Epistle about the Councils that took place in Ariminum in Italy and in Seleucia in Isauria

1) And perhaps you have heard rumors about the notorious Council to this day; because invitation messages from the Tsar and regional rulers to those called to the Council were carried everywhere. But since, out of love, you want to know the acts of the Council, I thought it appropriate to bring to your attention what I myself saw and learned exactly, so that, listening to others, your thoughts would not be wavered, especially since some are in the habit of talking about things differently than how they happened. So, in Nicaea there were no conciliar meetings scheduled there, but a new decree was issued for the Bishops of the western regions to gather in Ariminum in Italy, and for the Bishops of the eastern regions to gather in Isaurian Seleucia, called by its harsh locality. The pretext for this meeting, as rumor spread, was a discussion about faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This pretext was put forward by the Bishops of Pannon, Ursacius, Valens and a certain Herminius, and the Syrians - Acacius, Eudoxius, as well as Patrophilus, Bishop of the city, which received its name from the Scythians 1 . They, always adhering to the Aryan side, and themselves not understanding why they believe, what they stand on, seducing this or that, and scattering the seeds of their heresy, attracted to their side some significant people and King Constantius himself, as a heretic, and, hiding behind the need to talk about faith, they tried to have a Council take place, thinking that with it it would be possible to eclipse the Council of Nicaea, to convert everyone and make them that instead of truth, wickedness will prevail everywhere. 2) I wonder, first of all (I think, and every reasonable person looks at this with surprise), why, when an Ecumenical Council was appointed and everyone was expecting it, the Council was suddenly divided, and some began to converge in one place, and others to gather in another; Perhaps, perhaps, this was also the work of Providence, so that at each of these Councils unflattering and pure speculation about faith in some would be revealed, and the dubious and suspicious behavior of others would be exposed. And then the sincere brothers and I here imagined the indecency of such a meeting; We grieved internally, reasoning: what prompted the world to be thrown into confusion, and those who at that time were called clerics to go here and there, and try to find out how they could learn to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ? For if they already believed, they would not have sought after it as if they had no faith. This was no small temptation for the catechumens, and it gave the pagans not an easy, but a strong reason for laughter, that Christians, as if just awakening from sleep, began to try to figure out how to believe about Christ. So, their so-called clerics, arrogating to themselves an advantage over the people, as teachers, have now exposed themselves as unbelievers, searching for what they do not have. And Ursacius with his accomplices, being the culprit of this, did not know what kind of wrath he was gathering for himself when the Lord and through the Saints says: “Woe, for whose sake my name is blasphemed among the nations” (Is. 52:5); and He Himself proclaims in the Gospel: “Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble... he shall not eat, let the millstone of the village be destroyed on his neck and drown in the abyss.” seas” (Matthew 18:6), “let him seduce one from these little ones,” as Luke added (Luke 17:2). 3) For what was lacking in the teaching of piety for the universal Church to now search for faith, and for them to present in their statements of faith the names of the hypotheses of the present time? “Ursacius, Valens, Herminius and others did to them what had never happened before and what had never been heard of among Christians. Having written how they wished to believe, they set forth the name, month and day of the current time, showing to every reasonable person that their faith began not before, but now only under Constantius; because they wrote all this in favor of their heresy. Moreover, writing apparently about the Lord, they call themselves another ruler, Constantius; because he gave dominion to their wickedness; and those who denied the eternal Son called Constantius the eternal King. They are so Christ-born in their wickedness! But for them, perhaps, the indication of the time by the holy Prophets serves as a reason for exhibiting hypatism. However, if they dare to say this, they will declare their ignorance. The prophecies of the saints contain mention of time. Isaiah and Hosea were in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and Jeremiah in the days of Josiah; Ezekiel and Daniel under Cyrus and Darius, and other Prophets prophesied at other times, not making the beginning of godliness (it existed before them, and always, even before the foundation of the world, God prepared it for us in Christ), and did not signify the time of their faith (and until now they were believers), but this indicated the time of preaching. And their preaching concerned mainly the coming of the Savior, and after this, the future fate of Israel and the pagans. And this meant not the time of the beginning of faith, as I said above, but the time of the Prophets themselves, when they lived and prophesied it. But these sages of today, not recounting history and not predicting the future, but having written: “the universal faith is set forth,” added the title, the month, and the date, so that, just as the Saints inscribed the time of events and their ministry, so they could indicate the time of their faith. And let them write this about their faith, because it has begun now, but they would not dare to write this about the universal faith! For they did not write: “This is how we believe,” but: “The universal faith is set forth.” 4) Therefore, the audacity of intention exposes their ignorance; and the new way of writing they invented is consistent with the Arian heresy. For by writing in this way, they showed when they began to believe and from what time they intend to preach their faith. And just as, according to the word of the Evangelist Luke, “a command was issued” (Luke 2:1) about the census, this command did not exist before, but it began from the day on which it was issued by those who wrote; so they, having written: “the faith is now set forth,” showed that the wisdom of their heresy is something new, and that it did not exist before. And if they added: “universal faith”; then, they themselves without noticing, the Phrygian heretics fell into the foolishness, since they, like them, say: “We were the first to have the revelation, the Christian faith begins from us.” And like those Maximilla and Montana, so these, instead of Christ, inscribe to Bishop Constantius. before this hypocrisy? How can we awaken them in order to blot out in them what has apparently been taught, and all that has been invented and written now? Such is the ignorance of these people, who only know how to invent pretexts, but absurd and incredible pretexts, in the wake of which comes denunciation. 5) The council in Nicaea was not just, but out of necessity and for a good reason. Christians in Syria, Cilicia and Mesopotamia sinned in the celebration and celebrated Easter with the Jews. The Arian heresy also rebelled against the universal Church, and Eusebius and his accomplices were its defenders, caring for it and plotting against the pious. This was the reason for the Ecumenical Council, so that the holiday would be celebrated everywhere on one day, and the heresy that arose was anathematized. This was done. Sirian was convinced; and they declared the Arian heresy to be the forerunner of the Antichrist, and they did very well by publishing a statement of faith written against this heresy. However, even with such a number of writers, they did not dare to do anything similar to what these three or four did. For they did not set forth the hypnosis, the month and the date; but about Easter they wrote: the following was decreed (for only then was it decreed that everyone should fulfill this); and about faith they wrote not “decreed,” but: “so the universal Church believes,” and after this they confessed how they believe, showing that their teaching is not new, but apostolic, and that what they wrote was not invented by them, but is the same thing that the Apostles taught. 6) And what is the fundamental reason for the Councils they are now constituting? If some new heresy has appeared after the Arian one, then let them say in exact words what is invented by this heresy and who are its inventors? Let them also, in writing, as the Fathers did at Nicaea, anathematize the heresies that existed before this Council, including the Arian one, in order to show that they also have some credible excuse for saying something new. If nothing of the kind happened, and they cannot show this, it is more accurate that they say this, holding on to the wickedness of Ariev, and those who are exposed change their thoughts daily; then what is the need for Councils, when against the Arian heresy and against other heresies the Council that was held in Nicaea, which condemned all these heresies with sound faith, is sufficient? For the notorious Aetius, nicknamed the atheist, turns out to be brave not as the inventor of his own madness, but he and those seduced by him were wrecked, overwhelmed by Arian heterodoxy. Therefore, in vain they go everywhere and make the excuse that for the sake of faith they desired Councils. Divine Scripture is most sufficient. And if there is a need for this in the Council, then we have the definitions of the Fathers; those who gathered at Nicaea did not neglect this, but wrote so beautifully that those who read their writings with a sincere heart can keep in mind the pious faith in Christ proclaimed in the divine Scriptures. 7) And since they have nothing solid, although they invent pretexts, they nevertheless encounter difficulties in everything, then all that remains is to say to them: “Having contradicted those who went before us and transgressed the traditions of the Fathers, we wished that a Council should be formed; but also fearing that when they all gathered into one, our efforts would not again be in vain, they wished that the Council would be divided into two, and that when one part was separated, by showing what we had written, we could attract the majority to ourselves, threatening the patron of wickedness - Constantius, and thus invalidate what was done in Nicaea, covering ourselves with the simplicity of what we wrote.” If they did not say this in direct words, then it was with this very thought that they did everything and caused confusion. And indeed, having repeatedly expressed and written many things at different Councils, they never mentioned the Arian heresy as harmful. But if sometimes some of those present condemned heresies, they defended the Arian heresy, which was anathematized by the Council of Nicaea, and even lovingly accepted those who spoke Arian. Therefore, this also serves as strong proof that the current Councils were invented not for the sake of truth, but to destroy what was accomplished at Nicaea. But what they and others like them did at these very Councils no less shows the truth of what was said. For it is necessary, finally, to make known in detail how this happened. 8) Everyone expected that those invited by the Royal messages would gather together and form one Council. But when the Council was divided, and some went to harsh Seleucia, while others gathered in Arimin, and there were already more than four hundred Bishops 2; Then Herminius, Auxentius, Valens, Ursacius, Demophilus and Gaius came to the same city. All the other Bishops talked from the divine Scriptures, and they showed the charter, and reading the names of the Hypats, demanded that this be preferred to the entire Council and not ask the heretics about anything else, not probe their thoughts, but be content with this alone. What they wrote was the following: “The universal faith was expounded in the presence of our Sovereign, the most pious and victorious King Constantius Augustus, the eternal, venerable, in the priesthood of the most illustrious Flavians, Eusebius and Hypatius, in Syria on the eleventh day of the calendars of June. We believe in the one, only and true God, the Father Almighty, Creator and Creator of all things; and in the one only begotten Son of God, before all ages, before any beginning, before any intelligible time, before any intelligible essence, impassively begotten of God - the Son by whom the ages were completed and all things came into being; born of the only begotten, the only one from the only Father, God from God, like the Father who begot Him, according to the Scriptures; - The Son, whose birth no one knows, except only the Father who begot Him. We know that this only begotten Son of God, by the command of the Father, came from heaven “to sweep away sin” (Heb. 9:26), was born of the Virgin Mary, stayed with the disciples, fulfilled all the house-building according to the Father’s will, was crucified, died, descended to the underworld, and there completed His house-building (and the gatekeepers of hell, seeing Him, were horrified), rose from the dead on the third day, stayed with the disciples, and after completing all the house-building, at the end of fourty days, was taken into heaven, sitting at the right hand Father, and on the last day of resurrection in the glory of the Father he will come to reward everyone according to his deeds. We also believe in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whom the Only Begotten of God Jesus Christ himself promised to send to the human race, according to what is written: “I will go to My Father... and I will pray the Father, and He will send you another Comforter... the Spirit of truth - He will receive of Mine, teach... and remember everything to you” (John 14, 12, 16, 17, 26. John 16, 15). since the Fathers used the name “essence” out of simplicity, it is incomprehensible to the people and leads to temptation because it is not found in the Scriptures; then they decided to exclude this name, and subsequently, when speaking about God, did not mention the essence at all; because the divine Scriptures nowhere mention the word "essence" about the Father and the Son. We call the Son like the Father in everything, as the Holy Scriptures say and teach.” 9) After reading this, the deceit of those who wrote was soon recognized. The bishops proposed to anathematize the Ariev heresy along with other heresies, and everyone agreed to this; but Ursacius, Valens and those who were with them refused; then it became already noticeable that they wrote this not sincerely, but with the intention of turning what was done in Nicaea into nothing, and instead introducing an evil heresy. Therefore, marveling at their cunning speeches and insidious intentions, the Fathers said: “We have gathered, not because we have a need to expound our faith (we keep a healthy faith within ourselves), but to shame those who contradict the truth and plot innovations. Therefore, if you wrote this as you are now just beginning to believe, then you are not clergy, but are only entering the rank of catechumens. And if, with whatever thought we gathered, you also came with the same thought; then let us all be of the same mind, we will anathematize heresies, and we ourselves will preserve the traditions of the Fathers, so that there will be no more reasons for convening Councils after those who gathered in Nicaea preceded us and did everything useful for the universal Church.” But when all the Bishops agreed to this, the ones mentioned above refused. And all of them, recognizing them as ignoramuses, deceivers, or better yet, heretics, confirmed the Council that was held in Nicaea, and decided to be content with it, and the above-mentioned Ursatius, Valens, Herminius, Auxentius, Gaius, Demophilus were declared heretics, and deposing them, as in reality not Christians, but Arians, they wrote against them in Latin the following, if possible translated into Hellenic: 10) List from the conciliar letter to Constantius Augustus. We are confident that what was decreed was done long ago by God’s command and by the decree of your piety. For from all the cities of the West we all Bishops gathered together in Arimin, so that the faith of the universal Church would become known and those who were opposed to it would become clear. And after we have found, based on many considerations of the matter, it has been our pleasure - that anciently abiding faith, which the Prophets and Gospels and Apostles preached in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, this guardian of your kingdom and the patroness of your health, always maintaining, we must preserve and, keeping it to the end, we must observe. For it turned out to be inappropriate and impermissible to change anything from what in Nicaea, together with the illustrious Constantine, your father and King, was legally considered and determined, that is, from that teaching, from that belief that was proclaimed and brought to the ears and understanding of all people, which alone is opposed to the Aryan heresy and is destructive for it, by which not only this, but also other heresies were overthrown, to which it is valid to apply something is dangerous, and taking something away from it is disastrous, so in both cases the enemies will have freedom to do what they want. Therefore, Ursatius and Valens, who had long been accomplices and like-minded people of the Arian teaching and who were declared excommunicated from communication with us in order to re-enter it, asked to accept their repentance and grant them forgiveness for what they themselves admitted to have sinned, as evidenced by the signatures they made. (For the sake of all this, they were shown mercy and their guilt was forgiven. This happened while there was a conciliar meeting in Milan, where the presbyters of the Roman Church were also present). These, we say, Ursatius and Valens, although they knew that even after his death, Constantine, worthy of memory, set out the faith in writing with all care and testing, and that after he died baptized and went to the proper world, it was inappropriate to introduce anything new and to despise so many holy confessors and martyrs who compiled and wrote these definitions, who remained wise in everything according to the ancient charter of the Church (why, God betrayed their faith and the times of your reign through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom it was given to you to reign so that you also possess our universe); however, as pitiful and poor in the understanding of faith, with impermissible insolence they again declared themselves preachers of evil wisdom and are plotting to pervert the whole order. For when, at your command, the conciliar meeting was held, they took away the veil of their deception. They attempted, with some cunning and confusion, to introduce something new, having found Herminius, Auxentius and Gaius joining such a community, producers of discord and disagreement; and their teaching, although one, surpasses all the multitude of blasphemies. When they saw that this was not our will and we did not have the same evil thoughts as them, they came to a meeting with us under the guise that they wanted to write something new. But their way of thinking was soon exposed. Therefore, so that church affairs are not subjected to the same thing and repeated rebellions and rumors do not lead everything into disorder, it turned out to be reliable - to keep what has long been determined legal and immutable, and to excommunicate those mentioned above from communication with us. For this reason, to your mercy, we sent ambassadors to inform you of the decision of the meeting and make it known through this message. And the ambassadors were first ordered to confirm the truth with what was very ancient and in accordance with the law. They will bring to the attention of your piety that there will be no peace, as Ursatius and Valens promised, if any deviation from what is in accordance with the law is allowed. For how can peacemakers bring peace? From them there will sooner be confusion and discord with other cities and with the Roman Church. Therefore, we ask your mercy to listen favorably to our ambassadors, look at them with a calm eye, and not allow anything new to be replaced to insult the deceased; on the contrary, let us remain with what was determined and legitimized by our ancestors, who, one might say, did everything skillfully, wisely, with the Holy Spirit. And the current innovations of these people give rise to disbelief in those who believe, and cruelty in those who do not believe. We also ask you to command that the Bishops, who are on a foreign side and burdened with the infirmities of age and the shortcomings of poverty, be made comfortable in returning to their flocks, and that the churches are not left without attention due to the imprisonment of the Bishops. And besides this, we also ask that there be no lack or excess of anything compared to what was done before; but everything has remained unshakable since the time of your pious father and has been observed until now; Finally, do not allow us to be disturbed and alienated from our dioceses; but let the Bishops, each together with his people, perform prayers and worship in peace, praying for your reign, salvation and peace, with which may the Divine forever reward you. Our ambassadors will present the signatures and names of the Bishops; and also your piety will explain the matter from the most divine Scriptures. 11) While it was decent and possible, the most venerable brethren, the Ecumenical Council and the Holy Church, with their characteristic patience and kindness, maintained generosity towards Ursatius, Valens, Gaius, Herminius and Auxentius, who, delving into one or another of these wisdoms, outraged all the Churches, and now dared to encroach on the faith of the Orthodox to add heretical reasoning and turn it into nothing The Council of Nicaea, opposing the Arian heresy, brought from outside some of its own written statement of faith, completely alien to the Holy Church, so that we considered it impermissible to accept it. They, having long been heretics and counter-thinkers, turned out to be the same now. Why, we do not allow them to enter into communication with us, condemning and deposing them verbally in their personal presence. Therefore, you now, if you wish, give a verdict so that this knowledge is confirmed by the following signature of everyone: “We Bishops unanimously say: let the above-mentioned enemies be overthrown, so that the universal faith may remain in peace.” And the actions of the Arimin Council had such a quick end. For no one disagreed there, but everyone unanimously signed what was determined, and deposed the Arians. 12) In harsh Seleucia, the following happened: in the month called September by the Romans, by the Egyptians Phoph, and by the Macedonians Horpia, on the date of the month, according to the Egyptian reckoning, the sixteenth, all those invited to the Council gathered; There were about one hundred and sixty who gathered there. And since many of them were accused, and the accusers cried out against them; then Acacius, Patrophilus, Uranius from Tire, Eudoxius, who arbitrarily invaded the Antiochian Church, Leontius, Theodotus, Evagrius, Theodulus and George, persecuted from everywhere, resort to cunning. Fearing the denunciations of their accusers, they added to themselves other Arians, who for the same purpose became mercenaries of wickedness and were appointed by Secundus, who was deposed by the great Council, namely: from Libya Stephen, Seru and Polydeuces, accused of various offenses, and also Pancratius and a certain Ptolemy from Melite, and under the guise of research about faith (it was not secret that they were afraid accusers), began to defend heresy and finally separated from the Council. And some, holding on to Akaki, were suspicious and very few in number; and others formed the majority. Akaki's accomplices, with insane audacity, decisively rejected what was written in Nicaea and accused the Council; and others, who constituted the majority, accepted all the other resolutions of the Council, but presented one saying: “consubstantial” as suspicious due to its vagueness. So, since they still remained in Seleucia, and the accusers attacked, and the accused fled, and therefore were more carried away by wickedness and blasphemed the Lord; then all the Bishops were indignant and deposed Acacius, Patrophilus, Uranius, Eudoxius, the former tax collector George and other Asians - Leontius, Theodosius, Evagrius and Theodulus; Asteria, Eusebius, Abgar, Basilik, Thebes, Fidelia, Eutychius, Eustathius and Magna were excommunicated from communication with themselves. And they did this because those who were invited to justify themselves, for which very many accused them, did not appear; and the Fathers determined that they would remain condemned until they were justified and proved to themselves that they were clean from the accusations brought against them. Having written to the diocese of each of them what judgment had been made against them, they went to the most wicked Augustus Constantius - to inform him of what had been done. For so they were commanded. This was the end of the Seleucia Council. 13) Therefore, who will not approve of the reverence of the Bishops who were at the Arimin Council? They endured both the labor of a long journey and the dangers at sea in order to overthrow the Arian wise men and preserve intact the definitions of the Fathers, having consulted about this piously and lawfully. For each of them reasoned that if what was decreed by those before them was violated, then a reason would be given for those who were later to violate what they had now done. Who will not condemn the frivolity of the accomplices of Eudoxius and Acacius, who, out of zeal and affection for the Arians, sacrifice the honor of their Fathers? For what security is there for what they have done, if what the Fathers have done is violated? Or why do they call them Fathers, and themselves their successors, if they themselves condemn their decision? Especially, what will Akakios say to his teacher Eusebius, who not only signed the Council of Nicea, but also declared in a letter to his flock that the faith was true, which was confessed at the Council of Nicaea? For, although he justified himself in his message as much as he wanted, he did not reject the sayings, but condemned the Arians for the fact that, claiming that there was no Son until he was born, they do not recognize His existence before Mary. What will the people taught by the Fathers teach? Is it because the Fathers sinned? And how will those who are taught not to obey their teachers believe them? With what eyes will they look at the tombs of the Fathers, who are now called heretics? Why do they condemn the followers of Valentinus, the Phrygian heretics and the Manichaeans, and call those who, according to their own assumption, say such things, saints? And how can they themselves be bishops if they were appointed by those who, according to their own accusations, are heretics? If those who appointed you were wrong, and by what they wrote, they misled the universe; then may their memory finally cease. And if their writings are rejected, then go and throw out their remains from the tombs; let everyone know that they are deceivers, and you are parricides. 14) The blessed Apostle praises the Corinthians, saying: “For you remember all mine, and as I gave you the traditions, keep them” (1 Cor. 11:2); they, thinking this way about their predecessors, of course, dare to say to the people in spite of the Apostle: “We do not praise you for remembering the Fathers, but rather we will approve of you for not keeping their traditions.” And let them blaspheme their family and say: “We came not from the pious, but from heretics.” For it is fitting to say this to those who, as I said, sacrifice the honor of the Fathers and their salvation to the Arian heresy, and are not afraid to hear what is written in the divine parable: “The child of evil reproaches the father” (Proverbs 30:11), and the threat that is uttered against them in the Law. Thus, out of zeal for heresy, they stubbornly adhered to their wisdom; but do not be embarrassed by this, and do not respect their audacity as truth. They contradict themselves, and having departed from the Fathers, they do not stand in one opinion, but rule with their minds, changing their thoughts one way and another in different ways. Challenging the Council of Nicea, they themselves composed many Councils, at each expounding their faith, and did not stand in any exposition; and they will never cease to do so, because they seek evil, and they will not find the wisdom that they hated. And therefore, it was necessary for me to append here some of what was written by Arius, and what I could collect from their presentations at various Councils, so that you would know and marvel at the reason why they are not ashamed to persist against the Ecumenical Council and against their Fathers. Arius and those who think and affirm in the same way with him: “from those who are not, God created the Son, and called Him Son to Himself; The Word of God is one of the creatures; it was when He was not; The Son is changeable and can change when he wants,” were expelled from the Church of blessed memory by Alexander. 15) But Arius, rejected and encouraged by Eusebius, set out his heresy in writing, and in his Thalia, as a rival in the manner and size of his speech, not to any of the reasonable, but to the Egyptian Sotadus, he writes much, partly the following: God Himself, since He is God, is ineffable to everyone. He alone has no equal, no similar, no likeness to Himself. We call Him unbegotten for the sake of being born by nature; Let us sing praises to Him who is without beginning for the sake of Him who has beginning; We honor Him as eternal for the sake of Him who was born in time. The Beginningless One placed the Son at the beginning of creation, and having created His children, He accepted Him into His Son. Nothing that is hypostatically characteristic of God is peculiar to Him, because He is not equal and not consubstantial with Him. God is wise because He is the teacher of wisdom. Sufficient proof that God is invisible to all those created through the Son is that He is invisible to the Son Himself. I will say more precisely: just as the invisible One is seen by the Son, by the same power by which God can see, and in his own measure, as much as is permissible, it is possible for the Son to see the Father. Thus, there is a Trinity, but the glories are dissimilar and incompatible with each other; one Hypostasis is infinitely more glorious than the other in glory. The Father is essentially alien to the Son, because he is without beginning. Understand that there was one, but duality did not exist until it was realized. Initially, when there is no Son yet, there is God the Father. Then the bearer Son was realized according to the will of the Father, and is the only begotten God, and is alien to both; how wisdom became wisdom by the will of the all-wise God. And in this way the mind is represented, under many such mental ideas, by the Spirit, power, wisdom, glory of God, truth, image, Word. Understand also that the mind imagines both radiance and light. The Perfect One can beget an equal Son; but it cannot be more excellent, or more perfect, or greater. What is the Son, how great, from what moment and from what does He exist by God’s will, how quickly did He come from God, this mighty God glorifies in part the Perfect One. To put it briefly: God is ineffable for the Son, because what He is for Himself is ineffable; and therefore not a single one of the predicates is comprehended by the Son and cannot be uttered. For it is impossible for Him to examine the Father as He is in Himself. Even the Son does not know His own essence: being the Son, He really came to fruition according to the will of the Father. And how is it possible that the One who is from the Father comprehends and knows the One who gave birth? It is obvious that it is impossible for one who has a beginning to mentally imagine or grasp with his mind the Beginningless One as He is. 16) In a letter to Bishop Alexander of blessed memory, the Arians wrote the following: The presbyters and deacons wish to rejoice in the Lord to our blessed Pope and Bishop Alexander. Our faith, received from our ancestors, which we also learned from you, blessed Pope, is this: we know one God, one unborn, one eternal, one without beginning, one true, one who has immortality, one wise, one good, one ruler, judge of all, ruler, steward, immutable, unchangeable, righteous and good - this God and the Law and the Prophets and the New of the Testament, who begot the Only Begotten Son before eternal times, by whom He created the worlds and all things, who begot not imaginary, but actually; by his own will he created the immutable, unchangeable creation of God, perfect, but not as one of the creatures; birth, but not as one of those born, not an expulsion, which is what the Father’s birth is according to the teachings of Valentinus; not a consubstantial part, as the Father's birth is, according to the explanation of Manichaeus, not the Son-Father, as Sabellius called it, dividing the unit, not a lamp from a lamp, or a candlestick divided into two, as Ierakas said, and not before the being, subsequently begotten, or raised into the Son; just like you yourself, blessed Pope, in the midst of the church and at the Council, you have repeatedly condemned those who give these interpretations, but as we say, by the will of God, before time and centuries, he was created, and received life and being from the Father, who gave Him together glory. For the Father, having given Him everything as an inheritance, did not deprive Himself of what He has unbornly; because He is the source of everything. Therefore there are three Hypostases. And as God is the author of everything, he alone is without beginning; so the Son, not in time, begotten of the Father, and before the ages, created and laid as a foundation, was not until he was begotten, but not in time, begotten first of all, is one from the Father. For He is not eternal, or co-eternal, or co-born with the Father; and does not have existence together with the Father, as an accessory, which others assert, introducing two unborn principles; on the contrary, God is both the unit and the beginning of everything, even before the Son; as we were taught this by you who preached among the church. Since God has its being, and glory and life and all things are given to Him from God, to that extent God is His origin. For He rules over Him, as He is His God and He who is before Him. If what is said: “from that” (Rom. 11:36), “from the womb” (Psalm 109:3), “I departed from the Father... and I go to the Father” (John. 16:28), others understand that the Son is a consubstantial part of Him and an outgrowth; then the Father will, in their opinion, be complex, divisible, changeable; the incorporeal God, due to their position, will tolerate everything consistent with the body. – This is part of what the Aryan followers vomited from their heretical hearts. 17) But even before the Council held in Nicaea, Eusebius, Narcissus, Patrophilus, Marinus, Peacock, Theodotus and Athanasius of Nazarba wrote something similar to this; Eusebius of Nicomedia, surpassing others, wrote to Arius: “Thinking beautifully, wish that everyone would philosophize like that. For it is clear to everyone that what was created did not exist until it was brought into being. What is brought into being has a beginning of being.” And Eusebius of Caesarea Palestine, writing to Bishop Euphration, was not afraid to clearly say that Christ is not the true God. And Athanasius of Nazarov revealed the heresy even more openly, saying that the Son of God is one of a hundred sheep. For, writing to Bishop Alexander, he dared to say this: “Why do you blame the Arians, if they say that the Son of God was made from those who do not, as a creature, and is one of all creatures? since in the parable by the name of the hundred sheep all creatures are meant; then the Son is one of them. Therefore, if these hundred are not creatures and not creatures, and there is something else besides the hundred; then the Son will not be a creature, nor one of all creatures. If these hundred mean all creatures, and beyond these hundred there is nothing except one God; What incongruous thing do the Arians say if, including Christ among the hundred, they called Him “one of all”? George, who is now in Laodicea, and then was a presbyter of Alexandria and lived in Antioch, wrote to Bishop Alexander: “do not blame the Arians if they say: it happened when the Son of God was not; for Isaiah was also the son of Amos, but Amos was before Isaiah came into being, and Isaiah was not at first, but later he came into being.” To the Arians, George wrote: “Why do you blame Pope Alexander, who says: The Son is from the Father? And do not be afraid to say: the Son is from God. If the Apostle wrote: “all things are from God” (1 Cor. 11:12), and everything, as is known, was created from things that are not, and the Son is a creature and the only one among created things; then we can say that the Son is from God, since it is said that all things are from God.” It was from this George that those who philosophize in the Arian manner learned to hypocritically use the expression: “from God,” and when pronouncing it, not to connect the correct thought with it. George himself was deposed by Alexander both for other reasons and because he turned out to be wicked; for, as stated above, he was a presbyter. 18) In a word, they wrote as if each were disputing and competing as to which of them would most increase the wickedness of the heresy and show it in the greatest nakedness. I don’t have their messages or lists from them ready to forward; and if it pleases God and I acquire them, then I will do this too. A certain Asterius from Cappadocia, a many-headed sophist, one of the followers of the Eusebius, since, during the previous persecution under his grandfather Constantius, he made a sacrifice and could not be brought into the clergy by them, then, with the consent of the followers of the Eusebius and to please them, he writes an essay equal in audacity to his sacrifice; because he equated him with Christ, even preferred the caterpillar and locust to Him, and says that besides Christ there is another wisdom in God, the creator of Christ and the world! He went around the Syrian and other Churches by order of the Eusebians, so that, having once decided to renounce, he would now boldly rebel against the truth. So, this daring man penetrated into places forbidden to him, and sitting in the place of the clergy, read his work publicly, although others were indignant at him. Much is written in this work; part of it is the following: “blessed Paul did not say that he was preaching Christ, His own, that is, God’s power or wisdom; but says without this addition: “The power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24), preaching that there is another power of God himself, innate and uncreatedly co-existing with Him; and she is the one who gave birth to Christ and the creator of the whole world; Teaching about it in the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle said: “For His invisible beings from the creation of the world were made visible by the creation of His being, and His ever-present power and Divinity” (Rom. 1:20). Just as no one will say that the Divinity named here is Christ, but on the contrary, it is the Father himself: so, I think, His ever-present power is not the Only Begotten God, but the begotten Father. The Apostle teaches that there is another power and wisdom of God, namely, revealed through Christ and known by the very works of His ministry.” And again: “although His eternal power and Wisdom, which according to the arguments of truth turns out to be without beginning and unborn, without a doubt, can be one and the same: but also many forces created separately by Him, of which Christ is the firstborn and only begotten, all similarly depend on the Creator, and all are rightly called the forces of the Creator Himself and the One who puts them into action. For example, the Prophet says that God himself calls the locusts sent by God as punishment for human sins not only the power of God, but also “great power” (Joel 2:25). And blessed David in many psalms commands not only the Angels, but also the powers to praise God; and inviting everyone to sing songs, depicts their multitude, does not deny calling them servants of God, and teaches them to do the will of God” (Psalm 102:21; Psalm 148:2–12). 19) And having dared to blaspheme the Savior in this way, he was not satisfied with that, but extended blasphemy against Him even further, saying: “The Son is one of all; because He is the first of creation and the only one of intelligent natures. And just as the sun in the visible world is one of the visible things, and by the command of God it shines throughout the whole world: so the Son, being one of the intelligent natures, also shines and shines for all those who exist in the mental world.” And he also says that “it came to pass when the Son was not,” writing this: “Before the birth of the Son, the Father had a preliminary knowledge of how to give birth; because even a doctor, before he heals, has knowledge of how to heal.” And he also says: “The Son was created out of beneficial generosity, and out of abundance of power the Father created Him.” And again: “if the will of God extended to everything in the order of creation, then it is clear that the Son, as a creature, received existence and was created by the will of God.” All this was written by Asterius alone; but Eusebius’s accomplices shared his wisdom with him. 20) This is what they are fighting for, this is why they are rebelling at the ancient Council! Those who gathered at the Council did not write anything similar to them, but on the contrary, they anathematized the Arian heresy, which they tried to support. Therefore, the Arians set up the sophist Asterius, who made the sacrifice, as the defender of their wickedness, so that he could uncontrollably speak against the Lord and mislead the simple-minded with his sweet speech. These ignoramuses did not know that they were doing this against themselves. The stench of the idol sacrifice made by their protector further revealed the anti-Christ heresy. Therefore, even now they are setting everyone in motion and confusion, thinking that if many are killed and Councils are held every month, then the definition pronounced on the Arian heresy will eventually cease to be valid. It seems that they also do not know, or they do know, but pretend not to know, that even before the Council of Nicea this heresy was hated, when they believed that it began with Artem, and before him the host of Caiaphas and the Pharisees of that time. But this gathering of Christ is always hated, and will never cease to be hated, because the name of the Lord is coveted, and all creation kneels and confesses, “as Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11). 21) However, they were not tired of forming frequent Councils against the Ecumenical Council. And although after the Council of Nicaea the Eusebius accomplices were deposed; but, over time, having shamelessly invaded the Church, they began to plot against the Bishops who contradicted them, and instead of them to install in the Church those who were committed to their heresy, in order to convene Councils whenever they wanted, having assistants whom they had prepared for this purpose. So they gather in Jerusalem and write the following: The Holy Council, by the grace of God, convened in Jerusalem, the Church of God in Alexandria and those in all Egypt, Thebaid, Libya and Pentapolis, and throughout the entire universe, wishes the bishops, presbyters and deacons to rejoice in the Lord (335). When we all gathered from different regions for the great celebration, which we celebrated at the consecration of the Savior’s Church, to the King of all, God and His Christ, organized with the care of the most God-loving King Constantine; Then the grace of Christ gave us all great joy. The most God-loving King himself did this, prompting us with his own messages, as it should be, so that, having expelled all envy from the Church of God and not allowing any hatred that previously divided the members of Christ to approach, in the simplicity of our souls and peacefully we accepted those who held on to Arius, whom the hater of good - envy - forced for some time to be outside the Church. The most God-loving Tsar, with his message, testified to the correctness of the faith of these men, which he personally learned from them, and after listening to the oral confession, he approved it and made it known to us, attaching to his message a written statement of their Orthodoxy, which we all recognized as sound and churchly. And this demand of the Tsar - to accept and join these men to the Church of God - was fair, as you yourself will see from the lists of this message, sent to your reverence. We are confident that you yourself, as if by the perception of your own members of your body, will have great joy and gladness, because you will recognize in them and receive your own womb, your brothers and fathers, upon the return to you not only of the elders who adhered to Arius, but also of the entire people and that multitude, which, due to the men mentioned, was for a long time separated from you. And indeed, having learned what has been done here, and how these men have been admitted and accepted into communion by such a holy Council, it will be fitting for you to kiss union and peace with your own members with all zeal, especially since the statement of their faith undoubtedly preserves the apostolic tradition and teaching professed by all. 22) This was the beginning of their Councils; and here they soon discovered their intention, and could not hide it. Having said that they had expelled all envy, and after the removal of Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria from the throne, having written that Arius and his accomplices had been accepted, they showed that for this very reason they were plotting against Athanasius, and plotting against all the other Bishops who contradicted them, in order to accept the Arians and introduce heresy into the Church. And although at this council they praised all the evil teachings of Aria, they ordered the Arians to be accepted into communion, having done this themselves in advance, however, reasoning that something was still missing to fulfill their intentions, they constituted a Council in Antioch, under the guise of so-called renewals. And since everyone has always accused them of heresy, they write differently, one way and the other another. And in one letter they wrote the following (341): “We were not followers of the Arievs; for how can we, having been Bishops, follow the presbyter? We did not accept any other faith than the one betrayed from the beginning; on the contrary, having become researchers and testers of his faith, they themselves brought him closer to themselves rather than followed him; as you will learn from our next words. From the beginning we learned to believe in one God, the God of all, the Creator and Provider of everything mental and sensory, and in the one Only Son of God, existing before all ages and co-existent with the Father who begot Him - the Son, by Who all things visible and invisible were brought into being, and Who, by the favor of the Father, in the last days descended, took flesh from the Virgin, fulfilled all the Father’s will, suffered, rose again, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will again come to judge the living and the dead, and remain King and God forever. We also believe in the Holy Spirit. And if we must add, then we believe in both the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life.” 23) In another letter, during the same updates, they state a second time, as if repenting of what was stated before and inventing something new and greater, namely the following (341): “According to the Gospel and Apostolic tradition, we believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator, Creator and Provider of all things, from Whom are all things. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, the Only Begotten God, by whom all things, begotten before the ages of the Father, God of God, the whole of the whole, the only of the only, the perfect of the perfect, the King from the King, the Lord from the Lord, the living Word, the living Wisdom, the true light, the way, the truth, the resurrection, the Shepherd, the door, immutable and unchangeable, the indifferent image of the Father's Deity, The Father's essence, will, power and glory, the first-born of all creation, existing in the beginning with God, God - the Word, according to what is said in the Gospel: “and God is the Word” (John 1:1), “In whom all things were... and in Him all things will take place” (Col. 1:16, 17), in the last days he came down from above, was born of a Virgin according to the Scriptures, became a man, the intercessor of God and men, the messenger of our faith, the leader of life, as He Himself says: “For I came down from heaven, not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me” - (John. 6:38), who suffered for us, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and again comes with glory and power to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit, given to believers for consolation, sanctification and perfection, as our Lord Jesus Christ commanded the disciples, saying: “Going... teach all tongues, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), that is, the Father, the truly existing Father, - the Son, the truly existing Son, - the Holy Spirit, the truly existing Holy Spirit, so that it is not simple and not These names are put in vain, but they mean exactly the own hypostasis of each of the named hypostases, His rank and glory; why by hypostasis there are Three, but by consent One. Containing this faith and maintaining it from beginning to end before God and Christ, we anathematize all heretical evil. And if anyone teaches contrary to the sound and right faith of the Scriptures, saying that there was or was accomplished either a time or an age before the birth of the Son; then let him be anathema. And if anyone says that the Son is a creature, as one of the creatures, or a birth, as one of the births, or a work, as one of the works, and not as the Divine Scriptures handed down to us, and as was said above in order; or, if he teaches or preaches anything else contrary to what we have accepted: then let him be anathema. For everything that is handed down from the divine Scriptures by the Prophets and Apostles, we truly believe and follow, fearing God.” 24) And a certain Theophronius, Bishop of Tyana, having himself drawn up the following confession of faith, proposed it to everyone, and everyone, having accepted this confession, subscribed to it (341). “It is known to God, Whom I call as a witness for my soul, that I believe this way: in God, the Father, Almighty, Creator and Maker of all things, of all things worthless (1 Cor. 8:6). And in His only begotten Son, God the Word, Power and Wisdom, our Lord Jesus Christ, Him who was all, begotten of the Father before the ages, perfect God from perfect God, existing hypostatically with God, who at the last of the days descended and was born of the Virgin according to the Scriptures, became man, suffered and rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sitting at the right hand of His Father, and again coming with with glory and power to judge the living and the dead, and him who abides forever. And in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, whom God through the Prophet promised to pour out on His servants, and the Lord promised to send, and sent, to His disciples, as the Acts of the Apostles testify. If anyone teaches anything, or contains anything in himself other than this faith; then let him be anathema. And if anyone is of the same mind as Marcellus of Ancyra, or Sabellius, or Paul of Samosata; then he himself and all who have contact with him are anathema.” 25) Ninety Bishops gathered to renovate the church, during the patronage of Marcellinus and Provinus, in the 14th Indictment, during the tenure of the evil Constantius. Having done all this in Antioch during the renovation of the church, and thinking that they had written it still imperfectly, and spinning in thought, after a few months they again composed another scripture about the faith, and sent Narcissus, Marinus, Theodore and Mark to Gaul, who, as sent by the Council, reported the following to Augustus Constans of blessed memory and to all those there (341): “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and Creator of all things, “from which the whole fatherland in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:15); and in His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, born before all ages from the Father, God from God, light from light, “Who was all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16), the real Word, Wisdom, power, life, true light; at the end of the days he became man for our sake, and was born of the Holy Virgin, crucified, died, buried, rose from the dead on the third day, taken into heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and at the end of the age, having to come to judge the living and the dead, and to render to every man according to his works; and His kingdom will remain indestructible for endless ages, because not only in this, but also in the next age He will sit at the right hand of the Father. And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Comforter, Whom (Christ), having promised the Apostles, upon His ascension into heaven sent to teach them and remember everything by them, and by Whom the souls of those who sincerely believed in Him will be sanctified. Those who assert that the Son is from those who do not exist, or from another hypostasis, and not from God, and that there was a time when He did not exist, the universal Church recognizes as alien.” 26) But as if they had repented of this, three years later they gathered their assembly again, and Eudoxia, Martyria and Macedonia of Cilicia and with them some others sent to the Italian region to carry the confession of faith, written by many, in which very many additions were made beyond the previous ones. As if they had come up with something new, they set off, carrying with them the following (344 or 345): “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of all things, “from which the whole family in heaven and on earth is named” (Eph. 3:15). And in His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten before all ages from the Father, God from God, light from light, “Who was all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16), the real Word, Wisdom, power, life, true light, at the last of the days who became man for our sake, and was born of the Holy Virgin, crucified, died, buried, raised from the dead on the third day, taken up into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father, who at the end of the age will come to judge the living and the dead and reward each according to his deeds; and His unceasing kingdom will endure forever; for not only in this age, but also in the age to come, he will sit at the right hand of the Father. We also believe in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Comforter, Whom (Christ), having promised the Apostles, upon His ascension into heaven, sent to teach them and remember everything by them, and by Whom the souls of those who sincerely believed in Him will be sanctified. But those who claim that the Son is from those who do not exist, or from another hypostasis, and not from God, and that there was a time, or there was an age when He did not exist, are recognized by the universal and holy Church as alien. Likewise, those who assert that there are three Gods, or that Christ is not God, or that He is neither the Christ nor the Son of God before the ages, and that One and the same is the Father and the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or that the Son is not begotten, or that the Father begot the Son neither by will nor by will, is anathematized by the holy and universal Church. For it is not safe to say that the Son is from those who do not exist (because this is not said anywhere in the inspired Scriptures), and that He is from any other pre-existent hypostasis other than the Father; On the contrary, we affirm that the Son was born sincerely from one Father; for, as God’s word teaches, there is only one unbegotten and beginningless Father of Christ. One should not, with those who rashly assert, not on the basis of Scripture, what happened when the Son was not, mentally imagine some time period before Him, and not the one God who begot Him not in time; for times and ages were created by Him. One should not consider the Son to be as beginningless and unbegotten as the Father; for no one can, in the proper sense, be called the Father, or the Son, of the co-originating and completely ungenerated. On the contrary, we know that the one Father, Who is without beginning and unbegotten, gave birth to the Son for all inexpressibly and incomprehensibly, and the Son was born before the ages, and is no longer, like the Father, unborn, but has the beginning of the Father who begat; for “the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Confessing according to the Scriptures three (τρία πράγματα) and three Persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we therefore do not create three Gods; for we know only one self-perfect, unbegotten, beginningless, invisible God, who is God and Father of the Only Begotten; He is the only one who has existence from Himself, and He is the only one who unconditionally grants it to all others. But saying that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is one and only God, the only unborn, we do not deny through this that Christ is God before the ages, as do the followers of Paul of Samosata, who claim that Christ was subsequently deified by his incarnation and for his succession, while by nature he was a simple man. For we know that, although He is submissive to the Father and God, He was nevertheless born of God before the ages, and is by nature perfect and true God, and did not later become God from a man, but is God, for our sake becoming human, and having not lost in the least the Divinity. Moreover, we curse and anathematize those who falsely call the Son only the simple Word of God, not realized, having existence in another, and now called by others either the spoken word or the internal word; We curse those who want the Son not before the ages to be Christ and the Son of God, and the Intercessor, and the Image of God, but only from the time he became Christ and the Son of God, when he received our flesh from the Virgin, that is, not before less than four hundred years. For they want Christ to have the beginning of a reign from this very moment, which would end at the end of the age and after the judgment. And such are the followers of Marcellus and Scotinus of Ankyrogalatia, who, under the imaginary pretext of establishing unity of command, like the Jews, reject the eternal existence, the Divinity and the endless kingdom of Christ. We know that the Son is not just a spoken or internal word of God, but a living, independent Word, God, the Son of God and Christ, not according to the foreknowledge of the ages co-existing and co-abiding with His Father, but serving Him in every creation, both visible and invisible. For He is the same one to whom the Father said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26); He personally appeared to the Patriarchs, gave the law, spoke through the Prophets, finally became human, revealed His Father to all people, and reigns for endless ages. Christ did not assume a new dignity, but we believe that He was perfect from time immemorial and in everything like the Father. And those who claim that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same, and who wickedly understand these three names to mean one and the same thing and one Person, we excommunicate from the Church; because the incontainable and impassive Father is assumed to be contained together and suffering at the incarnation. The Romans call them Patropassians, and we call them Sabellians. We know that the sending Father remained in his own capacity as an unchangeable Divinity, and the sent Christ fulfilled the economy of the incarnation. Likewise, those who dishonestly say that the Son was not born by will and will, but attribute necessity to God, that is, involuntary, so that He involuntarily gives birth to the Son, we recognize as very wicked and alien to the Church; because they dared to assert this about God contrary to the general concepts about Him and contrary to the intention of the inspired Scripture. Knowing that God is sovereign and Master of Himself, we piously accept that He voluntarily and at will begat the Son, and with fear believing Him who said about Himself: “The Lord made Me the beginning of His ways for His works” (Prov. 8:22), we do not imagine Him to have come into being like the creatures or works that He created. For it is impious and alien to church faith to apply the Creator to the creatures created from Him, and to think that He has the same image of origin as others; The divine Scriptures teach us that the only begotten Son is truly and sincerely begotten. But asserting that the Son has an independent existence, lives and exists like the Father, we do not separate Him from the Father by inventing any spaces and distances that physically separate Them. For we believe that they are directly and inseparably connected with each other, and are inseparable from each other; because the all-whole Father bears the Son in His bosom, and the all-whole Son is committed and cleaving to the Father, and One unceasingly rests in the bosom of the Father. Therefore, believing in the all-perfect and most holy Trinity, that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and calling both the Father God and the Son God, we confess not two Gods, but one dignity of the Divinity, and one, perfect harmony of the Kingdom; because one Father rules over everyone in general, even over the Son himself, and the Son submits to the Father, excluding Him, reigns over all who are under Him and created by Him, and according to the Father’s will, bestows upon the saints the grace of the Holy Spirit. For such is the law of unity of command in Christ, as the sacred words have taught us. This, after the confession of faith, set forth briefly, we were forced to explain not out of excessive curiosity, but in order to eliminate from those who do not know what is happening among us any suspicion that is alien to our way of thinking, and so that in the West everyone would know both the shamelessness of the slander of other-minded people and the church wisdom about the Lord of the East, which men, unshakable in the faith, testified with the inspired Scriptures.” 27) But they didn’t stop there either; because, having soon gathered in Sirmium against Photinus, they also composed a confession of faith that was not so extensive and verbose, and, as if at the suggestion of someone, excluding a lot of things, adding others, they wrote the following (351): “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of all things, “from which every fatherland in heaven and on earth is named”; and in His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten before all ages from the Father, God from God, Light from Light, “Who was all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,” the very Word and Wisdom, the True Light, the Life, who at the last days became man for our sake, born of the Holy Virgin, crucified, died, buried, rose from the dead in the third the day of being taken up into heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, who at the end of the age will come to judge the living and the dead and reward each according to his deeds; and His unceasing kingdom will endure forever; because not only in this age, but also in the age to come, He will sit at the right hand of the Father. And in the Holy Spirit, that is, the Comforter, Whom (Christ) promised to send and sent to the Apostles upon His ascension into heaven, to teach them and remember everything to them, and through Whom the souls of those who sincerely believed in Him are sanctified. But those who claim that the Son is one of those who are not, or from another hypostasis, and not from God, and that there was a time, or there was an age when He did not exist, the holy and universal Church recognizes as alien. Therefore we say again: if anyone claims that the Father and the Son are two Gods; let him be anathema. And if anyone, calling Christ, the eternal Son of God, God, does not confess that He collaborated with the Father in the creation of the universe; let him be anathema. If anyone dares to assert that the Unbegotten One or a part of Him was born from Mary; let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Son, according to foreknowledge, was before Mary, but was not born of God from the Father before the ages, and that it was not by Him that all things were brought into being; let him be anathema. If anyone says that the essence of God expands or contracts, let him be anathema. If anyone asserts that the expanded essence of God creates the Son, or who calls the expansion of the essence of God the Son; let him be anathema. If anyone calls the Son of God an internal or spoken word; let him be anathema. If anyone calls the Son of Mary only a man, let him be anathema. If anyone, calling the One born of Mary God and man, understands by this the unborn God; let him be anathema. If anyone accepts the words: “I am God first, and I am hereafter, besides Me there is no God” (Is. 44:6), spoken against idols and non-existent gods, as a denial of the Only Begotten God before the ages; let him be anathema. If anyone, hearing what was said: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), thinks that the Word was transformed into flesh, or says that It took on flesh, having undergone a change; let him be anathema. If anyone, hearing that the Only Begotten Son of God was crucified, says that His Divinity suffered corruption, or suffering, or change, or diminishment, or destruction; let him be anathema. If anyone begins to assert that the Father did not say to the Son: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26), but God says this to Himself; let him be anathema. If anyone says that Abraham saw not the Son, but the unborn God, or a part of Him; let him be anathema. If anyone says that it was not the Son in the form of a man who fought with Jacob, but the unbegotten God, or a part of Him; let him be anathema. If anyone accepts the words: “The Lord rains... fire from the Lord” (Gen. 19:24) not about the Father and the Son, but says that the Lord rained from Himself; let him be anathema; For the Lord the Son has waited upon the Lord the Father. If anyone, hearing that the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and also the Father and Son is Lord (for it is said: “The Lord... is from the Lord” (Gen. 19:24)), begins to assert that there are two Gods; let him be anathema; for we do not compare the Son to the Father, but recognize Him as submissive to the Father. It was not without the Father’s advice that He descended into Sodom, not from Himself, but from the Lord, that is, by the authority of the Father; He also does not sit at the right hand of the Father by Himself, but hears the Father speaking to Him: “Sit at My right hand” (Psalm 109:1). If anyone calls the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one Person; let him be anathema. If anyone, calling the Holy Spirit the Comforter, says that He is the unborn God; let him be anathema. If anyone calls the Comforter other than the Son, as the Lord taught us; for he said: “The Father will send you another Comforter, for whom I will pray” (John 14:16); let him be anathema. If anyone calls the Holy Spirit part of the Father or the Son; let him be anathema. If anyone calls the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit three Gods; let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Son of God came into being by God’s will, as one of the creatures; let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Son was not born according to the will of the Father; let him be anathema. For the Father, not under compulsion, not driven to this by natural necessity, gave birth to the Son when he did not want to; but at the same time he desired and revealed Him from Himself, giving birth out of time and dispassionately. If someone calls the Son unbegotten and without beginning, as if naming two without beginning and two unbegotten, and creating two Gods; let him be anathema. For the head, that is, the beginning of everything is the Son, and the head, that is, the beginning of Christ is God. Thus, through the Son, everything ascends piously to the one Beginningless One, the Beginning of all things. And also, precisely defining the concept of Christianity, we say that if anyone does not call Christ God, the eternal Son of God, who assisted the Father in the creation of the universe, but says that only from the time he was born of Mary, he began to be called Christ and the Son, and began to be God; let him be anathema." 28) But having rejected all this and, as it were, inventing something better, they established a new faith, and in Sirmium they write in Latin, based on a translation into Hellenic, the following (357): “Since it was recognized as necessary to discuss the faith, then in Sirmium, in the presence of Valens, Ursatius, Herminius and others, everything was truly sought out and investigated, and it turned out to be beyond doubt that there is one God the Father, the Almighty, as is proclaimed in the whole universe, and one His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of Him before the ages. One should not name two Gods; for the Lord Himself said: “I will ascend to My Father and your Father, and... My God and your God” (John 20:17). Therefore, there is one God of all, as the Apostle also taught: “Or is the God of the Jews only, and not of the tongues? She and languages. For there is only one God, who will justify circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision by faith” (Rom. 3:29,30). Everything else is in agreement and does not involve any doubt. since many others are confused by the Latin word substantia and the identical Hellenic word - (οὐσία) (essence), wanting to more accurately understand the consubstantial, or so-called co-existent, then in the Church one should not mention these words to anyone and interpret them for the reason and on the basis that this is not written about this in the Divine Scriptures and that this is above human knowledge and the human mind, and no one can explain the birth of the Son, according to what is written: “Who can confess His generation” (Isa. 53:8)? For it is self-evident that the Father alone knows how He begot the Son, and the Son also knows how He was born of the Father. For everyone it is certain that the Father is greater, and no one will doubt that the Father is greater in honor, dignity, divinity and the very name of the Father; because the Son Himself testifies: the Father who sent Me is “greater.” There is less for me” (John 14:28). And everyone knows this universal belief that there are two persons: the Father and the Son; The Father is greater, and the Son is subject to the Father, with all whom the Father has subjected to Him; that the Father has no beginning, is invisible, immortal, impassive, and the Son is born from the Father, God from God, Light from Light; and His birth, as stated above, no one knows, except the Father alone, but the Son himself, our Lord and God from the Virgin Mary, as the Angel preached, took on flesh or body, that is, man. And as all the Scriptures teach, especially the Apostle, the Teacher of Languages, Christ received from the Virgin Mary the man by whom he suffered. But the main thing and confirmation of all faith is that the Trinity should always be preserved, as we read in the Gospel: “Going baptize all languages ​​in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The number of the Trinity is simple and perfect. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, sent by the Son, came according to the promise to teach and sanctify the Apostles and all believers.” 29) Having written this and changed their thoughts, they also composed that confession of faith, which they themselves were ashamed of, because the names of the Hypatians were indicated in it; and according to custom, as if not approving of it, they had it taken away from those who had lists from it by the clerk Martinian. And when they learned that King Constantius had issued a decree against him, they published another confession, and adding, as usual, several sayings, they wrote the following in Isauria (359): “We do not shy away from presenting on the Wednesday of the Council the approved confession of faith, which was set forth during the renovation of the church in Antioch, where our Fathers gathered most of all to resolve the issue being considered at that time. But since in past times, and to this day, many have been confused by the same-existence and similar-existence, and recently, as they say, the doctrine of the dissimilarity of the Son with the Father has been introduced by some; then we reject the words: “consubstantial” and “similar in existence”, as alien to the Scriptures, and we anathematize the doctrine of dissimilarity, and we recognize everyone who adheres to it as alien to the Church; We clearly confess the similarity of the Son with the Father, following the Apostle, who says about the Son: “Who is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Thus we confess and believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. We also believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, born of Him impassively before all ages, God the Word, God from God, the Only Begotten, Light, Life, Truth, Wisdom, Power, “Who was all things that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16). We believe that this Son of God “at the end of the ages, at the sweeping away of sin” (Heb. 9:26), took flesh from the Holy Virgin, became man, suffered for our sins, rose again, was taken into heaven, will sit at the right hand of the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We also believe in the Holy Spirit, Whom our Savior and Lord called the Comforter, promising to send after His departure and sent to the disciples, and through Him sanctifies the believers in the Church and those baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And those who preach something different, contrary to this confession of faith, are recognized by the universal Church as aliens. And that the confession of faith recently set forth in Sirmium, in the presence of our pious King, is equivalent to this confession, the readers know this.” 30) Having written this in Isauria, when they arrived in Constantinople, as if abandoning previous thoughts, they changed it according to custom, adding several sayings, and forbidding even the word “hypostasis” to be used about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they sent this to those gathered in Ariminum, and forced the bishops of these regions to sign, and who contradicted them, they tried to have Constantius send them to imprisonment The confession they wrote was the following (360): “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, from whom are all things, and in the only begotten Son of God, begotten of God before all ages and before all beginnings, by whom all things visible and invisible were brought into being, the only begotten Son, the only one from the only Father, God from God, according to the Scriptures, like His growing Father, and whose birth no one knows except the only Father who begat Him. We know that this only begotten Son of God, sent by the Father, came from heaven, as it is written, to the destruction of sin and death, was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary according to the flesh, according to what is written, remained with the disciples, and having completed all the dispensation, according to the will of the Father, was crucified, died, buried, descended into the underworld, horrified hell itself, rose from the dead on the third day, remained with the disciples, and, when the forty days were completed, he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come on the last day of resurrection in the glory of the Father, to reward everyone according to his deeds. And in the Holy Spirit, whom the only begotten Son of God, Christ our Lord and God, promised to send to the human race as the Comforter, as it is written, the Spirit of truth, whom he sent to them when he ascended into heaven. As for the naming (οὐσία) (essence), which was introduced into use by the Fathers out of simplicity and, as incomprehensible to the people, produced a temptation, because it is not in the Scriptures; then we wanted it to be withdrawn from use and not mentioned at all; because the divine Scriptures nowhere mentioned the essence of the Father and the Son; You should also not use the word: hypostasis, speaking about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; We call the Son like the Father, as the Divine Scriptures say and teach; and all heresies, both those condemned before and those that have appeared again and teaching contrary to this Scripture set forth by us, let them be anathema.” 31) But they didn’t stop there; for, having come from Constantinople to Antioch, they repented of what they had directly written: the Son is like the Father, as the Scriptures say; and having put together what they had thought, they began to return again to their previous thoughts and assert that, of course, the Son is not like the Father, and in no way does the Son have any similarity with the Father. And they changed so much that they began to accept those who openly reasoned in the Arian way, even giving them churches so that they could spew out blasphemy more freely. For the great shamelessness of their blasphemy, everyone began to call them anomeans, but they also had the nickname - from the non-essential (ἐξουκόντιον); and the patron of their wickedness was the heretic Constantius, who remained in wickedness to the end, and already dying, wished to be baptized, not from pious men, but from Euzoius, who was deposed not once, but many times, for the Arian heresy, both when he was still a deacon, and when he was a bishop in Antioch. 32) Having reached this point, those I named above stopped there and were cast out; but I knew well that those who had been pretending until now would not stop, they would always form crowds against the truth until they came to their senses and said: “Rising, let us go to our Fathers and tell them: we anathematize the Arian heresy and recognize the Council of Nicaea.” Because they have a dispute with this Council. Therefore, who, having even a few feelings, will tolerate them? Who, seeing how at each Council one thing is excluded and another is added, will not see that the understanding they have about Christ is both suspicious and feigned? Who, seeing how they spread in their statements of faith and in their justifications regarding what they are accused of, will not see that they pronounce judgment on themselves, and with the intention of writing a lot, so that through their immoderate curiosity and their verbosity they will attract simple people and cover up their heresy? But as pagans, according to the word of the Lord, “they say too little in their prayers” (Matt. 6, 7), do not receive any benefit from it, and after so much effort they could not overthrow the judgment pronounced on the Arian heresy, but even more exposed, they were deposed, and rightly so. For which of the confessions written by them will the one who listens to them accept? Or, on what basis will they announce those who come to them? If all these confessions agree on the same thing, then what is the need for many? If there was a need for so many confessions, then it is obvious that each of them is insufficient and incomplete, and in this they themselves, more than us, expose themselves by changing and altering each one. The many Councils and the variety of written confessions show that those present at the Councils, although they opposed the Council of Nicaea, could not resist the truth. 33) since they behaved this way in relation to themselves and to their predecessors, then, having interrogated them, we learn from them themselves what inconsistency they saw, or what statement they complained about in what was written, they became disobedient to the Fathers and resist the Ecumenical Council? “We do not like,” they say, “the sayings: “from essence” and “consubstantial,” because they have seduced some and outraged many.” This is what they said in their writings, but others will fundamentally object to them this way: if these sayings, taken by themselves, serve as a cause of temptation for them, then it was necessary not only for some to be tempted and not for many to be indignant, but for us and everyone else to understand them equally. If everyone willingly accepts these sayings and they were written not by anyone, but by those gathered from the whole universe, and they are confirmed by the Bishops now gathered in Ariminum, numbering more than four hundred; then those who say this in defiance of the Council are not completely exposed that it is not the sayings that are guilty, but the evil of those who reinterpret them? Many, reading the Divine Scriptures with evil thoughts, misunderstanding them, accuse the Saints; such were the Jews of that time who rejected the Lord, such are the Jews of today who blaspheme the Law; the reason for them was not the Scriptures, but their own malicious intent. Therefore, if you can show that the sayings are bad, then do so, and let the basis of the proof be presented, but do not present as an excuse those who are tempted, so that the same thing does not happen to you as with the Pharisees of that time. For when they made an excuse that they were being tempted by the teaching of the Lord, the Lord said to them: “Every garden that My heavenly Father does not plant will be uprooted” (Matthew 15:13). By saying this, he showed that the verbs He planted did not serve as a temptation for the Pharisees, but they themselves tempted themselves, with an evil thought accepting what was said well. For those who then complained about the Epistles The apostle did not blame Paul, but their own ignorance and perverted understanding. 34) It is decent to ask them: tell me, who, as you make as an excuse, is tempted and indignant by these sayings? - None of the pious believers in Christ, because they confirm and defend these sayings. And if they seduce and outrage any of the Arians, what is surprising if the words that overthrow their heresy are unpleasant to them? And they do not cause them temptation, but sorrow, because they serve, as it were, as a shameful inscription of their wickedness. Therefore, stop grumbling against the Fathers and making similar excuses; otherwise, it remains for you to condemn the cross of the Lord, because it, as the Apostle said, “is a stumbling block to the Jews, but foolishness to the Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). But just as the cross is not bad, because for us who believe, “Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:23, 24), although the Jews are foolish; so are the sayings not bad The Fathers, on the contrary, are useful to those who understand them correctly, and serve to overthrow all evil, even if the Arians condemned by them were more than once tormented by vexation. Therefore, when, as has been proven, the pretext you put forward is incredible, as if they are seduced by these sayings, tell me: why don’t you like the saying: “from the essence”? For first of all it is necessary to ask: do you not also write that the Son was born of the Father? If, by naming the Father, or using the word God, you do not mean the essence, and do not mean the Existing One Himself, as He is in essence, but with these words you mean something else around Him, or something even worse (which may not be said by me); then you should not have written that the Son is from the Father, but rather that the Son is from what is around the Father, or what is in Him, and thus, avoiding the need to affirm that God is truly the Father, understanding the simple as complex, and representing God bodily, to become inventors of new blasphemy. And with such an understanding, of necessity, you will recognize both the Word and the Son not as an essence, but only as a name, and you will limit your idea to names alone, and what you say, you will not believe that it exists, but you will begin to think that it does not exist. 35) The same daring thought is more characteristic of the Sadducees and the so-called atheists among the Hellenes. Therefore, you will say that this creation is not the creation of the self-existent God, if the words “Father” and “God” do not mean the very essence of Being, but something else, as you invent it. But even to imagine this only in thoughts is evil and extremely indecent. If we hear when: “I am He” (Ex. 3:14), and: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and: “Hear to Israel, the Lord Thy God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4), and: “Here saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Kings 7:8); then we understand nothing else, but the simplest, blissful and incomprehensible essence of Being. For, although it is impossible for us to understand what God’s essence is, yet we, hearing the words: “Father, God, Almighty,” understand that nothing else is meant by this, but the very essence of Being. You yourself said that the Son is from God, therefore you said that He is from the essence of the Father; But before you the Scriptures say that the Lord is the Son of the Father; and before the Scriptures the Father himself said: “This is my beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17), and the Son is nothing other than birth from the Father; Why does it seem to you that the Fathers said wrongly that the Son is from the Father’s essence, arguing that it means exactly the same thing whether to say: “from God” or to say: “from the essence”? For all creatures, although they are said to have received their being from God, are not from God like the Son; because by nature they are not births, but creations. It is said: “in the beginning God did not beget, but created heaven and earth, and everything that is in them” (Gen. 1:1; Psalm 145:6); and: do not give birth, but “make Your angels spirits, and Your servants a fiery flame” (Ps. 103:4). If the Apostle said: “there is one God... all are worthless” (1 Cor. 8:6); he says this without including the Son among everything. But since some of the Hellenes think that creation arose by chance from the cohesion of atoms and was itself composed of homogeneous particles, and does not have an Author, others believe that, although it received existence from the Author, it was not by the Word; and each of the heretics, as he wanted, invented and fabled about the origin of creation: then the Apostle, of necessity, said: “from God,” in order to make the Creator known, and to show that the creation of everything depended on His will. But he immediately adds: “and there is one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom are all things” (1 Cor. 8:6), so as to exclude the Son from what is named by the saying: all. For everything that is called God came into being through the Son, and it is impossible for what was created to have the same beginning of existence with the Creator. The Apostle also teaches that what is said here: “from God” has a meaning in relation to creatures, and of course differently than when it is said about the Son; because the Son is generation, and creatures are products; therefore, the Son is the own birth of the essence, and the creation is the creation of God's will. 36) And the Council, having this in mind, and seeing the difference in understanding, so that, despite the sameness of expression, others would not think that the Son is said to be from God in the same sense as the creature, wrote more clearly that the Son is from essence. For from this the sincerity of the Son in relation to the Father is known; and if we say simply: from God, then this means the will of the Creator to create. Therefore, if they themselves, having the same thought, wrote that the Word is from the Father; then let them not blame the Council. And if, as it is written about the creation, so about the Son they interpret the saying: “from God,” then, taking what was said about the creation, they should not have called the Son, so as not to give the appearance that they were mixing blasphemy with piety; it was necessary either not to classify the Lord among the creatures, or not to write about the Son, which is unworthy of Him and indecent to Him. For if He is the Son, then He is not a creature; and if a creature, then not the Son. With the same understanding, they will deny holy baptism; because it is taught in the name of the Father and the Son, and not in the name of the Creator and the creature, as they think. But they say: “This is not in Scripture, and we reject these sayings as not taken from Scripture.” But this excuse is also shameless. If everything not taken from Scripture is considered to be rejected; then why against such a multitude of sayings not taken from the Scriptures and invented by the Arians, such as: from non-existent; There was no son until he was born; was when He was not; Son we change; The Father is ineffable and invisible to the Son; The Son does not even know His own essence, and what else did the wise Arius vomit in his ridiculous and evil Thalia, not only do they not object, but they also defend these sayings, and for the sake of them they argue with their Fathers? In which scripture they themselves found the names: uncreated, essence, also this: three are hypostases; Christ is not the true God; He is one of a hundred sheep; The wisdom of God is unborn and without beginning; There are many created powers, one of them is Christ? Or why, during the so-called renewals, Acacius and Eusebius, having used sayings not taken from Scripture and calling the First-born creature an indifferent image of essence, power, will and glory, murmured against the Fathers because they mentioned sayings not taken from Scripture, mentioned the Word - the essence? They should either grumble at themselves, or not blame the Fathers at all. 37) If others were to put forward the utterances of the Council as an excuse, then one could suspect either ignorance or fear in them. There is no word about the Cappadocian George, expelled from Alexandria, as a person who did not deserve approval from his former life and was not a Christian at all, but only hypocritically, due to circumstances, took on this name and considered piety as a means to enrichment. Why, no one has the right to blame him for the fact that a person stumbles when it comes to faith, who does not know what he is talking about and what he is affirming, but, according to what is written, he will follow everyone as if he had been “fooled” (Prov. 7:22). Akaky, Eudoxius and Patrophilus, saying this, are they not worthy of all condemnation? For, having themselves written that they were not taken from Scripture, and having repeatedly allowed the name “essence” to be good, especially in the case of the Epistle of Eusebius, they now accuse those who preceded them for using such expressions. And they themselves, having called the Son God from God, the living Word, an indifferent image of the Father's essence, blame the Nicene Fathers, who called the Son begotten from essence, and consubstantial with Him who begot. But is it surprising if those who, contradicting themselves, attack what they said, enter into a dispute with the Fathers who were before them? For during the so-called renewals in Antioch, they introduced into their confession that the Son is the indifferent image of the Father’s essence, and affirmed with an oath that they were wise in this way, and anathematized those who were wise, and even in Isauria they wrote: “we do not depart from the conciliarly approved confession of faith, set forth during the renewals in Antioch” (where the name was written: essence); and as if forgetting about this, after some time, in the same Isauria they wrote the opposite, saying: “we reject the phrases “consubstantial” and “similar in essence” as alien to the Scriptures, and we remove the name “essence” from use as not found in the Scriptures. 38) Who recognizes such people even as Christians? Or, what kind of faith do those who have neither word nor writing set in stone, but everything changes and transforms over time? For if you, Acacius and Eudoxius, do not deviate from the confession of faith set forth during the renewal, and in this confession it is written that the Son is an indifferent image of essence, then why do you write in Isauria: “we reject the saying: “consubstantial”? If the Son is unlike the Father in essence; then how is He an indifferent image of essence? If you repent of what you wrote; indifferent image of essence; then why do you anathematize those who claim that the Son is unlike? For if it has no similarity in essence, then it is certainly dissimilar; and what is unlike cannot be an image. If we accept what you affirm; then he who had already seen the Son did not see the Father because of the great difference between them, or better yet, the complete dissimilarity between One and the Other. What is not similar cannot be called like. How do you manage to call unlike things like, and present like as unlike, and hypocritically say that the Son is the image of the Father? If the Son is not similar to the Father in essence, then the image is insufficient and incomplete, and there is an imperfect radiance; How do you read: “In Him dwells all the bodily fulfillment of the Divinity” (Col. 2:9), and: “We have all received from His fulfillment” (John 1:16)? Why do you cast out the Arian Aetius as a heretic, although you yourself say the same thing with him? He is your friend, Akakios, and Eudoxia was a teacher in such wickedness, for which Bishop Leontius made him a deacon, so that using the name of the deaconate, like a sheep's clothing, he could freely spew out blasphemous words. 39) What convinced you to contradict yourself and suffer such shame? But you cannot say anything specious; All that remains is to think that you are now a hypocrite in everything, and, pretending, you are inventing everything for the sake of Constantius’s patronage and the benefits expected from it. You do not hesitate to accuse the Fathers, but as an excuse you simply put forward sayings, as if they were not taken from Scripture, and, according to what is written, “you spread out the legs... of everyone who happens to pass by” (Ezek. 16:25), you are ready to change as many times as it pleases those who hired you and feeds you. If someone pronounces sayings not taken from Scripture, it means nothing as long as he holds a pious thought. And the heretic, although he uses sayings taken from the Scriptures, at the same time, as a person suspicious and corrupted in mind, will hear from the Spirit: “How many you have told of My justifications, and have you accepted My covenant with your lips” (Psalm 49:16)? So the devil, although he spoke from the Scriptures, was stopped by the Savior. And blessed Paul, although he says something borrowed from outsiders: “The Cretans are always lying” (Titus 1:12); “This is the generation of this being” (Acts 17:28); “Good customs are corrupted by evil conversations” (1 Cor. 15:33), however, like a saint, he contains a pious thought, and, having the mind of Christ, he is a teacher of languages ​​in faith and truth, and what he speaks, he speaks piously. What is the probability in the Arian sayings, with which the caterpillars and springs are preferred over the Savior, and with which the Arians slander Him, saying: “You were not once created, alien in essence to God,” and leave nothing to blaspheme Him in every possible way with these sayings. But what did the Fathers omit for the praise of Christ? Do they not have a high understanding of Christ, do they not have Christ-loving piety? And yet the heretics wrote: “this we will abolish”; and they hold on to those sayings that are reproachful to the Lord, and make it clear to everyone that they are armed against that great Council for no other reason, but because it condemned the Arian heresy. Therefore, they also condemn the phrase “consubstantial”, themselves interpreting it poorly. And if they believed rightly, truly confessed the Father as the Father, the Son as the most sincere Son, and believed that He by nature is the true Word and the Father's Wisdom, and saying that the Son is from God, they did not say this about Him in the same sense in which the same is said about creatures, but understood that the Son, as radiance from the light, is the own birth of the Father's essence; then each of them would not blame the Fathers, but they would boldly affirm that the Council wrote well, and that such is the right faith about our Lord Jesus Christ. 40) But they will say: “The meaning of such sayings is unclear to us.” For they also presented this as an excuse, saying: “We cannot understand the explanation of these sayings, therefore we will reject them.” But if there was truth in their words, then it would not be necessary to say to them: let us put aside these sayings; but it would be necessary to demand that they be taught knowledge; otherwise, we must reject what we do not understand in the Divine Scriptures and blame those who wrote it. But such insolence is more characteristic of heretics than of Christians. What we do not understand in the words of God, we will not put aside, but we seek those to whom the Lord has revealed, and we ask them to teach. since they put forward the obscurity of such sayings as an excuse, then let them confess what was said directly, and anathematize those who philosophize that the Son is not existing, that He did not exist until He was born, that the Word of God is a creature and a work, that He is changeable by nature and from another hypostasis; and, in a word, let them anathematize the Arian heresy, which invented such wickedness, and say no longer this: let us reject these sayings, but: we do not yet understand them, so that in this way they have some probable excuse - to abandon them. But I know very well and am confident, and they themselves know it, that if they confess this and anathematize the Arian heresy, they will not deny those conciliar sayings. Therefore, the Fathers, having called the Son born from essence, consubstantial with the Father, immediately added: and we anathematize those who affirm what was said above and what was invented by the Arian heresy; than they wanted to show that they said this as if in accordance with the previous one, and these sayings mean the same thing. Whoever confesses those truths will, of course, understand these sayings; and those who are not so wise and condemn them, denounce themselves in everything as opponents of Christ. 41) To convict those who completely deny the Council, this little is enough; and with those who accept everything else that is written in Nicaea, but doubt only the saying: “one essence,” we must treat them not as enemies, and we do not rebel against them, as against the Arians and those opposing the Fathers, but we reason as brothers with brothers who have the same thought with us, and only doubt about the naming. For those who confess that the Son is from the essence of the Father and not from another hypostasis, that He is not a creature or a work, but a most sincere birth by nature, and is eternally co-present with the Father as Word and Wisdom, are not far from accepting this saying: “consubstantial.” This is Vasily Ankirsky, who wrote about faith. For to call the Son only like in essence does not necessarily mean that He is from essence; which statement, as they themselves said, best signifies the sincerity of the Son in relation to the Father. Tin is like only silver, and the wolf is like a dog, and golden copper is like true gold; but tin is not made of silver, and the wolf is not considered the son of a dog. since they said about the Son that He is both of essence and of subsistence; What else do these sayings mean, if not the same thing that He is consubstantial? Just as he who calls it sub-essential does not yet make it clear that being is necessarily from essence; so calling it consubstantial means both concepts - both coexistence and being from essence. And rebelling also against those who assert that the Word is a creature, and those who disagree that He is the most sincere Son, they themselves borrowed their arguments against them from the examples of father and son visible among people, with the exception of the fact that God is not the same as man, and the birth of the Son is not the same as the birth of man, but must be represented by us as befitting of God. For the Father was called the source of Wisdom and life, and the Son was called the radiance of eternal Light and the offspring of the Source, saying about Himself: “I am... life” (John 14:6), and: “I am Wisdom of all counsel” (Prov. 8:12). But the radiance of Light, the generation of the Source, the Son from the Father, as it is more proper to call it, is it not consubstantial? Or, since human creations are of the same essence; then caution is required so that, by calling the Son consubstantial, one does not convey the idea that He is the same as the human birth? Let this not happen! Such a thought has no place here. It is not difficult to give a solution to this; because the Son is the Father's Word and the Father's Wisdom, and from this we know dispassion and indivisibility in birth from the Father, for the word is not a part of people, and does not come to them with suffering; and even more so must this be said about the Word of God, about Whom the Father declared that the Word is His Son, so that others, hearing the mere name of the Word, would not consider It the same as the unrealized human word, but hearing that It is the Son, would recognize that It is the living Word and realized Wisdom. 42) Then, just as, calling the Word of God birth, we imagine this in a non-human way, and, recognizing God as the Father, we do not assimilate to ourselves any bodily concept of Him, on the contrary, hearing these comparisons and such sayings, we decently understand them about God, because God is “not like a man”; Thus, hearing the saying: “one of the same essence,” we must rise above every sensory idea, and, according to the word of Proverbs, “understand with understanding what is offered” to us (Prov. 23:1), and therefore know that not by will, but truly there is the most sincere Son from the Father, as life from the Source and radiance from the Light. Otherwise, why do we understand the sayings: “birth” and “Son” in a non-corporeal way, and the saying: “consubstantial” – will we understand them as referring to bodies, especially since these predicates are not applied to different persons, but about whom it is said: “birth”, the same is said about “consubstantial”? In relation to the Savior, it is proper to maintain the same understanding of both sayings, and one should not explain one saying: “birth” - in a good sense, and the other: “consubstantial” - otherwise; for in this case, you, who call the Son the Father's Word and the Father's Wisdom, should have a different concept of these names, and understand the Word differently, and Wisdom differently. But how inconsistent this is with anything, because the Son is the Father’s Word and the Father’s Wisdom, and the Birth from the Father is one and of His essence: so the meaning of the words is one: “birth” and “consubstantial,” and he who recognizes the Son by birth recognizes Him as consubstantial. 43) This sufficiently shows that the understanding of these beloved ones is not alien and not far from the concept of consubstantiality. But since, as they say (I don’t have the message), the Bishops who condemned Samosata wrote that the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, and therefore they, respecting and honoring those who said this, do not accept these sayings; then it would be good to discuss this with them piously. For it would be indecent to raise them up against those Bishops; because they are all Fathers; and it is also dishonest to pronounce judgment that some said well and others said badly, because they all rested in Christ. There is no need to argue vigorously and compare the number of those gathered, so that it does not seem as if the number of three hundred overshadows the smaller number, and also to take time into account, so that it does not seem as if those who preceded them destroy those who came after; because, according to what was said above, they are all Fathers, however, those three hundred Fathers did not write any new wisdom and, without relying on themselves, began to defend sayings that were not taken from Scripture, but they used them, being prompted to do so by the Fathers. For long before the seventy Fathers deposed Samosata, there were two Dionysius, one Bishop of Rome, and the other of Alexandria. And since some complained to the Bishop of Rome about the Bishop of Alexandria, as if He calls the Son a creature, and not consubstantial with the Father, the Roman Council was indignant, the Roman Bishop in writing communicates the general opinion of all to the Bishop of the same name, and this one, already justifying himself, composes a book under the title: “reproof” and “justification”, and writes to the Roman Bishop the following: 44) “I also wrote in another letter that they falsely accused me of claiming that Christ is not consubstantial with God. Although I say that I did not find or read this word anywhere in the Holy Scriptures, my subsequent arguments, which they kept silent about, do not disagree with this thought; for I presented as an example the human birth, which, as is known, is homogeneous, no doubt noting that parents are different only with their children, because the children are not themselves, or it would be necessary for there to be neither parents nor children. Due to circumstances, I cannot deliver this letter, as I already said. But if I could, I would send the most used sayings at that time, or better yet, a list of the entire letter, which I will do as soon as I have the opportunity. But I know and remember that I have presented many similarities of related things. For I said that a plant that sprouts from a seed or from a root is different from that from which it grew, but, without a doubt, is homogeneous with it; and the river flowing from the source receives a different form and name; because the source is not called a river, nor the river a source, yet both a river and a source exist, and the source is, as it were, the Father, and the river is what is born from the source.” That's what the Bishop said. 45) Therefore, if anyone blames the Fathers who met at Nicaea, they allegedly said contrary to the definitions of those who were before; then, in fairness, he should blame these seventy too, because they did not observe what was determined before them - before them there were Dionysius and the Bishops who were then meeting in Rome. But it is contrary to justice to blame both; because they all defended the faith of Christ, and all fought zealously against heretics, and some condemned Samosatsky, and others the Arian heresy. Both of them wrote correctly and well in relation to their intended purpose. And as the blessed Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans said: “the law is spiritual” (Rom. 7:14), and: “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12), and a little lower: “for the weakness of the law, in it you are weak” (Rom. 8:3); and to the Hebrews he wrote: “nothing... has committed the law” (Heb. 7:19); and to the Galatians: “by the law no one will be justified” (Gal. 3:11); to Timothy: “For the law is good, if anyone does it lawfully” (1 Tim. 1:8), and no one blames the saint for allegedly writing something that contradicts and disagrees with each other; on the contrary, everyone will rather be amazed that in each Epistle he considered who he was writing to, so that the Romans and others would learn to turn from the letter to the spirit, and the Jews and Galatians would come to their senses and place their hope not in the law, but in the Lord who gave the law. So, if the Fathers of both Councils responded differently to the saying: “one of the same essence,” then we should not completely disagree with them, but should delve into their thought, and then, without a doubt, we will see the unanimity of both Councils. For those who deposed Samosatsky understand the phrase “consubstantial” bodily, because Paul wanted to use cunning and said: “if Christ was not made from man and became God and, therefore, consubstantial with the Father, then there must be three essences, one original, and two descended from it”; and for this reason, rightly fearing such false thinking compiled by Samosatsky, they said that Christ is not consubstantial; for the Son does not relate to the Father in the same way as Samosatsky imagined. Those who anathematized the Arian heresy - having seen the trick of Paul, and judging that the phrase “consubstantial” does not mean the same thing in the discourse of incorporeal beings and especially in relation to God, knowing that the Word is not a creature, but Birth from essence, that the essence of the Father is the beginning, root and source of the Son, that the Son is the truest likeness of the One who begot, cannot, as an alien, like us, be excommunicated from the Father, but, as the Son who is from the Father, is inseparable from Him, just as radiance is from light; having before them the similarities of the source presented by Dionysius, and his justification regarding the word: “consubstantial,” and beyond this the clear words of the Savior: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and: “having seen Me, in the form of the Father” (John 14:9) - therefore they themselves rightly called the Son Consubstantial. And just as, according to what was said above, no one will accuse the Apostle if He wrote something different about the law to the Romans, and another to the Jews; So the Fathers living today will not blame the former, having in mind their interpretation, nor will the former begin to reproach the former after them, paying attention to their interpretation and to the need for which they wrote so about the Lord. For every Council has a good reason why some said one way and others another. since Samosatsky thought that the Son did not exist before Mary, but from Her he received the beginning of being, those who gathered then deposed Samosatsky and declared him a heretic; Having written about the Divinity of the Son more simply, they did not delve into the exact meaning of the word: “consubstantial,” but as they understood it, they said about the word: “consubstantial.” They took special care to overthrow what was invented by Samosatsky and prove that the Son was first of all, that He did not become God from a man, but, being God, took on the form of a servant, and, being the Word, became flesh, as John said. This was done in refutation of Pavlova’s blasphemy. since the followers of Eusebius and Arius, although they said that the Son was before time, nevertheless taught that He was created and is one of the creatures, and they accepted the expression: “from God” not as about the most sincere Son from the Father, they argued that just as creatures are from God, so this is said about the Son, and the unity of the likeness of the Son with the Father was not placed in essence and not in nature, as a son is like his father, but in agreement of definitions and doctrine; they even completely separated and cut off the essence of the Son from the Father, inventing for the Son another principle of existence other than the Father, and relegating the Son to the number of creatures: then the Fathers gathered in Nicaea, seeing the deceit of those who were so wise, and having extracted the concept from the Scriptures, and expressing themselves more clearly, said: “one in essence,” so that the sincerity of the Son and the creatures could truly be known from this, they had nothing in common with Him. The accuracy of this saying exposes the hypocrisy of heretics if they use the expression “from God,” and overthrows all the beliefs with which they entice ordinary people. They are able to confuse everything with their false reasoning and reinterpret it as they want, but they are afraid of this one saying, as it exposes their heresy, and the Fathers wrote it as a defense against all their wicked inventions. 46) Therefore, let all dispute cease, and let us no longer quarrel, if the Councils adopted the phrase “consubstantial” in different ways. We have solid reasons for justification in this, both those mentioned above and the following: we did not learn the phrase “unborn” from the Scriptures (the Scriptures nowhere call God unborn). But since many of the famous have used this name; Then, having searched it out curiously, we find that it also has different meanings. Some call it unborn, which exists, but is not born and has no culprit at all, and others, which is not created. Therefore, according to these meanings of the word, if someone, having in mind the first meaning, that is, that the unborn has no author, said that the Son is not the unborn, then he cannot blame another, seeing that he, having in mind the other meaning of the unborn - to be not a work and not a creature, but an eternal birth, calls the Son unborn; because both, having in mind their goal, expressed themselves well: so, if some of the Fathers said one thing about the Consubstantial One, and others another, we will not argue, but we will accept what they said piously, because they cared most about piety. 47) Thus Ignatius, who after the Apostles was appointed Bishop of Antioch and became a martyr of Christ, writing about the Lord, said: “There is one Physician, physical and spiritual, created and uncreated, in man is God, in death is true life, both from Mary and from God.” After Ignatius, some teachers also write: “one uncreated thing is the Father, and one from Him is the most sincere Son, the true birth of the Father, the Word and Wisdom.” Therefore, if we go against them, we will also argue with the Councils. If, knowing their faith in Christ, they are convinced that blessed Ignatius wrote correctly, calling Him created according to the flesh, because Christ “was flesh” (Jn. 1, 14), but uncreated because He is not among the works and creatures, but is the Son of the Father; But we do not know that those who called the Father one uncreated wrote so, affirming not that the Word was created and is a work, but that the Father has no culprit, or better to say that He is the Father of Wisdom, and created everything created by Wisdom: then why do we not recognize as equally pious the Fathers - both those who deposed Samosata and put the Arian heresy to shame, and introduce division between them, and not more Are we talking about them correctly? Some, as I said, having in mind the false thinking of Samosatsky and his interpretation, wrote that the Son is not consubstantial; others, having understood well, said that the Son is consubstantial. And I, speaking in this way about those who think piously about Christ, wrote this briefly. And if one could have in one’s hands the message which is said to have been written by them; then, I think, there would have been many pretexts for which the blessed Fathers were forced to write like this. It is also fitting for us to reason in this way and maintain such a good conscience before the Fathers, if we have not yet been reborn, but maintain their traditions and their pious teaching. 