論三位一體與詩篇釋義 第 2 章 第 7/9 段

Photinus was bishop of Sirmium, instructed by Marcellus; for he had also been a deacon under him for some time. With the ways and disciplines of innocence corrupted, he persisted in troubling the evangelical truth with novel preachings. And this often happens: that when the increase of vices has brought loss in the love of God, the mad zeal for a depraved knowledge grows apace.

Therefore, to remove from the episcopate Photinus—who two years before had already been condemned as a heretic in the synod of Milan—priests are gathered from very many provinces, the more troubled and anxious that all things should again be thrown into confusion and disorder, because it had long since become necessary to cut off from the Church several bishops as guilty either of the false judgments against Athanasius or of communion with the Arian heresy. Seizing this opportunity, Ursacius and Valens approach the bishop of the Roman people, beg to be received back into the Church, and ask to be admitted to communion through pardon.

Julius, on deliberation, grants the pardon which they begged, so that, to the gain of the catholic Church, he might also draw off strength from the Arians, by admitting into catholic communion, through the pardon of a reconciled peace, those who had before disturbed the unity, now repenting of that design and audacity. And since there is no confession except about truth, no repentance except about a fault, and no pardon except about a thing committed, Valens and Ursacius, being about to be admitted into communion as they begged, first make profession in the following letter concerning the innocence of Athanasius, the falsity of the judgment, and the guilt of the Arian heresy. COPY OF THE LETTER WHICH, AFTER THE ORIENTALS' RENUNCIATION THAT ATHANASIUS WAS NOT GUILTY, VALENS WROTE OUT IN HIS OWN HAND IN THE CITY OF ROME, AND URSACIUS SUBSCRIBED.

To the most blessed lord, Pope Julius, from Valens and Ursacius. Whereas it is established that we before this insinuated many grave things by our letters concerning the name of bishop Athanasius, and, having been challenged by the letters of your holiness on that matter of which we gave notice, we did not render any account, we now profess before your holiness, in the presence of all the presbyters our brethren, that all the things which before this came to our ears concerning the name of the aforesaid man are false as regards us. (Translation from the Latin of the letter to Julius concerning the repentance of Ursacius and Valens.)

(Greek rendering:) To the most blessed lord, Pope Julius, from Ursacius and Valens. Since it is established that we before this laid before you, by letters, many grave charges concerning bishop Athanasius, and, being met by the letters of your goodness concerning that matter of which we gave notice, we were unable to render an account, we confess before your goodness, in the presence of all our brethren the presbyters, that all the things which before this came to your ears concerning the name of the aforesaid Athanasius were falsely insinuated (Latin:) and lack all substance; and therefore we most gladly embrace the communion of the aforesaid Athanasius, especially since your holiness, out of the benevolence innate to you, has deigned to grant pardon to our error.

We profess also that, if at any time the Orientals, or Athanasius himself, should with ill intent wish to call us to trial concerning this matter, we will not appear apart from your cognizance. And the heretic Arius, and likewise his henchmen who say, 'there was a time when the Son was not,' and who say that the Son is from nothing, and who deny that the Son of God existed before the ages—as we did through our earlier libellus, which we presented at Milan—both now and always we profess that we have anathematized them by this our hand with which we have written. And again we say that we have condemned forever the Arian heresy, as we said above, and its authors. And by the hand of Ursacius: I, Ursacius the bishop, have subscribed to this our profession.

(Greek rendering:) ...and are fabrications, and by every means alien to him. And on this account we gladly lay claim to the communion of the aforesaid Athanasius, especially because your piety, according to its innate nobility and goodness, has deigned to grant pardon to our error. And we confess this also: that if ever the Orientals, or Athanasius himself, should maliciously wish to call us to judgment concerning this, we will not depart contrary to the mind of your disposition.

(Greek rendering:) And the heretic Arius, and those who champion him—those who say 'there was a time when the Son was not,' and that 'the Son is from that which is not,' and those who deny that Christ is God, Son of God before the ages—just as also in our earlier libellus which we presented at Milan, both now and always we anathematize. Having written these things with our own hand, we confess again that we have condemned forever the Arian heresy, as we said before, and its authors. I, Ursacius, being present, have subscribed to this my confession. Likewise also Valens. (Narrative text.) This letter was sent two years after the heresy of Photinus had been condemned by the Romans.

LIKEWISE A COPY OF ANOTHER LETTER OF VALENS AND URSACIUS, WHICH SOME TIME LATER, FROM AQUILEIA—AFTER THEY HAD SENT OUT THIS PRECEDING ONE FROM ROME—THEY SENT TO BISHOP ATHANASIUS. To the lord brother Athanasius, from Ursacius and Valens. The occasion has offered itself of our brother and fellow-presbyter Moses, who is coming to your Charity, dearest brother; through him we send you most abundant greeting from the city of the Aquileians, and we hope that you, in good health, may peruse our letter. For you will give us confidence, if you too in writing back repay us the like. Know assuredly, by this letter, that you have peace with us and ecclesiastical communion. May the divine goodness keep you, brother.

(Greek rendering:) To the lord brother, bishop Athanasius, from Ursacius and Valens, bishops. Having found an occasion through our brother and fellow-presbyter Moses, who is coming to your Charity, beloved brother, through him we also warmly greet you from Aquileia, and we pray that you, being in health, may read our letter. For you will give us too good courage, if you also render us the like in writing. Know, then, that we have peace with you and hold ecclesiastical communion, and the token of this is the greeting through these letters. May divine providence keep you, lord, beloved brother. (Narrative text.)

By the aforesaid letters, then, pardon is granted to those who begged for it, and a return to the catholic faith along with communion is bestowed—especially since the very letters of those begging for pardon contained the truth of the Sardican synod. But amid these events an assembly is held at Sirmium. Photinus, the heretic, being detected—long since pronounced guilty and long before cut off from the communion of unity—could not even then be removed, because of the faction of the populace.

*** But the same Athanasius separates from his communion Marcellus—who, after the reading of the book which he had published in writing (for we too possess it), had by the sentence of the Sardican synod been restored to his episcopate—at the point when he perceived him to be mixing in certain other novelties and to be seeking, by ambiguous preachings, a path for that doctrine into which Photinus broke out. And this Athanasius does at a time earlier than that at which Photinus is arraigned, thereby showing that his design of a corrupt will had been forestalled by judgment, and condemning him not on the basis of the book's publication. But because it is easy for evil to be produced out of good, he furnished authority not to those measures which had earlier been taken against Marcellus, but to those which were to be taken against Photinus.

But this ought to be known to all: that never afterward was any synod convened against Marcellus except that which was dissolved by the Sardican verdicts, nor, at the time when a decree was made concerning Photinus by the Westerns and referred to the Easterns, was any judgment expressed against him; but that men crafty of mind, subtle of wit, and obstinate in malice, sought an occasion for reviving that case which had been dissolved by the acquittal of Athanasius, and, in writing back concerning Photinus, added a mention of Marcellus as though he were the master of such teachings—so that the novelty of the affair might rouse again into public remembrance the inquiry concerning Athanasius himself, now long dead and buried by the judgment of truth, and, creeping in through the condemnation of Photinus, might bring in the name of Marcellus.

Now it stands recorded in the body of the earlier letter that Marcellus, on the occasion of the book which he had published concerning the subjection of the Lord Christ, was condemned together with Athanasius by the Arians. It is also shown that upon the reading of that same book he is found innocent. And the very trustworthiness of the book, which still survives, proves the falsity of the Arian judgment. But concerning Photinus alone, as custom demanded, letters are written to the Easterns—not to extort assent by wrong, as is now being done, but by the usage of instructing the knowledge of all. But why is Athanasius written down as guilty of the communion denied to Marcellus? Was Marcellus withheld from communion because of any fault in the book? They themselves are witnesses that Photinus took the beginnings of that perversity from his teachings.

For when communion had been denied him by Athanasius, Marcellus abstained from entering the church. Thus the communion entered into with him teaches a sound faith concerning the subjection and the delivering-up of the kingdom, while the communion denied him in turn discloses the perversity of the other doctrine. And so both judgments of this man are without fault: for in the communion granted he followed the assent of the synod, but in the communion denied it was Marcellus himself who withdrew, alone and without any authority of a synod. But all this belongs to another case and to grievance. And although by this their long-cherished hatred against Athanasius is satisfied, yet so great a scheming advances to a further degree of wickedness.

For the third point affords me occasion to demonstrate that the creed which they set at the beginning of their letter is fraudulent, heretical, and, beneath its coaxing words, suffused with an inner poison. For they profess thus: that there is one unbegotten God the Father, and one only-begotten Son of Him, God from God, light from light, firstborn of all creation, and, adding as a third the Holy Spirit the Paraclete—so that, when the unwary confidence of readers or the simplicity of the unlearned has been caught by such soft beginnings, one and the same assent, drawn out by their subscription, may pass over into the censure of Photinus, into the arraignment of Athanasius, and into the condemnation of the catholic faith.

And I hope that the Sardican synod will contribute no small part to the understanding of this matter, wherein it is shown that all the charges against Athanasius were fabricated by the persecution of the Arians, and that force was applied to the people of God to make them pass over into a pestilent connivance with a deadly doctrine. Yet I will state the whole matter briefly, since the case demands it. The apostolic men had ever their care and business, by a constant and public preaching of the perfect faith, to repress all the assaults of the yelping heresy, and, by setting forth the truth of the Gospels, to extinguish the perversity of the erring doctrine, lest, defiling the minds of the hearers with a certain stain, it should infect them with the contagion of a clinging vice.

And so, in various letters, they diligently, frequently, and copiously set forth what ought to be the belief concerning God the Father, what the knowledge concerning God the Son, and what the sanctification in the Holy Spirit, so that from God the Father the Son might be known as God, and in God the Son the Father as God, and in God the Father the Son as God. And thus, according to His own definition, who says, 'I and the Father are one,' and again, 'as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee,' our faith is comprised in the names and persons of Father and Son as one God. For neither the envy of the Jews, nor the hatred of the heathen, nor the fury of the heretics has been stirred up against us for any other cause than that we confess in the Father the eternity, the power, and the name of the Son.

But the perversity of heretics has ever arisen out of an impious faith. For while, occupied with vices and turned away from the works of innocence, they entangle themselves in the difficulties of useless questions, and, made reprobate in life, will, and judgment, they seek to please by the novelty of their doctrine after they have lost the knowledge of truth. When, therefore, it had become known to our fathers that two men named Arius had arisen as preachers of a most profane faith, and that this taint had spread further—no longer as mere opinion, but as sentence—they fly together into one from all parts of the world and hasten to Nicaea, so that, the faith being set forth to the peoples and the road of divine knowledge being made straight in the light of understanding, the seed-beds of the emerging evil might be slain within their very authors.

Now the Ariuses handed down such things as these: 'that God the Father, for the sake of establishing the world, begot the Son, and by His own power made, out of nothing, into a new and other substance, a new and other God'—being profane toward the Father in supposing that something like Him could be generated out of nothing, and blasphemous toward Christ in stripping Him of infinity together with the Father's own nobility; so that, though they had learned from the person of the Father, 'there is no other God besides me,' and from the Son, 'I am in the Father and the Father in me,' and 'I and the Father are one,' they might break the bond of holy unity in both, giving to the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ—as though His creation were of a substance not previously existing—a beginning from time, an origin from nothing, and a name derived from another.

And so, for the sake of repressing that evil, three hundred bishops or more are gathered at Nicaea. By the assent of all, the heretical condemnation is decreed against all the Arians, and, the evangelical and apostolic doctrines being unrolled, the perfect light of catholic unity is brought forth. What, then, was set down, the faith itself, as it was expounded, commends. HERE BEGINS THE FAITH DRAWN UP AT NICAEA BY THE THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN BISHOPS AGAINST ALL HERESIES. We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father, 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 all things were made, whether those in heaven or those on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, was made flesh, was born, became man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is to 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 was made out of things that do not exist,' which the Greeks call 'ex ouk onton,' or those who say that the Son of God is of another substance, 'mutable and changeable'—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes. Narrative text. A creed compared with a creed exposes the falsity of the intention. For the one that was ordained at Nicaea is full and perfect, and, with all the approaches by which heretics are wont to creep in barred on every side, it is knit together by the inviolable solidity of the eternal unity between the Father and the Son; but this other one flatters by its simplicity, asserting first that we so believe—which be far from anyone!

For the rest, the faith of the Westerns, grounded in the doctrines of the Gospels, confesses the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father: the Father unbegotten, the Son eternal by the substance of eternity—that is, as the Father is always, so also the Son is always in the Father, and is God born of God, not conceived; existing, that is, ever in Him from whom He is.

But this perfidy—not faith—while saying 'God from God' and commending 'firstborn' and setting up the name of the Trinity, conceals its own venom beneath a show of religious moderation, saying 'God from God,' 'light from light,' so that, by the occasion of that confession, He may be understood to have come to be, from God and light, a God and a light made by God, not begotten of God—that is, not of the substance of the Father's eternity; and thus, by an outrage upon the Father, the Son too is cheapened, if He is a God that arose out of nothing. And in the confession of 'firstborn' they would assign a certain order, reckoned from His origin, to the things of the world that were to be created; so that, because the world is from time, yet, although He be prior to the world, Christ is from time, and there is not eternity in Him before the times, but an order in time among created things—and, by this, something is left which is prior to Him who began to be from time, and everything that is God is dissolved in Christ, since in Him there is a temporal origin from Mary, who at one time did not exist.

Moreover, men void of every good hope stretch the apostolic authority to serve the occasion of so great a peril, because it is said of Him, 'firstborn of all creation'; but, subtracting the preceding and following sentence, they build up under the apostle's name a resource suited to their doctrines. For such is the order of the words: 'who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in Him were established all things in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through Him and in Him, and He is before all.' So, then, the 'image of the invisible God' is—I suppose—out of nothing, and began from time!

Or, because He is 'firstborn of all creation,' is a certain order of a creation bound up and co-generated in Him thereby expressed? But does it not rather follow from 'firstborn of all creation' this: 'for in Him were established all things in the heavens and on the earth'—that is, in Him the material of all the elements, visible and invisible, was created and set fast, and therefore 'all things through Him and in Him'? He is therefore 'firstborn of all creation' because in Him, from the very beginning, all the beginnings of the generation of all that He was to make stood fast.

And thus He is not first in number among the order of creatures which were established in an order, but He Himself, the 'image of the invisible God,' abiding ever in Himself by the power of making, holds Himself to be the firstborn of those things which, existing, were to be created through Him in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Moreover, in the naming of the Trinity the texture of their falsehood is not at all dissimilar.

For when, with an impious and reviling mouth, they have severed the Son from the Father by diverse substances, and authority resides in the two as separate, a third is reckoned in the Spirit—so that, whereas the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and the Holy Spirit receives from both, in the very point where the Spirit is set forth—namely the inviolable unity of this holy Trinity—the Trinity, as they proclaim it, brings forth on the heretical side a division. But the careful treatise and perfect discourse of Nicaea, by the closest prescript of truth, has shut in all the devices of the heretics, laying it down thus: we believe in one God the Father and in His one Son Jesus Christ. Both are 'one,' and each is 'one'; and in the personal name of the Father and in that of the Son, 'one,' because He is one of both.

'True God from true God' teaches that both power and appellation are common in both by an equal truth, and that nothing different is to be supposed in the one from the other, since God from God, as true from true, both are one. And since in both there is one, 'born, not made' refers to the property of His origin and source: for to be made lies subject to being made out of nothing, whereas to be born of the Father is His own property, and to those who are born there is no other form or power than that of their own origin. But what is made exists out of a work, that it may be made. And so in Him no making began out of nothing, but there is a birth from a parent. Now, 'of one substance with the Father,' which the Greeks call 'homoousion,' is thus: eternity alone is like unto itself, and that which is always, is in God.

Lest, therefore, any stain of heretical depravity should fall upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the truth of His essence is for that reason set forth in Him. For 'essence' is named from that which always is. And because it has never needed help from without to sustain itself, it is also called 'substance,' since within itself it subsists as that which always is, and in the power of its own eternity. And thus, when He says, 'I and the Father are one,' and, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the Father also,' and again, 'I am in the Father and the Father in me,' and that, 'I came forth from the Father'—equal in both, that is, in the God who is unbegettable and in the God who is begotten, one and the same substance of eternity is fulfilled in both.

But that He 'came down,' 'was made flesh,' 'became man,' and 'rose again on the third day,' 'ascended into the heavens, being about to come to judge the living and the dead'—in these the sacraments of our salvation are contained. And He is 'immutable' and 'unchangeable' Son of God precisely to this end: that in His assumption of man He should rather bring glory to corruption than a stain upon eternity. But the anathema against those who say 'made out of nothing,' which the Greeks call 'ex ouk onton,' and against those who say, 'there was a time when He was not,' and, 'before He was born, He was not,' marks out under a curse the condemnation, in Christ, of a violated eternity—that is, of the paternal deity.

Of this faith, then, which was to be made known to all, Athanasius—a deacon at the synod of Nicaea, and afterward bishop of Alexandria—had stood forth as a vehement champion, and, tenacious of the truth, had conquered the Arian plague throughout all Egypt; and for this reason, by testimonies conspired against him, a falsity of charges was contrived. The matter was afterward decided by the faithful sentences of the judges. But it will profit much toward understanding if the address of the Sardican synod to the emperor Constantius, delivered after the acquittal of Athanasius, be made known. HERE ENDS. The third letter—of Liberius, doubtful—and narrative text. HERE BEGINS A COPY OF THE LETTER OF LIBERIUS, BISHOP OF THE CITY OF ROME, TO THE EASTERN BISHOPS.

To our most beloved brethren and fellow-bishops, all those established throughout the East, Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, eternal greeting. Zealous for the peace and concord of the churches, after I had received the letters of your Charity concerning the name of Athanasius and the others, addressed to Julius the bishop of good memory, I, following the tradition of our forefathers, dispatched from my own side the presbyters of the city of Rome, Lucius, Paulus, and Helianus, to Alexandria, to the aforesaid Athanasius, that he should come to the city of Rome, so that in his presence what had arisen concerning the discipline of the Church might be determined regarding him. I also gave, by the aforesaid presbyters, a letter to the same man, in which it was contained that, if he did not come, he should know himself to be excluded from the communion of the Roman Church.

The presbyters, therefore, having returned, reported that he had refused to come. Accordingly, having received the letters of your charity, which you sent to us concerning the name of the aforesaid Athanasius, know by these letters, which I have sent to your unanimity, that I hold peace with all of you and with all the bishops of the Catholic Church, but that the aforesaid Athanasius is estranged from my communion and from that of the Roman Church, and from fellowship in correspondence and in ecclesiastical matters. (Narrative text) What is there in these letters that is not of holiness, what that does not proceed from the fear of God? But Potamius and Epictetus, while they rejoice to condemn the bishop of the city of Rome, as is contained in the Synod of Ariminum, were unwilling to hear these things.

Nay more, even the bishop Fortunatianus, again sending the same letter to various bishops, accomplished nothing. And that in the communion denied to Athanasius he was rather burdensome to himself, and made the whole affair a peril to himself, provided only that he might detract nothing from the Synod of Sardica, in that Athanasius had been acquitted and the Arians condemned, letters sent from all Egypt and Alexandria gave warning that, just as of old letters had been written to Julius for restoring communion to the exiled Athanasius, so now, as will be understood from what follows, letters were sent to Liberius for its defence. HERE ENDS. IV. LIKEWISE A COPY OF THE LETTER OF LIBERIUS, BISHOP OF THE CITY OF ROME, MADE TO THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF ITALY.

Liberius, to the Catholic bishops established throughout Italy, eternal salvation in the Lord. He who comes to his senses blots out the fault of ignorance. This, moreover, may be observed also from the Holy Scriptures: we read that godliness is profitable unto all things, to which bodily exercise yields, although this too retains some fruit of profit. That we ought to pursue this, the very circumstances of the present time also demand of us.

For not because some person, perhaps, who pursues this out of a foreseen design, may impudently, with a fiercer censure, presume to destroy and to innovate upon what has already been fortified by apostolic authority concerning godliness—when it was said that those are not to be spared who at Ariminum acted in ignorance, for whom it was unlawful to be ignorant and to fall into the snare unto death—not for that reason is severity to be repudiated. But for me, to whom it belongs to weigh all things with moderation, especially since both all the Egyptians and the Achaeans, employing this same judgement, have received back many, holding indeed that those of whom we treated above are to be spared, but that the authors are to be condemned, who by their crooked and malignant subtlety of darkness assailed the minds of the innocent, that through these they might draw a veil over the truth.

claiming darkness for light and light for darkness. Therefore, if anyone, coming to his senses from the snare of ignorance, through the gentlest advocacy of our discourse, having experienced within himself that pestilent poison of the Arian dogma, subtle and lurking, being restored, let him drain it off, condemn it, and rage the more vehemently against its authors, whom he has found violent against himself, and let him wholly consign himself anew to the apostolic and Catholic faith, even unto the assembly of the Nicene Synod; by which profession, although to some it may seem slight and lax, let him recover that which he had lost through the cunning of error.

But if anyone be found of so stupid a mind—which I do not believe—who not only is unwilling to be converted and to receive the antidote of health, but has believed himself to be vindicated by the noxious venom and poison, both shall he be overcome by reason, and, being reckoned as lost to the author of perfidy, he shall be smitten by the spiritual vigour of the Catholic Church. HERE ENDS. LIKEWISE A COPY OF THE LETTER OF THE BISHOPS OF ITALY. To the most beloved brethren throughout Illyricum who retain the paternal faith, the bishops of Italy, eternal salvation in the Lord. (3) It is the grace of the divine gift that, according to the Apostle, we have all begun to be of one mind, all to confess one thing.