Works 2

PREFACE OF AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR. When this book — composed by a catholic priest, the blessed Athanasius of most approved life, against the heretics Sabellius, Photinus, and Arius — has come into the hands of an industrious reader, most blessed Pope Maternus, he will at once object: How can it be that Arius had a contest with the holy Athanasius, the successor of the blessed bishop Alexander, since it is established, as one reads in the Ecclesiastical History, that Arius was poured out by a most shameful death — that is, after the example of Judas, the betrayer of our Lord Jesus Christ — so that what he had conceived with a fetid mind he might end with a fetid end? But let him recall what Sulpicius Severus, of blessed memory, set down in his Chronicles, saying:

「Two Ariuses, like two serpents, hissed from one mouth」: he will plainly find that there were two Ariuses. From which it is understood that holy Athanasius had his contest either with Arius while still living — not with the one who was poured out — or with some Arian madman. Wherefore it is fitting that these things, a work (as we believe) accomplished by God, be read again and again by catholics, so that they may learn how they can avoid the poisons of the heretics, and (with God's help) may be able to guard their faith without any hesitation. PREFACE OF VIGILIUS.

While I was long and earnestly debating with myself concerning the truth of the faith, and seeking, by consideration of Scripture, in what manner I might refute the manifold and numerous questions of the heretics with brevity of reply, and overcome their sacrilegious sayings — spread out in various and lengthy treatises — by a compendious struggle of disputation, lest, answering longer matters with still longer, I should leave behind for readers an interminable and exceedingly laborious material, this appeared to me useful and very convenient: that I should introduce the person of each heretic together with the professions of his own doctrine, as though present men were dealing with present men.

And lest the prosecutions of the individuals should come into doubt with no one to examine them, I have caused a certain arbiter, by name Probus, invested with judicial authority, to be present; so that, with him impartially deciding each several point, the design of impious depravity might be brought to nothing. I therefore introduced Sabellius, Photinus, and Arius, and on our side Athanasius, so that the truth, refined by the supreme contest of the disputants, might come to the knowledge of all, and that the arrangement of this work, varied by the diversity of persons and of replies and interlocutions, might cut off tedium from the readers. I. Probus the judge said:

Perceiving that no majesty of the true Godhead resides in the worship of idols, I wish to submit myself to the Christian doctrines, by which it is taught that there is one and true God, who by the power of his Word created all things that are seen and that are not seen.

And since, although many are reckoned under the title of the Christian name, they are said to stray far from the truth of that faith — namely by holding diverse opinions and following various established doctrines — I now greatly desire to know what is the faith of right doctrine, to which, with all the evasions of doubt removed, I may cling tenaciously; lest, desiring to be stripped of the blindness of error, I be entangled in greater errors of darkness, if at random and without any discrimination of examination I should become an imitator of whatever sect first presents itself, which I do not know whether it be perverse or not, or supported by truth.

And therefore, if it please — nay rather, since it ought to please — let each one of you lay open before us the sentence of his own faith, so that, an examination having been held, to whatever is found firmer than all and truer we may all rightly yield, and this, the error of falsehood being spurned, we may undoubtingly follow. All said: How can we commit to you the secrets of so great a mystery, and place the arbitration of an untried matter in your hands, since you have not yet washed away the stains of heathenism by the perception of true doctrine? Probus the judge said: This is indeed what I desire with all my strength to know — what is the right and truthful doctrine, in which I ought to receive the sacred ordinances of the hidden mystery. For I do not now desire that the deep secrets of the mysteries be opened to me;

but I now demand that those things be shown to me which in your faith are held outwardly, and are publicly proclaimed. That is, that one and the same is the true God, the Maker of things visible and invisible. And since I am not ignorant that you profess this with one mouth, what cause has arisen that you are divided into so many various sects, so that which is true and which false cannot at all be understood by us, before, by your contest — conducted with a worthy moderation of patience — we more diligently learn what is fitting? II. Athanasius said:

Since you are steeped in every kind of letters and very thoroughly learned in the philosophical disciplines, you ought not to wonder at all that very many and various doctrines of novelties have arisen among us, since among you too there have emerged as many novelties of opinions as there are well-nigh names of their authors. For since there are in the world three religions — of the Jews, the pagans, and the Christians — each religion, departing from itself by many and widely differing diversities of opinions, has been divided into the various sects of its own institution; while each one, enticed by the sweetness of a more recent opinion, which sets forth not truth but the likeness of truth, abandons the line handed down of old by the fathers;

thereby straying irretrievably through trackless ways, in that he uses novelty in place of antiquity, as though walking by the ancient boundary and that handed down by the fathers. For he either presumes too much, or believes too little, and therefore knows not how to walk the middle and royal road. I have said these things by way of preface for this reason: to demonstrate to you the clearest indications for exploring the truth; so that you may very easily recognize him to be wrapped in the error of depravity, who, abandoning the ancient ordinances of the apostolic faith, himself dreams up for himself, according to the judgment of his own will, a faith that he ought to follow. Arius said: Most excellently does Athanasius profess that the error of perfidy consists in additions and newly-invented novelties of things, the apostle agreeing with this very point, when he says: 「Profane

profane novelties of words, avoid them」 (1 Tim. 6:20). Wherefore I beseech you not to depart from this path of inquiry, by investigating more diligently and more attentively who uses a new and who an ancient testimony of faith (or: sacrament of faith). Probus the judge said: That these things which you assert may very easily become known, and may come to the light of truth with all the fog of ambiguity removed, set forth the rule of the ancient faith, and convey it to our ears just as it was handed down by the apostles. III. All said: We believe in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ his Son our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. This is the rule of our faith, which the Lord handed down to the apostles by heavenly teaching, saying:

Go, baptize all nations, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Probus the judge said: Astonished, I am held fast in great amazement of wonder, seeing three gods proclaimed by you — to whom I had believed I must flee for refuge to the majesty of the singular power of the one God. Wherefore, what is the faith of this reasoning, or what do these names of three things and three appellations indicate, I pray you deign to instruct us briefly. Sabellius said: Plainly you have not heard three gods proclaimed by us, but we have professed simply that we believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as it has been handed down to us by the apostles.

For when we name the Father, we do not wish another Father, another Son to be understood, but we proclaim this same one to be both Father and Son. For God, by the ineffable power of his might, by which he fills all things, filling the womb of the Virgin Mary, and taking from himself — for the expiation of human sins — the substance of fleshly matter without any change of himself, visibly showed himself to human gaze, and in that very man whom he assumed he is called the Son; since not one and another, but the same Father is understood. And by this reasoning we worship one God, understanding not (as I have said) one and another, but professing this same one to be the one and true God. IV. Photinus said:

Impiously has Sabellius professed that God the Father was born through the Virgin, attaching I know not what flaw of extension to so great a majesty, so that, through that by which he was extended in the Virgin, he should be Father to himself and himself be Son — which no Christian would grant him. Wherefore rather do I say that God the Father has as Son the Lord Jesus Christ, taking his beginning from the Virgin Mary; who, through the most excellent and inimitable merit of his holy and blessed conversation, was adopted by God the Father into a Son, and was endowed with the singular honor of divinity. But God, inviolable and immense, neither begot from himself another, nor was himself ever begotten, so that he might rightly be believed either to have a Son of himself, or himself to be a Son to himself.

But he is unique and singular, neither subject to passion by begetting, nor increased by extending himself, nor subjected to division by deriving a portion of himself in the Virgin. Arius said: For I confess that the unbegotten Father, before all ages, ineffably begot the Son, through whom and in whom he made the visible creatures and the invisible; who, in the last times, sent by the Father for the salvation of the human race, bore a true man in the world, whom he took inviolably from the Virgin Mary without any mingling of human shame. Who, although he is the God and Lord of his own creation, nevertheless cannot either be compared in all things to his begetter, or be made equal to him in anything, whom he professes to be both his God and the Author of his origin.

Nor, however, are there on that account two gods, because this one too is God; nor is he on that account not God, because the Father alone is God. Just as he is not on that account not good, because the Father alone is good; since the Son too is not only good, but also the creator of good things. And just as it is not taken from him that he should not be good, although the Father alone, by the Son's own profession, is good; so it is not taken away from him that he should not be God, although the Father alone is God. And just as the goodness of the Son does not prejudice the singularity of the Father's goodness, so his deity does no harm to the Father, that he should not be the one and singular God. And in this way we profess one God, not by denying (as I have said) that the Son is God, but by establishing the authority of the one divinity in the Father alone. V. Athanasius said:

That the Father ineffably begot the Son from himself before all ages, Arius has well defined by his profession; but whether he wishes to assert that the Son was begotten from the very essence or nature of the Father, or from elsewhere, he has for the present kept silent in this his discourse. For I confess that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one substance and one nature: so that I believe the Son was begotten from the Father — not out of nothing, nor out of something — and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. And although I profess that there are three subsisting in their own propriety as persons, nevertheless of these there is proved to be one nature and one divinity. Probus the judge said:

Although this varied and far-differing diversity of your opinions strikes a great fog of confusion into our minds, nevertheless, that we may be quickly stripped of these evasions, and that we may learn what is the profession of the true faith, deign to fortify the opinions of your assertions by clearer testimonies of divine Scripture. And lest, by a long circuit of speech, you wander far afield through the diffusion of mingled disputation, let each one of you contend singly against the rest:

so that all, taking up the weapons of questions against one, in those matters which you know to be common to you, may support one another in turn against the one who dissents from you. Further, if you have nothing in common in the faith, let each one strive for his own professions, so that it may easily become clear whether in those matters which he condemns in another he himself does not utterly stumble. If it please, then, enter into contest with Sabellius, and let him in turn vindicate his own positions against you: so that, if you are able to overcome him, he may depart vanquished. After whom Photinus ought to give himself to the struggle, and to defend his faith by truthful testimonies. Against whom you all ought to make firm the battle-line of contest; so that, if he too gives way overcome, he may leave the place of disputation to the others who follow.

And in this way I judge that we can arrive as quickly as possible at the tracking-down of the truth. Let it therefore be permitted, as I have said, that Sabellius approve his faith by heavenly proofs. VI. Sabellius said: Since you have bidden me to engage with all, let them answer whether they confess God to be of simple nature. Arius said: What impious man would deny this? Sabellius said: Let them also answer whether all things which are said of God are to be received according to substance. Arius said: These things are known to be proper to our faith. Photinus said: I assent that all things are said of God according to substance. Athanasius said:

I would not rashly pronounce that all things which are said of God ought to be received according to substance, on account of certain relative cases of names, uttered according to the customary speech of human discourse, which are not properly fitted to God, but to persons and times or to whatever kinds of things. That is, when he says that he does not know, or when he again admits that he has come to know; or when he bears repentance for the things made by himself, and now shows himself angry, now appeased. All of which, if we should wish to receive according to essence, we shall without doubt profess the divine nature to be passible and improvident, into which falls either ignorance, or knowledge arisen in time; which sad things cast down by repenting, and glad things lift up by quickening.

And what else will this be, but to undergo mutable things, and to flow this way and that with unstable mobility? Whence it is most manifestly proved that not all things ought to be said of God according to substance, but that some things, corresponding to dispensation, not befitting his nature, are to be professed with utmost certainty. Probus the judge said: Although you have replied sufficiently and most learnedly with praiseworthy brevity, that not all things are said of God according to substance, nevertheless I desire to hear these matters from you more fully, when the time for the disputation of your turn shall have come. Now meanwhile (as I said before) let Sabellius continue as he had begun. VII. Sabellius said: The profession of our faith, as I said above, proclaims this same one to be both Father and Son, God;

lest we be convicted of asserting two gods after the manner of the heathen, if another Father, and by us another Son, be proclaimed. Wherefore, from these very things which by those who do not understand or who feel too little are thought to be against us, I shall most plainly demonstrate that there is one person of the supreme and almighty God. For what else is 「The Father remaining in me does the works」 (John 14:10), but 「I remaining in myself do the works」? And 「He who sees me, sees also the Father」 (John 14:9), that is, I am the very Father who am the Son; so that through one contemplation of divinity you may understand there to be one person? But also that which he says, 「I am in the Father and the Father in me」; or that which Isaiah speaks to the same one, saying, 「In you is God, and there is no God beside you」 (Isa.

45:14) — this without doubt he wished to indicate more manifestly: that, without the mingling of another person, he ineffably remains in himself. For if, as they themselves also concede and as they confessed above, the divine nature is simple, it cannot be that, as though inwardly empty, it should contain in itself the person of another nature, and itself in turn be contained by the other. For it is necessary that it either contract itself by diminishing, or empty itself by evacuating, or spread itself abroad by dilating: since this is the condition of things received or receiving, that either the one about to receive be dilated in space for the receiving of another; or the one about to be received be diminished by some contraction, so that it may be able to be contained within a nature emptied for receiving it.

Which things, since they can by no means befit that simple and ineffable nature — being so impious and so absurd — it without doubt remains to be understood that one and the same, remaining in himself, seems to speak singularly of himself: 「I am in the Father and the Father in me」 (John 10:38); and 「He who sees me, sees also the Father」 (John 14:9): lest, if you should wish to receive it as said of two, you be convicted of asserting two gods nonetheless, separately distinguished.

Or if you so defend that they remain in one another, that you say of both there is one nature, you will be seen to profess I know not what two-formedness of persons, like some monster, projecting from the beginning of one thing; or dwelling confused and mingled in the substance of one nature, and by this reasoning to defend the simple and undefiled nature of the divine power as composed of unworthy qualities. Recur rather to those singular heavenly proclamations of the saints, by which the divinity of the one remaining in one person is proclaimed, as Moses admonishes, saying: 「Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God, the Lord is one」 (Deut. 6:4). And as God himself also frequently attests:

See, see, that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Deut. 32:39). And again: You are witnesses, whether there is any other God beside me (Isa. 43:10). We ought not to frustrate, by the confession of another God, a sentence drawn down to us from heaven by so great an authority, lest, annulling the command of so great a proclamation to our own destruction, we undergo the torments due to the worshippers of gods. VIII. Probus the judge said: If you think anything can be brought against so strong a discourse, deign to plead it fully. Arius said:

While Sabellius, by the indeed probable and very useful confession of one God, attempts to strip himself of the error of a twofold deity, he runs into the nefarious impiety of the Jewish understanding, denying with a sacrilegious mind that the Son of God, who is God, remains in his own substance and has his own person. The audacity of which most insane madness I will bridle — by whatever compendium of brevity I shall be able to use — by the authority of heavenly testimonies, to demonstrate the properly subsisting person of the Son: not taking up those things which they cavil as befitting the man assumed, but bringing forward into the midst those testimonies which all alike confess to befit his divinity without any scruple of doubtful understanding.

In Genesis we read that the Lord said: Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26). Behold, he said in the plural, 「let us make,」 clearly indicating another to whom the word of the speaking God was directed. For it is not to be understood so absurdly that he spoke so as to say to himself 「let us make,」 which is properly the trait of those who incur the affliction of madness. And so that Scripture might show that one spoke to another, it immediately added, saying: And God made man: to the image of God he made him (Gen. 1:27). If there were one, he would be said to have made him to his own image. But now another is more plainly described as having made him to the image of another.

Likewise when, on account of the many crimes of nefarious wickedness, the divinity had decreed that the Sodomites with their inhabitants of those lands should be burned with fiery showers, it is thus reported. 「The Lord,」 it says, 「rained from the Lord fire and brimstone」 (Gen. 19:24). Nothing could be more evidently intimated by way of law for showing the Father and demonstrating the Son, where one, not one from himself, hurled sulphurous flames from heaven against the other. IX. Likewise the Son himself speaks to Jacob, saying: I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God (Gen. 31:13). He could say, 「who appeared to you in my place,」 if one person of the speaker were understood. Likewise: Go up, he says, to Bethel, and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you (Gen. 35:1).

Nor can this in any way befit a single person, where one so distinct from the other commands a sanctuary to be set up. For to a solitary one it would have been fitting to say: 「Make an altar to me, the God who appeared to you.」 Likewise God the Father speaks through Hosea the prophet concerning the peoples to be saved in God the Son, saying: And I will save them in the Lord their God (Hos. 1:7). Likewise David speaking to the Son of God: Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a rod of equity is the rod of your kingdom. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps. 44[45]:7-8). What could be said more manifestly for removing the error of the confession, where God is described as having anointed God?

These few things meanwhile I have plucked from the Old Testament. For I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, many and clearer things, by which it is proved clearer than light that both the Father and the Son exist with distinct and most separate proprieties of their substances. But as for the fact that Sabellius, from this which he says, 「I am in the Father, and the Father in me」 (John 10:38), has striven to demonstrate one nature or person — namely that one cannot be within another without the mingling of confusion, or apart from the other kinds of vices which, after the manner of sophisms, he wished to bring forward as questions — these things do not indicate that the substance or person is one, just as the nature of God and of men cannot be one, concerning whom it is said that they are in God and God in them.

Finally the same Son, speaking to the Father concerning believers, says: That as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so they also may be in us (John 17:21). And again: He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, remains in me, and I in him (John 6:56). The Apostle also says concerning the unbeliever: And falling prostrate, he says, he will confess that God is truly in you (1 Cor. 14:25).

Just as therefore, when the guilty one is in us, and we are in God, it is not by confusion of person, not by unity of nature, not by accession of increase, not by subtraction of decrease, not by any composed or ordered quality of mutable substance, but by the sanctity of a pure and simple faith, that we prepare a dwelling-place for the Lord in us, and he receives us into his own abode, while by doing his will we remain in him; so the Father and the Son are known to remain in one another by the indissoluble covenant of will. X. Probus the judge said:

Since by such most clear documents of testimonies you have demonstrated that the Father and the Son properly subsist (which Sabellius, by spreading fogs of questions over human minds, was denying), this is now required of your side: how, by professing both God the Father and God the Son separately and more distinctly, you may not be seen to introduce a plural number of divinity. And although in your previous discourse you have briefly touched on a few things concerning this, nevertheless the proof of a question of this kind ought to be broad and proper. Which you will then have to expound more copiously, when the examination of disputation shall have begun to be stirred up between you and Athanasius.

And since now (as I said) the perfidy of Sabellius has been refuted by a truthful assertion, let Photinus assist his own faith with certain testimonies, if he can. Photinus said: I attribute a beginning to our Lord Jesus Christ, and I affirm that he was a mere man, and that through the most excellent merit of his blessed life he attained the honor of divinity. For who, carried in a female womb, is brought forth through birth? Who, having experienced the cradles of childbirth, and nourished by the food of the milky cup, was carried in maternal arms? Who received the advance of age?

Who fulfilled all the conditions of bodily frailty, while he suffers hunger, while he is struck by the temptation of the most wicked spirit, while he is wearied with fatigue, while he is loosed into sleeps, while, seized, he is bound with bonds, while he is beaten with scourges and palms, while he is harassed with the mockeries of those who insult him, while he is hung on the gibbet of the cross, and undergoes the losses of death:

whom the human condition subjected to parents, whose brotherly names of either sex are designated, who is deceived concerning the knowledge of places, who inquires about the name of the evil spirit, who confesses that he does not know the day of judgment, who testifies that he does not have the power of bestowing the seats, who complains that he is forsaken on the cross, who is shaken with the dread of suffering and the terror of death — on account of which he also prays that the cup be taken from him — and how many things (which it would be long to recount) befitting humanity he suffers: who is so foolish as to judge that these things befit God? XI. For those miracles of mighty works must be believed to have been performed not by his own power, but by God through him, just as he himself says:

The Father remaining in me, does the works (John 14:10). And again: The Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19). For because he was much accepted by God, whatever he wished he obtained by prayers. For if life was restored to the dead, if light to the blind, if strength to the feeble, if cleanness to the lepers, if the sea and winds gave way, if the creature of food felt the increase of a multiplied yield — all these are known to have been elicited by no other means than the gift of prayer. And in a like manner the prophets accomplished certain perfect works in the name of God. But because this one showed himself so worthy of God, and dearer by persevering in his commandments, as he himself says: I always do the things that are pleasing to him (John

(VIII, 29), and as the Father too speaks to him through an angel, saying (as it is written in Zechariah): The Angel of the Lord, it says, stood and bore witness to Jesus: Thus says the Lord God of hosts: If you walk in my ways and keep my charge, you also shall judge my house (Zech. III, 5); and as he bore death for the salvation of the world with equanimity—for this reason, I say, because he showed himself so great and such a one, the God of all things gave him power, and appointed him God of the whole creation, as the Apostle teaches, saying: He humbled himself even unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name;

that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. II). Whence he himself too, after the passion which conferred such merit upon him, said: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth (Matt. XXVIII, 18). But surely, if he were God before the ages, he would not have received in time a power which it is agreed he had always possessed. But, as I said, on account of the glorious merit of his obedience and passion, he was endowed with divine honour and exalted above all things, just as Peter also speaks, saying: The God of our fathers exalted his servant Jesus (Acts III, 13). And again: Exalted therefore by the right hand of God (Acts II, 33). And once more:

Let all the house of Israel know most assuredly, it says, that God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts): showing more evidently that, on account of the passion of the cross, he was made God in time, not born God before the ages. Whence Paul also says: Made so much better than the angels, as he has obtained a more excellent name than they (Heb. I, 4). For what is made or received takes its beginning from time. For that he took the beginning of his origin from the seed of David, the divine oracles everywhere testify, as God speaks to David, saying: The son who shall come forth from your loins, he shall build me a house (III Kings VIII, 19). And again: Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon my throne (Ps.

(CXXXI, 11). And Isaiah: Behold the root of Jesse shall rise up to rule the nations (Is. XI, 10). And the Apostle: Concerning his Son, he says, who was made to him of the seed of David (Rom. I, 3). And again: Remember that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David (II Tim. II, 8). And the angel to Mary: God, it says, shall give him the throne of David his father (Luke I, 32). By these therefore and very many other passages it is more evidently shown that he was not God before the ages, but advanced into God by the merit of good action. XII. Probus the judge said: Let the questions raised by Photinus be met by the responses of those who come from the opposing side. Athanasius said:

If you diligently attend to the things which Arius pursued against Sabellius, there too you recognize the perfidy of Photinus likewise refuted. Probus the judge said: How so? Athanasius said: Sabellius, by confessing one person, denied that the Son subsisted before the origin of all the ages: which very thing Photinus too undertakes to assert with impious fabrications, while, attributing to the Son a beginning from the nativity of human birth, he testifies that he did not exist at all. This sacrilegious opinion was overthrown by Arius's fuller treatment. For he openly and more lucidly demonstrated that the Son of God subsisted as God before the ages. Probus the judge said:

I indeed remember that Arius dealt sufficiently against Sabellius concerning the property of the person of the subsisting Son; but the order or method of the disputation demands that the assertion of Photinus too ought to be removed by the proper barrier of refutation against those who strive against it; for while you study brevity too much, you seem to omit necessary matters. For he raised no small question for his own faith, asserting with many proofs that the Son of God took his beginning from Mary, and advanced into God by the merit of most illustrious action. Athanasius said:

It will not irk either me or Arius to convict the madness of Photinus by the authorities of divine Scripture—he who has broken out into such insanity that, resisting the prophetic and apostolic sayings with the raving mind of his fury, he has brought forth I know not what most base examples of disparagement—things which God voluntarily underwent of his own affection for the salvation of our redemption—as an insult to so great a majesty. XIII. Arius said: The voices of the Jews insulting Christ, or the blasphemies of the crucified thief, are heard more tolerably than this Photinus's abominable perfidy is endured.

For who could bear that he be proclaimed a mere man, or that he took his beginning from Mary—he who testifies that he came from heaven and was begotten before the ages, as he himself, speaking of the Father and disclosing the mystery of his eternal nativity, says: Before the ages he founded me, and before all the hills he begot me. When he prepared the heavens, I was present with him (Prov. VIII, 23). But the Father too speaks to the same one, saying: From the womb before the morning star I begot you (Ps. CIX, 3). For since the stars are set as signs of times, God the Father testifies that the nativity of his Son existed before the origin of the heavenly bodies, that is, before the whole succession of all times. Or we may understand it said spiritually, before the morning star, that is, before the creation of the angels; since of the angel it was said:

Lucifer, the morning star, who used to rise at dawn (Is. XIV, 12). Photinus said: This is taken as said according to the truth of predestination, the Apostle attesting and saying: Who was predestined Son of God in power (Rom. I, 4). For it was said thus: Before the hills he begot me (Prov. VIII, 25), or: Before the morning star I begot you (Ps. CIX, 3), although nevertheless he was born in the last times—just as the Apostle also asserts that the election of the saints was made before the beginning of the ages. Who chose us, he says, before the foundation of the world (Eph. I, 4). And surely they are not chosen except at the end of the world. As therefore the apostles, who did not subsist before the ages, are nevertheless said to be chosen in predestination;

by the same kind of understanding, that Christ too is said to have been born before the ages is taken as said in predestination. For it is the custom of divine Scripture to narrate that which is certainly to come as if it were already done. Whence the prophet also says: Who has made the things that are to be (Is. XLV, 11, acc. to LXX), that is, made in predestination, but not yet existing in fact. So too the Son's nativity, predestined before the ages, was truly brought forth at the end of times. Probus the judge said: That nativity of the Son which is predestined before the world is described as having proceeded from the womb of God the Father; but you testify that the Son took his beginning from Mary. XIV. Photinus said:

But it is not on that account to be understood that Christ was born of God the Father, merely because either he himself confesses he was begotten of the Father, or the Father confesses he begot him. For God the Father is wont to say this of adopted or to-be-adopted sons, as it is said through Isaiah: I have begotten sons and exalted them (Is. I, 2). And again: Israel my firstborn son (Ex. IV, 22). And John: Everyone who is born of God, he says, sins not (I John V, 18): and he cannot, he says, sin, because the birth of God preserves him. Surely then, because faithful men are said to be born of God, is the origin of human birth on that account taken away from them?

Or are they to be believed to have existed before the beginning of the world, before they were born of men, through the mention of a divine nativity? Arius said: Since Photinus strives against the most manifest truth by the cunning art of disputation, he must be shattered by the most evident authority of divine Scripture. For the apostle John, foreseeing (I believe) this man's insanity long before in the Holy Spirit, testifies that before the beginning of the ages the Son existed substantially as God with the Father, and so rouses Photinus—sunk in a deep slumber of ignorance and buried in a deadly repose—by the proclamation of his most clear voice, saying: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God (John I, 1). Therefore for him who was in the beginning with God, it is not left open that at the latest time he should have taken from a man the beginning of his origin. And lest one suppose this Word, which was in the beginning with God, to be a passing sound of the divine voice, he says: And the Word was God (ibid.). But if this Word was God, it was an abiding substance, not a passing sound. For the established power of a nature is shown, which is proclaimed to have been or to be substantially. And since now too I behold Sabellius standing here with us in this auditorium, I will brandish the darts of this testimony against both, and from the same source I slay Photinus whence I destroy Sabellius.

Let Sabellius therefore hear that God was with God, and let him cease from the unity of person. Let Photinus hear that this Word existed as God in the beginning, and let him cease to attribute a beginning from the Virgin Mary. This, he says, was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John I, 2-3). He was in this world, and the world was made through him (ibid., 10). Does the creator precede the workmanship of his creature, or not? XV. Probus the judge said: It is agreed that the creator precedes the fabric of his own work; for it cannot in any way be admitted that he who stood forth as the author of a thing made should himself have begun afterward. Arius said:

If therefore all things were made through the Son, and the world was made through him, it appears that the Son existed before the world, indeed before all the things that were made. Probus the judge said: Nothing could be demonstrated more clearly than by this proof. Arius said: But lest perchance the proof of a single apostle seem insufficient to the perfidious, I will, if you command, append in a brief sequence other testimonies attesting that the Son of God subsisted before the ages. Probus the judge said: Although (as I think) nothing is more useful or stronger than this testimony, yet, that you may heap up credibility for your assertion with diverse testimonies of proof, pursue a few (as you say) circumscribed by brevity. Arius said: There is the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel, saying:

No one ascends into heaven, except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John III, 13). And again: I descended from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father (John VI, 38). It appears therefore that he who had descended from heaven already existed, so that Photinus may blush; and that he is other than the Father, since he does not presume to do anything by the choice of his own will, but in all things carries out the will of the Father who sent him, so that Sabellius and those like him may be silenced. Likewise: Father, he says, glorify me with that glory which I had with you before the world was (John XVII, 5). Behold, he testifies that before the foundation of the world he existed, endowed with the glory of honour, in the Father's presence.

Let Sabellius therefore hear of one with another; let Photinus hear that he possessed glory before the beginning of the world. Likewise the Apostle, showing that he was in the proper form of divinity before he took on the form of a servile nature, says: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. II, 6-7). Already therefore he was God, who, that he might be man, is taught to have emptied himself of the form of God. Likewise Jeremiah more evidently discloses that he was God before he deigned to assume the form of man, saying: This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him: who found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved.

After this he was seen on earth, and conversed among men (Baruch III, 38). Let Photinus dissolve, by whatever argumentation (if he is able), these proofs, so firm and so most robust, drawn from the divine authorities. XVI. Probus the judge said: If Photinus still desires to go against documents so manifest and so perfect, it is certain that he is driven by the vice of a diseased contentiousness, who does not submit to so great a truth. But lest, in his zeal for prolonging the contest, he advance questions of cloudy falsehood and consume necessary time on superfluous matters, let him impose a useful end upon his pursuits.

But let Arius and Athanasius, who confess that the Son of God was begotten of the Father before the beginnings of the world's rise (which, as is evident, both Sabellius and Photinus were denying), not delay to declare how, in one and the same proposition of faith, they make a division and do not agree among themselves. Athanasius said: Arius truly professes that the Son subsists before the ages. But that he was born of the Father, he concedes only by the sound of the voice and a feigned confession of words, not by the property of truth; while he separates him far from the substance of the paternal nature, and affirms him subject to the Father by the condition of nature, not by the principle of dispensation. Probus the judge said:

Give the clearest indication of your faith, and mark by a fresh statement how you believe, so that the matter of the disputation too may be fitted to the norm of the confession proposed. Athanasius said: Lest I burden your minds with a very long discourse, I conclude my faith in a brief statement. I confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one in deity, power, magnitude, and nature: nor do I assert anything in this Trinity to be new or foreign, as if it did not exist before and was afterward added; but, as I said, I believe it to be of one nature and one substance. Arius said: I, just as I confess three persons remaining in their own property, so I confess three substances of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For the substance of God the Father is one thing, of the Son another, of the Holy Spirit another, nor can the begotten nature of the Son, or the created nature of the Holy Spirit, in any way be compared with the unbegotten substance of the Father. Whence they are believed by us, in faithful confession, to be neither equal in power, nor alike in magnitude, nor partners in nature. XVII. Probus the judge said: If this is the whole in which you seem to dissent from one another—that is, that one says the substance of the Trinity is diverse, the other says it is one—then the method of the disputation now demands that you support your assertions more robustly, not by the subtlety of arguments coming deliberately from the dialectical art, but by the pure and simple proofs of divine Scripture. Arius said:

I believe that forgetfulness has by no means withdrawn from the memorable perceptions of your prudence the discourse of Athanasius, in which he elegantly argued that he ought to be marked with the error of perversity who pursues new and unusual fabrications of words, adding to the apostolic dogmas what is agreed not to have been handed down by them. Probus the judge said: So I remember. Arius said: Then let the decrees of the Council of Nicaea be disclosed by a reading, and you will recognize that Athanasius, or the authors of this, have corrupted the apostolic faith by the addition of new words to such a degree that, using royal ambition, they have decreed that those who clung to the ancient doctrines of the Fathers should be banished by deadly edicts. Probus the judge said:

If the reason of the present business demands that the decree of the Nicene Council be recited, let Athanasius too designate this by his discourse; so that, by the assent of both wills (whatever that is which is offered), it may be recited from without. Athanasius said: It is fitting to the case that the means of reading the things that were done be not denied. XVIII. Probus the judge said: Therefore, as you desire, let the reading of the aforesaid decree of the Nicene faith be aired. And it was read thus: A COPY OF THE NICENE FAITH. We believe in one God the Father, almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father, only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father:

God from God, light from light, true God from true God: born, not made: of one substance with the Father, which the Greeks call 'homoousion'; through whom were made all things that are in heaven and that are on earth: who for our salvation descended, was incarnate, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say: There was a time when he was not, and before he was born he was not, and that he is of things non-existent, or of another substance or essence, calling God mutable and changeable—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes. XIX. Arius said:

You perceive, most excellent Probus, that the decrees of this council were written down, by the daring of a rash presumption, to the discredit of the apostolic faith. For what need was there for this new word 'homoousion' to be inserted into the ancient rules of the dogmas? Shall we say that the apostles, or their disciples and all their successors in order, who lived up to that time in the confession of Christ and were ignorant of the word 'homoousion,' followed the sacrilege of impiety in the truth of the faith—for this reason, namely, that, deprived of the notion of this name, they went to Christ without the assertion of this very proclamation?

For if (as these men utterly lie) a new doctrine were being introduced by us against the statutes of the apostles, then surely it would be fitting that the new doctrine brought in by us be opposed by the ancient doctrines of the apostles, and that novelty be proscribed by antiquity, not antiquity perverted by novelty. Why does he impose this name on me to be followed? Why does he drag me more violently to a novelty of this kind? Why does he add this word onto the apostolic faith, of which not even the prophets nor the apostles anywhere make mention? What, I ask, is that name without which the faith cannot be whole? without which Christians are deprived of the honour of the Christian religion? For in this matter it is necessary to follow one of two things:

if the assertion of 'homoousion' is true, then the preaching of the apostles is false, which flourished for a long time without this name. But if the apostolic faith, devoid of this name, is true—as indeed it is—then this will without doubt be false, which has added the novelty of a name to the ancient faith. Turn over all the volumes of the New and Old Testaments, whether you can anywhere find 'homoousion' set down on the sacred pages. XX. Probus the judge said: What is replied to these things? Athanasius said: Are you offended only by the novelty of the name, or do you also shrink from the very force of the thing which has obtained this word? Arius said: I do not sufficiently understand what you say. Athanasius said:

Since an ancient thing has received a new name—the force of a new thing not having accrued by a new word—this I ask, whether the thing which is ancient is condemned by you together with the novelty of the name? Arius said: You speak tortuous things, worthy of every prodigy of folly. For if 'homoousion' is a new name, there is no doubt that the thing which it seems to signify is also new. Athanasius said: So you condemn alike the thing and the name? Arius said: Just so. Athanasius said: Therefore when I have demonstrated that a new name was attributed to an ancient thing handed down by the apostles, will you at last confess yourself defeated; or even so do you condemn the ancient thing together with the novelty of the name? Arius said: Plainly you do not show this.

And what reason of the case will demand that an ancient thing should receive a new name? For surely, before it obtained the appellation of this name, did it remain without the property of a name? This seems to me to have no logical consequence. Athanasius said: It is always the way of ecclesiastical discipline, whenever some new doctrine of heretics arises, to change the appellations of names against the insolent novelties of questions—while the things themselves remain unchangeably—and to express the natures of things more significantly; appellations which nevertheless agree with the forces of existing realities, and which show rather that these same realities existed of old, and do not insinuate a novelty of origin. And that what I say may become plainer, I use an example.

At the very beginning of the preaching of the Christian religion, all who believed in our Lord Jesus Christ were called not Christians, but only disciples. And because many authors of new dogmas had arisen, opposing the apostolic doctrine, and were all calling their followers 'disciples,' there was no distinction of name between true and false disciples; and so those who professed to believe in Christ were unwilling to be reckoned under the one name of 'disciples' along with the followers of Christ, or of Dositheus, or of Theudas, or of a certain Judas, or even of John. Then the apostles, assembling at Antioch, as the Acts indicate, with Luke narrating, called all the disciples by a new name, that is, 'Christians':

distinguishing them from the common appellation of false disciples, so that also the word of the divine oracle through Isaiah might be fulfilled, which says: But to those who serve me a new name shall be given (Is. LXV, 15, acc. to LXX). XXI. Therefore the Church, retaining this form handed down by the apostles in using new names, issued diverse novelties of names against diverse heretics, as the reason of sound faith demanded. Finally, the Church imposed on the Father the new name of 'unbegottenness.' For when the Sabellian heresy wished to assert that the Father was begotten of the Virgin, the Church, confessing against this, handed down the Father as 'unbegotten.' And surely in the divine Scriptures we never read the Father called 'unbegotten.'

Sabellius therefore can turn his audacity into the question of this same cavil, and use a similar kind of proposition, as you do, in which he might say: Why do you, without any regard for shame, do violence to the divine Scriptures, by professing the Father unbegotten, which you cannot show to be written? Likewise, because the same Sabellius by impious dogma professes him not only begotten but also having suffered, your bishops, who some time ago assembled together at Sirmium, among the other sanctions of faith which they promulgated, said that the Father is impassible: which we approve them to have established religiously and holily. But that man likewise proclaims this: How far do you stretch the audacity of your licence, by professing (what you have not read written) an impassible Father;

which neither the prophets handed down, nor the authority of the authentic creed handed down, but is presumed by your temerity? Again, let those same men who had assembled at Sirmium proceed, and they establish this faith of religious confession concerning the Son. God, they say, from God, light from light. Now here, how great an occasion for cavilling lies open to Photinus, who attributes to the Son a beginning from the nature of human generation—measure it yourself, I pray. For why should he not advance similar grounds of complaint? Why should he not also rave with a similar outcry, saying: What do you say? What do you establish? What do you hand down to posterity to be followed by your own judgment? By confessing the Son God from God, light from light?

Show me whether you have read this written in the same form of faith, that is, in the authentic creed which the apostles handed down. But I am content—since it was not written there—that at least it be read to me from the prophets, that it be shown from the writings of the apostles. Who could tolerate these novelties of words? Who could allow himself to admit to his understanding what neither the prophets nor the apostles handed down? XXII. Likewise you have established the Son to be like the Father by many and very frequent decrees of your councils. Let Eunomius now rise up, who confesses him unlike, and say: Where have you read this? Where have you found it written? Did the Father or the Son use this word of himself?

Therefore you, Arius, who today bind me with such a stricture that I should show 'homoousion' written in its proper terms—either confess that, against the insolent and stealthy depravities of heretical interpretation, certain names of confession, not rashly presumed but gathered by consequent reasoning, were inserted into the authorities of the faith; so that there arose, by religious understanding, as many resolutions of new words as there had been occasions of perfidy sought or supplied. Or, if you are unwilling to confess this, I will deal with you by your own objections.

