered to this Pontiff.

But for the clarification of the matter it must be observed that the Semiarians perpetually wished the Antiochene faith of the Dedication to be the fount and type of all the expositions afterwards devised, and a sort of token, as it were, of their sect. Hence from the formulas of this Antiochene faith the Pseudo-Sardican exposition was first composed and forged, and then augmented by the anathematisms promulgated against Paul of Samosata and Photinus: but the Sirmian, which Sozomen here recalls, retains that Pseudo-Sardican and expresses it almost word for word.

If, therefore, the Sirmian faith contains the Pseudo-Sardican, if this contains the Antiochene, if besides it again sets forth the anathematisms promulgated against the Samosatene and Photinus, there is no need for us to say, according to Sozomen's meaning, that the formula offered to Liberius by Basil was newly composed and then forged: since this single Sirmian faith contains and embraces in itself all that he expresses.

They therefore do violence to this writer who think that, by the term 'Antiochene faith,' that one too is indicated which had once been promulgated in that city against the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and who suppose that it was joined to the Antiochene of the Dedication and to the Sirmian, as being especially suited and prepared for overthrowing the homoousion—which was the Semiarians' endeavor. But in fact Sozomen expresses only one Antiochene faith, namely that which was pronounced at the Dedication: what room, then, remains for that old Antiochene exposition?

But if he says that those things too were proposed to Liberius which had been decreed against Paul of Samosata and Photinus, bishop of Sirmium—since the Antiochene of the Dedication and the Sirmian ecthesis condemn those heretics by name—what need, pray, could there then have been of bringing forth again the definition of that old Antiochene synod against the same Samosatene, if ever there was one? But neither would I easily concede that the homoousion was condemned and rejected by the Antiochene synod against the Samosatene. This decree indeed (for I do not deny it) Basil the Great recalls, and this Hilary recalls. But the learned set against Basil the authority of Athanasius, and bring forward other reasons on account of which we rightly doubt this matter.

First, namely, that that asserted decree of the Antiochene synod conflicts with the things which had been transacted a little before the synod between the two Dionysii, that is, the Roman and the Alexandrian. Second, that it had been utterly unknown to all—not even excepting the Arians—until the year 358; of which matter Eusebius is indeed a competent witness, a man of almost boundless reading, who, when he brought forward all the arguments proposed in the Nicene synod against the homoousion, does not even mention this one. Third, finally, that it rests on no other testimony than that of the then-living Arians, whose faith, as no one is ignorant, was how suspect.

As regards Hilary, he put no effort into investigating the historical truth of this matter, but either simply believed the Semiarians, or—what is more probable—wished to seem to believe them. And lest I be thought to assert this more confidently than is fitting, two things establish it: first, that he attributes that decree, vaunted by them, not to the Antiochene, but to the Samosatene synod: the other, that, since he carries the cause he is pleading by other unconquered arguments, he thought it of no importance to him to inquire whether it was true or false.

Moreover, if the letter inscribed in the name of Dionysius of Alexandria to Paul of Samosata is true and genuine, if the exposition of faith which was recited in the name of the Nicene Fathers at the Council of Ephesus pertains to the ancient Antiochene synod, then it is surely false that the homoousion was rejected by it, since in both places it is asserted in plain words: but I, for my part, do not see why the opinion of those who hold these for true and genuine monuments of that same Antiochene synod should not be preferred to the other, which denies it: for the latter rests on only a few, and those very slight, conjectures, while the other agrees with the creed of the Antiochene Church, and is confirmed by the testimony of authors not far distant from that age.

But this is not the place for treating of these matters, which, moreover, the most learned man Michelangelo Giacomelli, intimate Chaplain of our Most Holy Lord, has anticipated in his dissertation on the heresy of Paul of Samosata, which anyone who consults will have spent his effort to good purpose. I now come to the letter which Hilary says that Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius demanded to be read by Basil of Ancyra. What it was, therefore, by whom written, or what besides it contained, is obscure: this only we understand from the same Hilary, that in it the chief matter treated was the exposition of the homoeousion and the homoousion. 'The letter,' he says, 'which Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius demanded of you at Sirmium concerning the exposition of the homoousion and the homoeousion, I have read;'

'I perceive it to be, in certain respects, no less circumspect than free.' Tillemont conjectures that those Arians demanded that it be read with this design: that the Semiarians—who in that same letter had proscribed the homoousion with an anathema, and had then kept this decree secret from all—might at some point be compelled to make it public as well, and to condemn that word. But by what conjecture, not to say reason, does the learned man prove that the letter which was read had marked the homoousion with an anathema? This those Semiarians had done in that encyclical of the Synod of Ancyra. But if anyone reads Hilary and compares it with that same synodical letter, he will easily detect that the letter written by the synod was one thing, and the one then read was another:

For in the letter of the Synod of Ancyra you would seek in vain that exposition of the homousion and the homoeusion which Hilary mentions. The reason, too, why the letter that was read to Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius had to differ from the one written at Ancyra is not obscure. For the Ancyran legates had agreed among themselves that the anathema pronounced against the term 'consubstantial' ought to be kept secret; whereas Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius rejected the homoeusion, since they rightly judged that it differed in nothing from the homousion: the whole matter is established from Hilary. What, then, were those Semi-Arians to do, so as to draw the other Arians to the profession of the homoeusion, yet, according to their resolve, keep the anathema pronounced against the homousion hidden from all?

They had to write another letter, in which they might more fully explain the force of the homousion and the homoeusion, and adduce reasons why the one should seem preferable to the other. This letter, then, was at that time written and composed; Hilary points to it, but we now seek it in vain. For the rest, whatever you may say about this letter that was read to those Arians—whether, as I think, it was distinct from the encyclical of the Synod of Ancyra, or whether an anathema against the homousion was pronounced in it—so far as concerns Liberius, it makes no difference. For he was not present when it was read;

but after it had been read, after the Ancyran definitions had already been approved and promulgated by Ursacius and Valens, he then came to Sirmium, summoned by the emperor through the agency of Basil, who was then master of affairs—all matters, as we have seen, being already finished and settled, and at a time when there was no need for them to be read. This which I say is gathered not obscurely from Hilary himself, who, since he writes that only those three bishops demanded its reading, indicates that no one else was present when it was read by Basil. Finally, than the testimony of Victorinus, which the same Tillemont strives to draw to his own opinion, nothing is more flimsy, nothing more obscure. These are the words of that writer:

The Easterns write to the Africans, that they should cast out from the holy Church the HOMOUSION, saying that the Africans and all the Easterns were of one mind with them. It is therefore uncertain at what time these things were written to the Africans by the Easterns—whether before the Council of Ariminum, or after the Council of Ariminum and the confirmation of its formula at Constantinople: for several African bishops may be seen to have rejected the homousion twice; first when Liberius professed the Sirmian exposition, as we have seen; secondly when the Arians' formula was accepted by the legates of the Council of Ariminum: for it is established that among those prevaricators three prelates from Africa itself were counted.

It is moreover uncertain whether those Easterns who had written to the Africans were Arians or Semi-Arians, all of whom, it is established, alike rejected this word, homousion, at that time. For my part, in this passage I judge that by the name of 'Africans' are designated those who had received the Ariminian formula, and by the 'Easterns' who had written, the Acacians; and I think the letters mentioned by Victorinus were given by them after they had induced the Semi-Arians themselves, partly by force, partly by fraud, to profess that same Ariminian formula, which had been admitted by those prevaricating legates. Why I judge thus is shown by Hilary, who, then stationed at Constantinople, reproaches Constantius with these words:

"You then subjected the Eastern bishops to your will, and not only to your will but to your violence; you command that the subscriptions of the Africans, by which they had condemned the blasphemy of Ursacius and Valens, be given back to you; you threaten those who resist, and at last you send men to plunder them." It is clear, therefore, that it was chiefly at that time that the Africans were solicited by the emperor by various devices to embrace the Ariminian formula and to desert the faith; and you will seek in vain, in the records of the events then transacted, any argument by which to prove that Constantius could have inflicted this violence upon the African bishops before the Ariminian formula.

Nor would anyone deny that the Acacians, who abused the authority of Constantius, at that same time sent to those same Africans letters written in the common name, by which both to inform them of the formula now received by all, and then to exhort them to join the rest. For if we compare the testimony of Victorinus with Hilary, we easily understand that both designate those most grievous times which followed the brigand-like Synod of Constantinople, by which that same formula was approved and promulgated.

Grant, however, that in this passage of Victorinus by the word 'Easterns' Basil and his colleagues of the Ancyran legation are designated, and that letters were then written by him into Africa, by which he had striven to draw the prelates of that Church to his opinion by the example of those who had with Liberius professed the homoeusion: what then will you conclude from it? Did Basil perhaps, when he wrote that they should reject the homousion, also intend that it be transfixed with an anathema? But that we by no means need to say, since to reject is one thing, to condemn another, and the one does not entail the other. It is well, then, to confirm the matter, manifest of itself, by two adduced examples, the one drawn from Hilary, the other brought forth from the storehouse of the Arians.

Hilary, then, praises the Gallican bishops because they not only had not received the impiety of an unfaithful faith sent from the town of Sirmium, but had condemned it once announced and made known. The Acacians, however, in the Synod of Seleucia simply reject the homousion and the homoeusion as words unknown to the sacred Scriptures, saying 'we cast them out'; but the Anomoean they openly condemn with an anathema, saying 'we anathematize.' You see, therefore, how weak and prostrate are the arguments which seem to have held Tillemont in doubt in the choice of his opinion. Yet it is well now to adduce one further testimony from Hilary in favor of Liberius.

He had been made more certain, by the letters of certain bishops, that in the Synod of Ancyra—which he had so greatly praised—an anathema had been pronounced against the 'Consubstantial,' although those bishops had afterward striven to keep this decree covered and secret. When, therefore, he had adduced all the reasons by which they could defend the rash deed, and had most vehemently demolished them, he then says: "But perhaps it will be said to me: Some today, among those who then took part in the Synod (of Nicaea), have decreed that there should be silence concerning the homousion. And I, though unwilling, will answer the one who says this: do not they themselves likewise, by keeping silence concerning the homoeusion, establish their own position? I beg you, let no other among these fathers be found like the aged Hosius, who thinks one ought to keep silence about both."

You see, then, the example of Hosius alone brought forward by Hilary on behalf of the Semi-Arians—though hardly suitable for defending their opinion, since Hosius had removed from the faith the homousion as well as the homoeusion. Why, then, does he not use the example of Liberius, most apt for confirming the matter under discussion? Did Hilary pass it over by dissimulation? This one may not even suspect. Was he, then, ignorant of it? But who could bring himself to believe that the Semi-Arians could have neglected the weightier authority of that pontiff, and that, in a matter which it concerned them above all to publish as widely as possible, they should have wished it to be hidden from Hilary himself and from all the rest?

But suppose Hilary did not know it—which surely surpasses belief—did Valens, Ursacius, and Germinius not know it, who had been present at the things done by Liberius? Why, then, when in the Council of Ariminum they wished the name of 'Usia' (substance) to be removed and the third Sirmian formula confirmed, when on that account they asked of the Fathers—if we believe Rufinus—whether they had set before themselves the homousion, which they retained with the utmost constancy, or rather the worship of Christ the Lord, was there not a word about Liberius? Had the authority and example of the bishop of the eternal City perhaps been of no value among them—which they had esteemed so highly before his exile and the Council of Milan—so that they should judge the minds of all the rest to hang upon that one man?

§ VIII.—It is shown that Hilary's execrations, customarily adduced against Liberius from the famous passage of the fragments, ought to be held of no account, as being taken from writings rejected by him, and that those who use them do not act in good faith. Since, then, we hold the Sirmian faith and formula, which Liberius professed as an example of human frailty, the discourse ought now to be turned to the corollaries that flow from this. But I have judged that these should be omitted by me, both because I set myself this one aim, to unfold the truth of the events—in whatever way I could—from the wrappings by which it seemed as it were to be covered, and because in treating that matter others before me have diligently bestowed their labor.

It remains, therefore, that we see why Hilary held that formula—which he had approved as catholic in the book On the Synods—in the place of Arian perfidy in the Fragments. For when several bishops of Germania Prima and Secunda asked of him what the Easterns either had done or were doing in their professions of faith, and begged him to write back what he himself thought concerning all their statements, after he had praised and approved the Antiochene exposition made at the Encaenia, and the Philippopolitan—which he calls Sardican from the mouth of the Easterns—then, when he deals with the Sirmian against Photinus, having first adduced its anathematism, he speaks thus: "What room for ambiguity is there here, or what is left for a conscience of sincere faith?"

"There exists for Him, with respect to His origin, no other substance, except that alone which is God's: so that in Him nothing else can have been born than all that is God's, since, not existing out of nothing, He does not subsist from any other source." In this passage, then, you see Hilary's open and manifest opinion: you would say in vain that he did not approve that formula as whole and perfect, but did this only to allure those who used it to the catholic faith. For those to whom he thus writes back were Westerns, and perfectly catholic bishops, and to suspect any dissimulation in so upright a man, and in a matter the greatest of all, when he writes these things to them, is a sacrilege. Shall we, therefore, rather call him inconstant in his own opinion?

The great Baronius judges that the words which we read in those same fragments against Liberius were inscribed in the margin, and thence afterward transferred into the text. Natalis Alexander both approves this opinion of Baronius and adds another reason: namely, that the Sirmian exposition, which is catholic as far as the words go, was yet rightly called 'perfidy' by Hilary when its authors and their designs are considered; which also pleased Tillemont. But I do not see why, when the authors are considered, that faith in Liberius ought to seem perfidy;

whereas, when it is sent to the Gallican bishops, it is sincere and catholic—and why that formula could, in Hilary's eyes, make that pontiff a heretic by his subscribing it, yet could do no harm to the faith and religion of those to whom it was sent. Pierre Coustant, therefore, asserts that this Sirmian exposition was never approved by Hilary from the heart, since whatever is besides the one Nicene faith he had consistently held in the place of perfidy, not of faith; on which ground he both clears Hilary himself of inconstancy and thinks that he could not undeservedly have pronounced an anathema against Liberius: