District message

The district letter was written by Eusebius of Caesarea in 325. and addressed to the Church of Caesarea. He writes about what happened at the First Ecumenical Council. At first he sought the acquittal of Arius, but after the emperor and the majority of the fathers of the Council condemned Arianism and, having approved the Orthodox teaching, decided to accept the definition of faith, Eusebius proposed as such the baptismal creed of the Caesarean Church, into which the term “consubstantial” was introduced. Before the Council, Eusebius shared some of the thoughts of the heretic Arius. In the letter he tries to justify himself in changing his way of thinking and to dispose his flock to accept the confession drawn up by the fathers of the Council. I think, beloved, that somehow information has already reached you about the affairs of the great Council of Nicaea, which discussed the church faith. Rumor usually prevents true news of events. But so that it does not distort the truth, we considered it necessary to send you both the statement of faith that we proposed to the council, and the one in which some additions made to my expressions were made public. The presentation we presented was read in the presence of our God-loving emperor, and was found to be correct and worthy of approval. It is as follows. “We maintain and confess the faith as we received it from the bishops who preceded us at the initial catechumen and at baptism, as we learned it from Divine Scripture, as we observed and confessed it in the presbytery and then in the episcopate. This is this faith: we believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of everything visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, God's Word, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, the only begotten Son, the firstborn of all creation, begotten of the Father before all ages, through whom all things came into being, who became incarnate for our salvation and lived among men, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the Father and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We also believe in one Holy Spirit. We believe that each of them exists and has its own existence, that the Father is truly the Father, the Son is truly the Son, the Holy Spirit is truly the Holy Spirit. So our Lord, sending his disciples to preach, said: go and teach all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). We are firmly established in this teaching, we think so, we have thought so before, and we will not renounce it until our death, anathematizing every ungodly heresy. We have felt all this with our hearts and souls, as long as we know ourselves, we feel all this even now; and what we say sincerely is testified by Almighty God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and we are ready to prove and convince you with arguments that we believed so and preached so in times past.” The presentation was listened to and did not encounter any objections. On the contrary, the most God-loving emperor testified to his complete loyalty; At the same time, he confessed that he himself thought the same way, and therefore ordered everyone to accept the presentation, sign the dogmas contained in it and not renounce it, adding only the word “consubstantial,” to which he himself made the following interpretation: The Son is called consubstantial with the Father not in the sense of a bodily unity of nature, and does not come from the Father through division or cutting off. The immaterial, intelligible and immaterial nature (of the Divine) excludes any corporeal property. But it is only possible to express precisely the teaching about this in a divine and mysterious language. This is how our wise and pious emperor spoke his wisdom. The bishops, regarding the word consubstantial, compiled the following statement of faith. “We believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of everything visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, from the Father, that is, from the essence of the Father, begotten, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, consubstantial with the Father, through whom everything happened both in heaven and on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down, became incarnate and became man, suffered and was resurrected on the third day, who ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit. Those who say that there was a time when (the Son) did not exist, that He did not exist before His birth, and came from something that does not exist, or who assert that the Son of God has existence from another being or essence, or is subject to transformation, or is changeable, the Apostolic and Catholic Church anathematizes.” When this exposition was announced by them (the bishops), we did not leave without carefully learning from them how to understand the expressions: from the essence of the Father, and: consubstantial with the Father, used by them. On this occasion questions and answers were given and the meaning of the words was carefully examined. Namely, they recognized that the expression - from the essence of the Father also means that from the Father, only the Son is by no means a part of the Father. This meaning of these expressions seemed to us to be in complete agreement with the meaning of that pious teaching that the Son comes from the Father, but is not part of His essence, and therefore we confirmed it. They did not reject the words - consubstantial, meaning to preserve the peace that we sincerely desire, and not to fall away from the right way of thinking. For the same reasons, expressions were adopted; begotten, not created. The word “created” means the common property of all creatures that came into being through the Son, with which He has nothing similar. The Son is not a creation similar to those that He Himself created, but is a being more excellent than any creature. And no mortal being can either comprehend with his mind or pronounce in words that image of the birth (of the Son) about which the Holy Scripture preaches. After a similar study, the expression was also approved that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, that is, consubstantial not in the image of bodies, or as consubstantial manifests itself in the nature of mortal animals. The oneness of the Son with the Father cannot occur either through the division of the essence and power of the Father, or through a section, or some kind of suffering - transformation or change. The unborn nature of the Father is alien to all this, and the expression - consubstantial - means nothing more than that the Son of God has no resemblance to creatures, but in everything resembles only the Father who begat Him, and exists not from any other nature and essence, but from the Father. As soon as this (consubstantiality) was explained in this way, we recognized it as good to accept it, especially since such an expression was used, as far as we know, by ancient bishops and writers, famous for wisdom and glory, when they theologized about the Father and the Son. But enough about this doctrine, expounded and promulgated at the Council of Nicaea, to which we all agreed, not without reflection, but on the grounds presented and examined in the presence of our most God-loving emperor. After this, we considered worthy of acceptance the anathematization promulgated by the bishops, forbidding the use of words that are not in Scripture and from which almost all the confusion and disagreement of the Churches arose. Since not a single inspired book contains the words: “The Son of God came from something that does not exist,” or “there was a time when He was not,” and others similar to them, it is indecent to use and express them before the people. We agreed with this excellent opinion also because before we were not in the habit of using such words. This message, beloved, was prompted by necessity. We wanted to show before you that our agreement to the accepted statement followed a careful study of the matter, and when in the written statements submitted by others we encountered disagreement with ours, we defended our opinion to the last opportunity. When, after a sound examination of the meaning of the words, it turned out that they agree with those used in our confession of faith, then we accepted them without dispute, as no longer presenting any difficulties. We greet you, beloved, with all your brotherhood, and we pray for your salvation in the Lord! Gelas. vol act. conc, nic I. II. c. XXXIV. Abbr. Ts.I. 1. 8. Theodore. 1. 12. According to Socrates, this letter was written by Eusebius in Kecapia in Palestine, that is, to his flock. Eusebius, with many members of his flock, who before the Council shared some of the thoughts of Arius, now wanted to justify to them the change in his way of thinking, as a result of the conciliar discussion about the faith, and to predispose them to accept the confession drawn up by the fathers. You might be interested in: