錨定之書 第 1 章 第 1/12 段

A letter written from Pamphylia, from the city of Syedra, by Tarsinus and Matidius and the other presbyters with them, to Epiphanius, bishop of the city of Constantia in Cyprus, concerning the faith, at the request of those who asked concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the other parts of the same faith.

To the lord, God-honored bishop Epiphanius, Matidius and Tarsinus and Neon and Numerianus, presbyters of the catholic church in Syedra, greeting in the Lord God.

In various ways the enemy of mankind, the devil, is accustomed to trouble and to sow his own seeds among the more simple, who have not yet been made perfect and confirmed in the faith of the holy Trinity.

Yet the firm foundation stands, according to what is written, having this seal:

'For the Lord knew those who are his.' But the heretics, who are ready for anything, having set aside blasphemy against Jesus, are impious toward God in another way, magnifying their own tongue against the Holy Spirit and speaking iniquity on high.

But nevertheless, though countless have been moved, we ourselves, by the grace of the Lord, have stood firm in the sound faith, in no way at all having been shaken from the right and sound teaching.

And many of those who seemed to be deceived have been strengthened again by the grace of the Lord, through the letters of the memorable and blessed bishop Athanasius and of your most God-fearing fellow-minister Proclianus.

But since remnants of the evil teaching still remain among some, and it is necessary that these, through you the experienced husbandmen, be either grafted into the good olive tree or utterly cut off, for this reason, writing to your godliness, we beseech you to deign, in your reverence, to compose a letter to our church, and through a fuller account to set forth the right and sound faith, so that both the more simple and those still wavering concerning the faith may be able to be confirmed through your sacred letters, and the devil, the enemy of the church, may be put to shame through your holy prayers.

We pray to God that you may be well for many years, and that you may remember us in your prayers.

[1103] A letter written by Palladius, a citizen of the same city of Syedra, and sent to the same Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in the island of the Cyprians, he too having asked concerning the same matters.

To my lord of my soul, the God-honored bishop Epiphanius, Palladius, a citizen of Syedra, greeting in the Lord God.

Those who sail across the great and spacious sea, as long as a calm wind guides the ship straight, give little thought to the harbors lying along the shores, supposing that they will bring the vessel across without weariness;

but then, longing for the fair-weather harbor and scanning the whole adjacent mainland, and being unable to find anchorage anywhere, they at last put out for whatever island happens to lie nearby, procuring their safety for themselves by every means;

and drawing near to it, and slipping under the shelter of the projecting headlands, they have at last, with difficulty, been able to be delivered from the evils that were washing over them.

And we ourselves now, O lord, being catechized in the saving word of God, and being eager to deliver ourselves from the tossing of the world, and wishing to bring our vessel into the unshaken harbor of Christ, since we learned that certain vain and, as it seems to me, irrational inquiries concerning the Holy Spirit were being stirred up by some, who assert that it ought not to be glorified together with the Godhead and the Lordship, but that it has been assigned the rank of a servant and an apostle, and who hold opinions concerning it that are even more base and lowly — for this reason, as though caught in an unsteady tossing and a grievous surge, and being unable to find anyone among us capable of resolving the questions and of setting forth for us the sound faith, we have hastened to refer the matter to your godliness, ourselves also fittingly uttering this cry:

We beseech, then, your unfeigned and right faith, which good report going before it, and trustworthy witnesses, testify to and proclaim;

deign, appointed as you are by the Savior for this very purpose, to receive our exhortation without impatience, and to be willing, by sacred writings and through a fuller and clearer account, to set forth the faith of the holy Trinity, and to send these to us, so that we too, being confirmed in it, may attain what we are earnestly seeking, and those who already stand well in it may exult, and those who are stumbling, if possible, may be healed, and God may be glorified in all things.

To my lords and most honored brothers and fellow-presbyters, Matidius and Tarsinus and Neon and Numerianus, and all the rest with you, and to our most beloved children, Palladius and Severianus, who have zealously pursued the good zeal and have chosen for themselves the blessed and greatly-desired life of orthodox faith and perfect assent, who fulfill what was spoken by the Savior — 'If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor,' and 'They were selling their possessions and laying them at the feet of the apostles' — and who devote themselves to acquiring for their own souls whatever things among us are timely and most excellent — Epiphanius, the least of the bishops, and the brothers with me, greeting in the Lord God.

we too are counted worthy to be spurred on in our conduct by these same [examples], so as to awaken the mind and direct it toward what is profitable.

For our disposition, ever humble within us, eager to persevere quietly and not to extend itself further than is fitting — beyond those who look too intently at what is above them — keeping in mind that saying spoken by the Apostle, 'that I might not extend myself beyond the measure of the rule which God has given us as our measure' — is now compelled to arrive at this point.

For from every side the votes, so to speak, have taken the lead — the votes of the zeal that is in you from God, and of the other like-minded ones, I mean of those who are zealous for orthodoxy, among whom is also Hypatius our child, who has come to me from the land of the Egyptians for this very purpose — and have made me lay aside all sloth and all hesitation, and no longer endure delay nor put off writing to you concerning the faith, since you and our brothers are seeking, from the divine and holy Scripture, the things concerning our salvation — the firm foundation of the faith concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and all the rest of the salvation in Christ, I mean the resurrection of the dead and the incarnate presence of the Only-begotten, and concerning the holy covenant, both old and new, and, in short, all the other constitutive elements of complete salvation.

I, then, having received such a proposal of requests — not few in number — from those around brother Conops, our fellow-presbyter, and those following him, and others, and from your own honored selves, most beloved children, and moreover also since our child Hypatius has come to me from Egypt for this very purpose, seeing so many concordant votes gathered together, being stung in mind and reasoning, deliberated, and it seemed good to me to set out eagerly in accordance with your request made through letters, and without hesitation — since not only willingly but even unwillingly, on account of the excess of your request and that of those with you, I the small one am impelled by your longing toward the writing of this my letter.

And I have been greatly astonished, marveling at the dispensation of our Lord and God, who was pleased, in the abundance of his goodness, to give his Holy Spirit in all things to those who seek him in truth.

For I did not consider that your requests and those of those with you, made through your letters, came about without God, most beloved, but I judged the impulse to have sprung from the grace of God at work in you.

For in truth, those who hold right belief concerning the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, and who know how to speak in accord and in harmony with the most blessed Peter the apostle, that 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' will clearly be pronounced blessed by the Lord himself, just as that holy one also was pronounced blessed when he heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah,' that is, 'son of Jonah';

for his father was called Jonah, and 'bar' is interpreted from the Hebrew dialect as 'son.'

For this was the life which the Only-begotten Son of God gave to his own disciples, saying, that they might have life in themselves; and this is the life which he declared:

'that they may know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.'

In saying, then, 'the only true God,' he has led us to monarchy, so that we might no longer be enslaved under the elements of the world, so that polytheism might no longer exist among us, and the thoughts of men might no longer be scattered into such fornication, but might be directed toward the unity of the only true God;

'for the first fornication is the invention of idols,' says Scripture.

And it says, 'and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.'

Jesus Christ — who else but God? But if Christ Jesus is God, as John says concerning him, 'the Only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him' — then one God, therefore, is the Father, both the only true God, and the Only-begotten who is God.

He is not, therefore, foreign to God and to the Monad;

but because he is Son from the Father, for this reason he is the only true God.

Some of the Greeks supposed there to be gods, though they were not gods; but there is only the true God, since the Only-begotten alone is from the Alone, and the Holy Spirit alone.

For the Trinity is in Unity, and one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But this word terrifies those who have not been deemed worthy of the Holy Spirit.

For no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except in the Holy Spirit.

For even the Jews say the name Jesus, but they do not consider it Lord.

And the Arians also say the name and 'god,' but they say it is a god by adoption, and not true, since they have not partaken of the Holy Spirit.

For if anyone does not receive the Holy Spirit, he does not truly call Jesus Lord, and truly God, and truly the Son of God, and truly the eternal King.

Let those who have held this evil suspicion learn that the Only-begotten Son of God does not wish to testify concerning himself in all things.

For thus he said in the Gospel: 'If I testify concerning myself, my testimony is not true;'

'It is another who testifies concerning me.'

And who is this other but he who called out from heaven, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'? But the same one who says, 'If I testify concerning myself, my testimony is not true,' again says, 'Even if I testify concerning myself, my testimony is true'; and again, 'The very works testify concerning me, which the Father has given me'; and again, 'Moses wrote concerning me,' and 'Moses testifies concerning me.'

The first, 'If I testify concerning myself, my testimony is not true,' was said since many glorify themselves and testify concerning themselves, so that he might cut off the boasting of those who boast and of those who commend themselves;

but when he says, 'Even if I testify concerning myself, my testimony is true,' he shows that his testimony is not that of a man, but that God is speaking the truth in his testimony.

True, therefore, is God the Father; true God is the Son; true is the Holy Spirit, being the Spirit of God and the Spirit of truth — a Trinity numbered under one name.

For concerning the Father, the Son himself says, 'that they may know you, the only true God.'

A trustworthy witness concerning the Son is he who reclined upon his breast, calling him the Only-begotten God.

But he did not add to 'Only-begotten God' the phrase 'true God'; rather, it is written concerning the Father that he is 'true God,' and concerning the Son that he is 'Only-begotten God.'

But conversely, concerning the Father it is written that 'God is light;'

and concerning the Son, that 'he was the true light.'

And observe for me the precision of the Scriptures.

For the Father is light, and 'true' is not added to 'light' concerning the Father;

but concerning the Son it says 'true light,' and no one dares to say otherwise.

For who, being mad — or rather gathering to himself derangement of mind — will dare to acquire for himself a suspicion of blasphemy, by not finding 'true' added to the phrase, and saying concerning the Father that he is not true light? For if he who was begotten from him, the genuine Son, is true light, then he who begat the Son is, beyond doubt, true light — he himself who begat him without beginning and without time, true light.

And just as one must not dare to say concerning the Father that he is not true light, even though 'true' is not added — but we know it of ourselves, because of our pious understanding, even though it is not written that he is true light, and we do not doubt, lest we perish — so also concerning the Son it is written that the Son is God, and even though 'true God' is not added, we heap up madness upon ourselves if we dare to blaspheme and not say that the Son is true God, even though the word is not added.

Of equal weight in truth: to the Father, 'true God'; to the Son, 'God'; and conversely, to the Son, 'the true light'; to the Father, 'light' — so that, joining together the two glories concerning the Godhead — concerning the Father 'true God' and concerning the Son 'true light,' and concerning the Father 'light' and concerning the Son 'God' — from 'light' and 'God' we may confess the one Godhead, and from 'true God' and 'true light' the one unity of power.

Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit: 'If I go away, he comes,' it says, 'the Spirit of truth'; and again concerning himself, 'I am the truth';

and concerning the Father, 'the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you'; and concerning the Spirit, 'my Spirit stands in the midst of you.'

But the Spirit, ineffably working together with the Son, casts him out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil; and the Lord himself says, 'the Spirit of the Lord, because of which he anointed me'; and the Holy Spirit, speaking in the prophets, says these things: 'thus says the Lord Almighty'; and, 'he who speaks in the prophets is the Lord, who establishes the thunder and creates the wind' — thunder being that which resounds to men, and creating wind for the working of the rains sent from God to the earth.

And concerning created things it thus says: 'establishing the thunder and creating the wind';

for these are created things.

But when announcing his Christ to men, it no longer creates, no longer establishes, but announces him to men — him who was truly begotten from the True, the uncreated, the unchangeable, the unalterable, the ever-existing from the Ever-existing, the one proclaimed through Moses and John as ever-existing;

for, 'He who is,' it says, 'has sent me,' says Moses; and John: 'He who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.'

The Father is He-who-is; the Son is he-who-is, existing in relation to Him-who-is, begotten from him — not a blending together with the Father, not having begun to be, but ever a genuine Son together with the Father, the Father ever begetting the Son.

For there was never a time when the Father was not Father; there was never a time when the Son did not exist together with the Father alone.

For if there was a time when he was not Father, then he himself was also son of another father before he became father of the Only-begotten.

And those who suppose themselves to be pious toward the Father are, in the end, utterly impious.

For in God there is no time, no season, no point of time, no instant of an hour, no twinkling of an eye, nor of thought — he admits nothing in flux; but so far as your mind ascends to apprehend the Son and to believe, it understands the Father at the same time.

For the name is significant/meaningful.

For whenever you call him Son, in saying "Son" you understand the Father at the same time;

For from the Son the Father is understood, and whenever you call him Father, you signify the Son;

for a father is, in every respect, called father of a son.

When, then, can you dare to say that the Father was not [always] Father, so that you might also dare to say that the Son is not Son? But if you do not dare to add worth to the Father — for the divine exists in unchanging sameness and has no need of addition, neither of glory nor of advancement — then learn not to blaspheme, O you who wage war against the faith, or rather, who drive yourself away from the faith; but always believe that the eternal Father truly begot a Son, [the Son] who ever really is, in relation to the Father who really is.

For the Son, ever coexisting with the Father, is not a blending together with the Father, nor a fellow-brother, but a genuine Son begotten of the Father, a natural Son, not one by adoption — a Son consubstantial (ὁμοούσιος) with the Father, not merely co-substantial [as though fused into one mass], but consubstantial; that is, not begotten from outside the Father, as some maintain by way of irony, wishing the Son to be Son by adoption/position and not in truth.

And the bond of the faith is to say "consubstantial."

For if you say "consubstantial," you have dissolved the power of Sabellius;

but it also signifies the Father as possessing hypostasis (ἐνυπόστατον), and the Son as possessing hypostasis, and the Holy Spirit as possessing hypostasis.

And whenever someone says "consubstantial," he does not signify something alien to the same divinity, but rather that the Son is God from God, and the Holy Spirit is God, of the same divinity — not three gods.

For neither, if we call the Son and the Father God, do we speak of two gods;

for our God is one, as the blessed Moses says: "The Lord your God, the Lord is one."

We do not, [in saying] God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, speak of gods — and thus not gods [in the plural];

but through the three names the one divinity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit is signified.

For the Son is one, only-begotten; and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, ever existing together with the Father and the Son, not alien to God, but being from God, proceeding (ἐκπόρευσις) from the Father and receiving from the Son.

But the only-begotten Son is incomprehensible, and the Spirit too is incomprehensible; yet [the Spirit is] from God, not alien to the Father and the Son.

Nor is it a blending-together of Father and Son, but a Trinity ever existing of the same essence (οὐσία);

there is no essence other than the divinity, nor any divinity other than the essence, but the same divinity — and from that same divinity are the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the Spirit is Holy Spirit, and the Son is Son; and the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and receiving from the Son, searches the depths of God, declares the things of the Son in the world, sanctifies the holy ones through the Trinity — third in designation, since the Trinity is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit;

for he says, "Go therefore and baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" — the seal of grace, the bond of the Trinity, not alien to the number, not divided in the designation, not a stranger to the gift, but one God, one faith, one Lord, one gift, one Church, one baptism.

For the Trinity is ever Trinity, and never receives any addition, being numbered thus:

Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is not a blending-together, nor is anything in it separated from its own unity; but in the hypostasis of perfection, the Father is perfect, the Son is perfect, the Holy Spirit is perfect:

Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

But, conversely, the Spirit is arrayed among the gifts:

"For there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

and there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord;

and there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all."

Let us not fall away from the matter before us, let us not depart from the truth.

We are not pleading a case on God's behalf, but we think reverently, so that we may not perish; and we speak not as those who fully comprehend;

for as men we utter what we have grasped.

For the honor due to God is boundless, and the Trinity is glorified — and stands ever glorified — ten thousand times beyond our understanding, receiving no addition of glory, nor being deprived of any of its own particular property.

For nothing in the Trinity is created or has come into being afterward; but the Father begets the Son, yet there was never a time when the Son was not.

For neither was there ever any time when the Father was not called Father, but he was always Father, and there was always a Son — not a fellow-brother, but a Son begotten ineffably and named incomprehensibly, ever existing together with the Father and never at any time ceasing to be.

The Father, then, is unbegotten, uncreated, and incomprehensible; the Son is begotten, yet likewise uncreated and incomprehensible;

the Holy Spirit is ever [existing], not begotten, not created, not a fellow-brother, nor a father's brother, neither a forefather nor an offspring, but Holy Spirit from the same essence of the Father and the Son.

And each of the names is uniquely its own, having no duplicate.

And the Son is only-begotten, true God from true God, not bearing the name of Father, nor alien to the Father, but being the Father's Son;

and [he is] only-begotten, so that the Son might have his own unique name; and God from God, so that Father and Son might be called one God.

And the Holy Spirit likewise has his own unique name, not bearing the name of Son, nor the designation of Father, but being called thus — Holy Spirit — not alien to the Father.

For the Only-begotten himself calls him "the Spirit of the Father," and "he who proceeds from the Father," and says, "he will take from what is mine," so that he may not be thought alien either to the Father or to the Son, but of the same essence, of the same divinity — a divine Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of God, the Paraclete Spirit, called by a name uniquely his own, having no counterpart set against him, not made equal to any other spirit, not called by the name of the Son, nor designated by the appellation of the Father, so that the uniquely-named names might not become identical in name with one another;

except that [the title] "God" [applies alike]: God in the Father, God in the Son, God in the Holy Spirit — each belonging to God, and each himself God.

For [he is] Spirit of God, and Spirit of the Father, and Spirit of the Son — not according to any composition, as in us soul and body [are joined together], but in the midst of the Father and the Son, from the Father and the Son, third in designation.

For he says, "Go therefore and baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Now if the Father baptizes into his own name, into the name of God, and the seal is perfect, being sealed in us in the name of God; and Christ baptizes into his own name, into the name of God, and the seal is perfect, being sealed in us in the name of God — who will dare to war against his own soul, calling the Spirit alien to the divinity? For if we are sealed into the name of the Father, and into the name of the Son, and into the name of the Holy Spirit, it is one seal of the Trinity;

One, therefore, is the power of the divinity within the Trinity.

But if the one is God, while the other two are created and not God, by what reasoning are the two bound together with the one by the seal of perfection? So then we have been sealed into a royal name — the one, that of the Father — while the other two are not royal, and we are still enslaved to elements and created things; and the name of the Father alone was not able to save, but he took to himself — having created two other elements, according to the supposition of the blasphemers — so that his divinity might acquire other powers besides, and be able to save the one sealed by him, and the man created by him might receive redemption through the forgiveness of sins.

Alas for such foolish nonsense! O such blasphemy!

From where has yet another new unbelief crept stealthily into life — or rather, let me say, ill-belief? For ill-belief is worse than unbelief.

For unbelief, once it receives faith, will be set right; but ill-belief is incorrigible, and is saved only with great difficulty — unless, indeed, some anointing should come down from above upon it.

So then the blessed Peter says to those with Ananias, "Why has Satan tempted you to lie to the Holy Spirit?" And he says, "You have not lied to men, but to God."

Therefore the Spirit, from the Father and the Son, is God — [the Spirit] to whom those who kept back part of the price lied;

as Paul also agrees with this statement, saying, "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you."

Therefore, then, the Spirit is God, as I said before.

Wherefore holy men also shall be called a temple of God — those who have caused the Holy Spirit of God to dwell within themselves;

as the foremost of the apostles bears witness, he who was accounted worthy to be pronounced blessed by the Lord, because the Father had revealed it to him;

thus, then, the Father reveals the true Son to him, and he is pronounced blessed; and the same Father again reveals his own Holy Spirit.

It was necessary that the first of the apostles — the solid rock upon which the Church of God has been built, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it —

and the gates of Hades are the heresies and the heresiarchs.

for in a certain manner the faith was made firm in him — in the one who received the key of the heavens, in the one who looses on earth and binds in heaven.

for in this one are found all the sought-after subtle points of the faith.

This is he who denied three times, and three times called down a curse upon himself, before the cock crowed;

for, signifying the excess of his love toward his own Master, insisting strongly, he said, "Even if all deny you, I will not deny you" — speaking so far as lay within human power;

this is he who wept at the crowing of the cock, so that he might truly confess that the seizure of the Son of God was not in mere appearance but real, that in weeping over his Master's seizure, when he had been handed over by the Pharisees, he might declare him to be a true man;

this is he who went away to Galilee to fish — the companion of the one who had reclined upon the Lord's breast: for the one, on the one hand, learning from the Son and receiving from the Son the power of knowledge, used to reveal it, while the other, on the other hand, was benefited by the Father, laying the foundation for the security of the faith — he who, in the boat on the lake of Tiberias, was fishing naked again after having been called; and the disciple whom Jesus loved, at the word which the Savior spoke, "Children, do you have any fish?" — and he says, "Cast on the right side of the boat, and you will find" — and when that word came to pass, while Peter was astonished, John, whom Jesus loved, says, "It is the Lord" — [the Lord who is] man according to the flesh, born of Mary in truth and not in mere appearance, but God according to the Spirit, having come from the heavenly realms, from the Father;

this is he who heard from the same Lord, "Peter, feed my lambs" — he who was entrusted with the flock, who guides it well by the power of his own Master, who confesses concerning the flesh, who truly proclaims the Father's things concerning the Son, who signifies the Spirit and his worth within the divinity, who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, together with James and John, so that by three witnesses every word might be established.

For nothing can stand without two or three testimonies.

for by means of these the faith of those under the Law was also confirmed, though enigmatically — [the faith] of those who recognized the Father alone — unless indeed they should also receive the power of the Son, and through the testimonies of the Father and the Son be strengthened, and through the third testimony receive the Holy Spirit and be made complete — this being made plain by the voices of the Cherubim and the Seraphim, who cry out the threefold cry, "Holy, holy, holy."

For the doxology in heaven is not accomplished by two utterances, nor do those same holy and invisible spiritual living creatures cry out a fourth [utterance], nor do they render a fourth cry, nor a single one alone, but three distinct utterances: "Holy, holy, holy."

And they do not say "holy ones, holy ones," lest they should make the singular into a many-named thing, nor yet conceal the number of the three; but they render the sanctification three times, while uttering the word in a single form and in the singular, lest they should give a name to polytheism.

For God is one: Father in Son, Son in Father, together with the Holy Spirit.

And for this reason, holy, resting among the holy ones: a true and hypostatic Father, and a true and hypostatic Son, and a true and hypostatic Holy Spirit — three existing, one Godhead, one essence, one glorification, one God.

You have named the Son, and you have thereby embraced the Trinity together in your understanding;