In Defence of the Three Chapters 58

But the holy Basil defended the great Gregory—who received the surname of worker of miracles, so that he was and is called by the Greeks 'Thaumaturgus'—not only from the error of the Arians, who say the Son is a creature and a created thing, but also from the contrary error of the Sabellians, who say there is one subsistence of the Father and the Son, although the aforesaid Gregory too seems to have said this. Whence the same holy Basil, speaking of certain men who strove to excuse their perfidy by the authority of Gregory himself, says: 'They have injected a certain experiment by a letter to our unanimous Anthimus, bishop of the Tyanenses, namely that the great Gregory said in the Exposition of the Faith that the persons of the Father and the Son are indeed two in understanding, but that the subsistence is one; but that this was said not dogmatically but contentiously, in the discourse to Aelianus, those could not perceive who beatify themselves in the subtlety of meanings:'

'in which there are many falsities of the things that are written, as we shall show in the discourses themselves, if God will. But again, satisfying a pagan, he did not think there was need of subtlety in reasoning about words. There is also a place where one must even consent to the custom of the one contradicting, so as not to struggle against necessary things. Wherefore you will also find there many expressions which now afford the greatest strength to heretics, such as 'creature' and 'created thing,' and any such thing. But many things said concerning the conjunction which was made unto man, those who hear the Scriptures uninstructedly refer to the account of the divinity: such as is this also which is circulated by these men.'

Accordingly, how could the synod justly anathematize Theodore, deceased in the peace of the Church, when on that very account Athanasius and Basil defend Dionysius and Gregory from such and so great charges—because they died in the peace of the Church? Or how could it pronounce the letter of the venerable Ibas heretical for the praise of Theodore, when it would not dare to call these writings of Athanasius and Basil heretical? Or how do the Eutychians blame the same synod, because it did not presume to anathematize Theodore, who was not accused before it, when they cannot blame these Fathers by whom Dionysius and Gregory too are excused? But let us bring forth another thing which is greater.

For the blessed Hilary, the most powerful and most fierce vanquisher of the Arians, and the most constant confessor of the Christian faith, in the letter which he wrote about the exile to the bishops of the province of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda, and Belgica Prima and Belgica Secunda, and Lugdunensis Prima and Lugdunensis Secunda, and the province of Aquitanica and the province of Novempopulana, and from the Narbonensis to the people and clergy of Toulouse, and to the bishops of the provinces of Britain, approves not the words of one man spoken privately, but the public decrees of councils, by which eighty of our Fathers, on account of Paul of Samosata, refused that the Son should be called homoousios, that is, of one essence with the Father; and he renders such a reason why they refused this word, namely that the said Paul the heretic confessed God to be the Father alone, but said that the Son began from the generation of his mother Mary, and was only a man;

and he taught that those Fathers had on that account preferred, the homoousion being removed, to establish the homoeousion, that is, of similar essence, because similitude does not permit the union to be understood. But when Arius afterward wrongly understood and taught the homoeousion, and, denying that the Son was of one substance with the Father, said that he was similar to the Father just as John the apostle says of himself and the other sons of adoption: 'Now we are the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be: we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is' (1 John 3:2): when therefore Arius perversely preached the homoeousion, the other Fathers resumed the homoousion.

Accordingly Hilary, in order not to accuse the Church in either set of Fathers—for she held both in honor—gave this resolution to the question: that the eighty had disapproved the term homoousios against a heretic, while the three hundred and eighteen had approved that very term against a heretic. He adds this also (toward the end): «Let us consider so many holy priests, now at rest: what will become of us, who bring the matter to this point, that because they were not bishops, we too may never have begun to be bishops; for we were ordained by them, and we are their succession—let us renounce the episcopate, since we have received its office from those whom we anathematize.»

But all these things—whether spoken privately by the holy Dionysius and Gregory, or publicly in council by the aforesaid eighty Fathers—seem to present no great difficulty for excusing, since they are found to have been uttered before the definition of the Council of Nicaea. There is something far weightier: that this same holy Hilary, in that same letter of his, equally defends the Council of Sirmium, gathered after the Nicene, in whose decrees it was said: «If anyone, calling God one, does not confess that Christ, the Son of God before the ages, was obedient to the Father in the creation of all things, let him be anathema.» And again: «If anyone should call the Father God but not Lord, and the Son as it were Lord from the Lord, and so speak of two Gods, let him be anathema.»

For we do not put the Son on a level with the Father, nor compare them, but we understand him to be subject. For he did not descend into Sodom apart from the Father's will, nor did he rain down of himself, but by the authority of the Lord, that is, of the Father; nor does he sit at the right hand of himself, but he hears the Father saying, Sit at my right hand (Ps. 109:1).» And again: «If anyone should call the Son unbegotten and without beginning, as though there were two without beginning, and two unbegotten, and two unborn, and so speak of two Gods, let him be anathema. For the head, which is the beginning of all things, is Christ; but the head which is the beginning of Christ is God. For thus we refer all things, through the Son, to the One who is the beginningless beginning of all.» And again (chapter 27):

«Confirming the understanding of the Christian faith, we say that if anyone does not declare that Christ, God the Son of God, subsisting before the ages and ministering to the Father unto the perfecting of all things, but rather says that from the time he was born of Mary, from that point he was named both Christ and Son, and received a beginning so as to be God—let him be anathema.» All these things the holy Hilary asserts that the aforesaid Council of Sirmium of necessity decreed against Photinus and the Easterners. And making a sufficient excuse for them, he shows how they ought to be understood.

This, then, was the concern of Athanasius, of Basil, of Hilary, and of all holy men: that, by blaming as heretics those who had died in the peace and honor of the Church, the very Church which had deemed them worthy of great honor should not herself be blamed. And therefore, even if perhaps some men, approved in very many respects, are found who condemn this same Theodore as a heretic, they assuredly do not do this with good warrant; nor are they to be followed in this, wherein they do not follow the custom of the Church. Hence, if the Council of Chalcedon, following the Church's custom in defense of the Church herself, were likewise to excuse the words of Theodore, who but a profane person would accuse it of this piety and caution? And yet not even this could it do without Athanasius and Hilary.

Moreover, it did no such thing—the council which on this account endures ill-will because, with regard to a letter brought before it by another, a letter not impeached for any praise of Theodore, it pronounced it orthodox on account of the confession of the true faith which it contains.