Show me—not from conjectures, not from probabilities, not from things akin to reason, not from things provoking to understanding, not with the piety of faith persuading one to profess it, but by the pure and bare property of words—show me written: the Father unbegotten or impassible; and the Son God from God, light from light, or like the Father. I do not want you to say to me: this the reason of faith demands, this piety teaches, the consequence of the Scriptures provokes me to this profession of a name. I do not want, I say, you to put forth such things to me; because you also reject me when I bring forth similar things about the proof of 'homoousion.' But carry in your hands the codices of the divine volumes, and read these names of the aforesaid words set down in the same sound, in the same syllables.

Either show it written that the Son is like the Father, or confess him unlike. There is no way for you to break out hence, nowhere for you to escape. No faculty supplies you, entangled in the bonds of your own proposition, with the means of extricating yourself. Either grant me to prove 'homoousion'—that is, the faith of one substance—from consequences; or, if you are unwilling to grant it, all the things you yourself confess must be denied to you, because you will certainly nowhere be able to find them set down nakedly. XXIII. Probus the judge said: If it is the custom of ecclesiastical usage that certain appellations of words be set down nakedly in the authority of the faith for restraining the movements of heretics—appellations which nevertheless are clothed by reason from the consequence of existing realities;

since their truth, from which they take their origin, is found to be contained in the divine writings—what do you say, Arius? Do you grant that 'homoousion' (as Athanasius says) is proved from the divine Scriptures through the fitting qualities of the profession, or not? Arius said: This man, by I know not what cunning of syllogistic art, tries to elude my objection. For I desire this to be shown to me, whether 'homoousion' is written down by the authority of the Lord's reading. And therefore let him either read it set down in proper terms, or withdraw from its confession. Probus the judge said:

But you see how he turns your question back upon you, and binds you with the same strictures that you use, himself more manifestly demanding a proof of your profession, that you should show him, nakedly set down in the canonical writings, the Father unbegotten or impassible, or God from God, or light from light, or the Son like the Father. And if you are by no means able to demonstrate all these things set down in proper terms, the necessity of denying them will press upon you. To which crisis, as it seems to me, only this reasoning will be able to bring aid: that you grant to one another that those things which are nakedly set down in your councils have flowed from the fountains of the Scriptures.

For it will be reckoned as a vice of contentiousness, to demand a proof of bare wording, the sense of whose faith you know to abound more copiously in the Scriptures. Seek therefore the sense whence the nature of this word drew its origin; and when you have found the sense, do not doubt that you have likewise found the name. XXIV. Athanasius said: By whatever arguments you deal with him, he can in no way be recalled from this intention. For he knows most certainly that if it comes down to this—that it be taught, from the consequence of the Scriptures, that the substance of the Father and of the Son is one (which is 'homoousion')—he can most easily be overcome: and therefore, driven by the peril of diffidence and fear, he demands a proof of bare wording.

But he must again be bound by his own professions. You demand of me that I show in writing one substance of the Father and of the Son, that is, the homoousion; yet you yourself confess three ousiai, that is, three substances. Show me, then, where you have read of three ousiai. For if I must deny the one, that is, the homoousion, on the ground that I do not find it written in bare words, how do you dare to profess three ousiai, when you can nowhere demonstrate this in writing? Probus the judge said:

If there exists any document from the divine authorities, set down properly and expressly, by which it is proved that there are three ousiai of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and three natures (as you confess), let it be produced, so that Athanasius may be able to turn aside from the confession of one substance, which is the homoousion. For when you have shown the triousion expressly set down in the Scriptures, it will be manifest that Athanasius persists thus far in the confession of the homoousion by the rashness of a most stubborn obstinacy, in that he could not demonstrate it expressly set down. But if you yourself are likewise unable to demonstrate three ousiai, you will appear bound by the same necessity of condition as I am. XXV. Athanasius said:

Let him teach that three ousiai are expressly set down, and I will make cession of the one substance, which is the homoousion. Arius said: If there are three, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, necessarily there are three substances, in which each person is known to subsist separately and more distinctly in its own propriety. Athanasius said: Here arguments avail nothing; here the truth is gathered by reasoning from consequence; the express wording of testimonies is demanded. Read the triousion expressly set down, and do not say by conjecture: 'If there are three, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, necessarily there are also three substances'; for I too by a similar conjecture can opine more truly: If the Father and the Son are one (since He Himself says:

'I and the Father are one'), how is there not one substance? But you were utterly unwilling to enter upon this path of disputation, while you demand from me a testimony expressly set down (by demonstrating the homoousion). By a similar reasoning, then, do you also read three ousiai expressly and properly set down. For if I must deny the homoousion because I do not show it written in bare words, then I must necessarily confess the triousion, if I come to know it expressly set down by your demonstration. Arius said: Does the Father subsist in His own propriety, or not? Athanasius said: Unless you read me three ousiai expressly set down, I will give no answer to your questions. For who does not see whither your objection tends?

For you wish, by the argument of a cunning question, to prove distinct substances of the Father and the Son; but here there is no need of arguments, where by a plainer testimony of express wording a document of three substances is demanded. But if you desire to pass from the express wording of testimonies to the consequence of things, let this very point be made known to the public conscience: that you have not been able to demonstrate three ousiai expressly set down; and when we both have settled this article, it will be necessary for me to satisfy your objections or questions. XXVI. Probus the judge said: So far as the aim of your disputation shows, neither can you show the Homoousion, nor he the Triousion, expressly and specifically set down.