文集 第 2 章 第 2/8 段

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.