48) Let this understanding of the Fathers be spoken and accepted with faith. – Now we will again examine the matter with them meekly and with a good conscience, keeping in mind what was said above. Let's see if it turns out that the Bishops gathered at Nicaea really reasoned well? If the Word is a product and is alien to the Father’s essence, and therefore is separated from the Father by its very alien nature; then It will not be consubstantial with the Father, but rather homogeneous in nature with creatures, although it surpasses them in grace. If we confess that the Word is not a work, but a sincere Birth from the Father’s essence; then it will follow that It is inseparable from the Father, being, by birth from Him, one-natural with Him. And if It is such, then it is fair to call It consubstantial. Moreover, if the Son is the Son not by communion, but by essence, the Father's Word and the Father's Wisdom, the very essence is the birth of the Father's essence and its likeness, just as radiance is the likeness of light, and the Son says: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and: “he who has seen Me in the form of the Father” (John 14:9); then how should these sayings be understood? Or in what sense, accepting them, will we retain the idea that the Father and the Son are one? So, if They are one by the agreement of definitions and by the fact that the Son does not disagree with the Father, as the Arians say, then such a meaning is bad. For the Saints, even more so the Angels and Archangels, have the same agreement with God, and they have no disagreement, because the devil who entered into discord was seen to have fallen from heaven, as the Lord said. Therefore, if the Son and the Father are one by agreement, then the creatures that are in agreement with Him are one with God, and each can say: I and the Father are one! If this is incongruous with anything (as it is truly incongruous); then it is necessary to imagine the unity of the Son and the Father in its very essence. Creatures, although they have agreement with the Creator, have it in movement, in communion, in the mind, and the one who does not comply with this agreement is cast out of heaven. since the Son is Birth from essence; then He and the Father who begat Him are one in essence. 49) Therefore, the Son, according to clear sayings, has equality with the Father, and what is said about the Father, the same is said in the Scriptures about the Son, with the exception of the one name Father. For the Son himself said: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15), and he said to the Father: “All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine” (John 17:10). These are the names: God: “God is the Word” (John 1:1); Almighty: “This says...He who is, and who is, and who is to come, is the Almighty” (Apoc. 1:8). This is how it is said that He is light: “I am,” he says, “light” (John 8:12); creative Guilt of everything: “all things were created by this” (John 1:3), and: “whatever I see the Father doing, that I also do” (John 5:19); eternal: “His ever-present power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20), and: “in the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1), and: “he is the true Light, which enlightens every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9); Lord: “the Lord wait... the bogey and the fire are from the Lord” (Gen. 19:24). And the Father says: “I am the Lord” (Mal. 3:6), and: “To this says the Lord God Almighty” (2 Kings 7:8); Paul says about the Son: “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, in whom are all things” (1 Cor. 8:6). The Father is served by Angels, and the Son is worshiped by them: “and let all the Angels of God worship Him” (Heb. 1, 6); It is said about Him that He is the Lord of Angels: “and the Angels... serve Him” (Matthew 4:11), and: “the Son of man shall follow His angels” (Matthew 24:31); that He is given honor as the Father; for He says: “yea... they honor the Son as they honor the Father” (John 5:23); that He is equal to God: “not by admiration is equal to being God” (Philip. 2, 6); that He is the Truth from the True, the Life is truly from the Father, as from the source; that the Son gives life and raises the dead, as the Father does; Psalm 49:1); and about the Son: “God is the Lord, and He will appear to us” (Psalm 117:27), and: “The God of gods will appear in Zion” (Psalm 83:8). And Isaiah also says about God: “Who is God, like You, putting away iniquity and forsaking wickedness” (Micah 7:18)? “Your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:5), and when the Jews grumbled, he himself proved that your sins were forgiven, saying to the paralytic: “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (Matthew 9:6). 1:17), and David sang about the Son: “Lift up your gates, O princes, and lift up the everlasting gates, and the King of glory will come in” (Psalm 23:7); and Daniel heard: “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Dan. 3:100), and: “His kingdom will not crumble” (Dan. 7:14). And in general, whatever you find said about the Father, you will find said about the Son, except for one thing, as noted, that He is not the Father. 50) And if someone, due to the equality of the predicates, imagines in thought a different beginning and a different Father; then this thought is insane. If, however, because the Son is from the Father, everything that belongs to the Father also belongs to the Son, as the image and likeness; then let us calmly consider: is an essence alien to the essence of the Father really acceptable for this, and is such a Son alien in nature and of another essence, and not consubstantial with the Father? It is dangerous that by transferring what is proper to the Father onto something unsuitable to Him, and by depicting the Divinity of the Father in something foreign and inessential, we should not introduce another alien essence into us, conveniently accepting the distinctive properties of the first essence, and not be ashamed by God himself, who said: “My glory will not be given to another” (Isa. 42:8), not to turn out to be worshipers of what is alien and not to fall under the judgment that we are the same as the Jews of that time, who said: “Why have You, this man, created God for Yourself” (John 10:33), and attributing what was characteristic of the Spirit to others, they blasphemed, saying: “Of Beelzebub... he will cast out demons” (Luke 11:15). If this is indecent, then it is clear that the Son is not dissimilar to the Father, but is consubstantial with Him. For if what belongs to the Father naturally belongs to the Son, and the Son himself is from the Father, and according to such unity of Divinity and nature, He and the Father are one, and he who sees the Son is seen as the Father; then rightly from the Fathers He is called consubstantial; because it is impossible for someone other than to have this. 51) And again: if, as we said before, He is not the Son by communion, but, just as everything created has grace from God by participation, so He is the Father’s Wisdom and the Word, and all things participate in Him; then it is clear that He, Who is the idolizing and enlightening Fatherly Power, and by Whom everything is adored and vivified, is not alien, but consubstantial with the Father. For by partaking of Him, we become partakers of the Father; because He is the Father's own Word. Why, if He were the Son by communion, and not the self-existent Divinity and image of the Father, He would not have adored, although He Himself is adored. For it is impossible for one who has the sacrament to pass on this sacrament to others; because what he has does not belong to him, but to Him who gave, and what he accepted, he accepted as barely sufficient grace for himself. However, let us examine for authenticity the reason why some, as they say, reject the saying: “consubstantial”—would it not most likely turn out from it that the Son is consubstantial with the Father? They say: “it is not necessary, as you wrote, to call the Son consubstantial with the Father, because he who calls consubstantial names three essences: a certain original essence and two descended from it, which are consubstantial”; and add: “if the Son is consubstantial with the Father, then an essence is necessary that would have existed initially, and from which They would have been born; and then one will not be the Father and the other the Son, but both will become brothers.” Although these are pagan interpretations, and we do not need to borrow from the pagans; However, let us consider: those who are of one essence, descended from a supposed essence and called brothers, are they of one essence with themselves, or with the essence from which they were born? If they are consubstantial with themselves, then they are different in essence with their parent essence and are not similar to it; because the consubstantial is opposed to the non-essential. If each of those born is consubstantial with the essence of their parent; then it is clear that what is begotten by someone is consubstantial with what begot it, and there is no need to look for three essences, but you only need to find out whether one is really from the other. Even if there are not two brothers, only one is born of that essence; then the one who is born cannot be called different in essence, because there is no other, but, being unique, he will be of the same essence as the one who gave birth. For what shall we say about Jephthah’s daughter, because she was the only begotten: “And he shall not,” it is said about Jephthah, “have a son or another daughter” (Judges 11:34), and about the widow’s son, whom the Lord raised from the dead; because he also had no brother, but was only begotten (Luke 7:12)? Was not each of them consubstantial with the one who gave birth? Of course there were; because they were children, and this is typical for children in relation to their parents. So the Fathers, having said that the Son of God is from essence, rightly called Him consubstantial; for radiance also has this significance in relation to light. And heretics should assert that creation did not come from nothing; because people who have given birth painfully produce something from a ready-made substance, but otherwise they cannot do anything. But if we imagine about God that He does not create in a human way, then it is all the more proper to imagine about God that He gives birth in a non-human way, and the phrase “consubstantial” should be understood not corporeally. Having removed ourselves from created things, and leaving behind human likenesses and in general everything sensible, we rise to the Father, so that, no matter how it is, we do not inconspicuously take the Son away from the Father and add Him to the creatures. 52) And on the other hand, if, confessing the Father and the Son, we name any two principles or two Gods, like Marcion and Valentinus, or we affirm that the Son has some other form of Divinity, and that the Son, although born of the Father, is not His image and mark: then let it be dissimilar; because such entities are completely alien to each other. But we know the one and only Divinity of the Father, we know that His Son is the Word and Wisdom, and believing so, we do not name two Gods, but we imagine the unity of the Son with the Father not in the likeness of teaching, but in essence and in truth itself; and therefore we do not name two Gods, but we say that, like light and radiance, there is one God and one Type of Divinity. It was he who appeared to the patriarch Jacob, and Scripture says: “The sun rose up to him when the sight of God passed away” (Gen. 32:31). Contemplating Him, and understanding Whose Son and Image He is, the Holy Prophets said: “The Word of the Lord came to me” (Isa. 38, 4; Jer. 1, 4, 11; Jer. 2, 1, etc.); Knowing that the Father is contemplated and revealed in Him, they dared to say: The God of our fathers appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Ex. 3:16). If this is so, then why should we be afraid to call the One who exists with the Father and who is the same as the Father, in the likeness and unity of the Divinity, consubstantial? For if, as has been repeatedly said, He does not have the property of the Father's essence, nor the likeness of the Son, then the fear is justified. If He is that which is most characteristic of the Father, the enlightening and creative Power, and without Him the Father does not create and is not known, everything will take place through Him and about Him; then why, understanding the truth itself, should we refuse to utter the utterance that signifies it? For what is so consubstantial with the Father as being consubstantial with Him? God did not accept a stranger’s son as having a need for a helper, and creatures are not equal in honor to the Creator, why one could honor them in the same way as Him, or think that they and the Father are one and the same. Or, let someone dare to divide and say that the sun and radiance are two lights, or that they have some other essence, or that radiance is accidental, and it is not a simple and pure generation of the sun, and therefore the sun and radiance are two things, but light, like the birth of the sun, is one. And since the nature of the Son and the Divinity of the Son are not accidental and even inseparable from the Father, but the Father’s Divinity is in the Son, and therefore whoever has seen the Son sees the Father in Him; then why not call such a Son consubstantial? 53) Although this is enough to convince you not to blame those who say that the Son is consubstantial with the Father; However, let us examine the phrase “consubstantial” taken in itself, in order to know whether there is a complete need for this phrase: “consubstantial,” is this the very proper phrase, and is it appropriately spoken of the Son? For you both know, and no one will doubt, that like is predicated like in relation not to essences, but to external appearance and qualities, and about essences what should be predicated is not likeness, but identity. A person is said to be similar to a person not in essence, but in appearance and facial features, but in essence they are one-natural. And yet, it does not say: man is not like a dog, but: he is different in nature. Consequently, what is one-natural is also of the same essence, and what is other-natural is also of another essence. Therefore, whoever calls something similar in essence calls it similar in participle; because likeness is a quality that can surpass essence: and this is characteristic of creatures; creatures by communion become like God; for it is said: when He appears, “we will be like Him” (1 John. 3:2), that is, they are similar not in essence, but in sonship, which they shared from Him. So, if he is called Son by communion, then let him be called similiar among you; but being called so, He is no longer Truth, and not Light at all, not God by nature. For those who are like in communion are not called like according to the truth itself, but according to the likeness of the truth, so that the communion may depart from those who partake and be taken away. And this again is characteristic of creatures and works. And therefore, if this is not consistent with anything; then He is not by communion, but by nature and truth, the Son, Light, Wisdom, God; being this by nature, and not by communion, in the proper sense it should be called not similar in essence, but consubstantial, which no one will say about others. For it has been proven that similarity does not apply to essences. Isn’t it foolish to apply to the Son with difficulty what is applied to Him, and not rather to call Him Consubstantial? 54) Therefore, the Council of Nicea wrote beautifully, as it was fitting to say, that the Son, born of the essence of the Father, is Consubstantial. Having learned this, we will not fight with the shadow, especially knowing that those who wrote this professed the faith with the intention not to reinterpret the truth, but to defend the truth and pious faith, and to destroy the Arian blasphemies against the Son. For we must not lose sight of and clearly understand that, by calling incongruous and alien, we do not mean the true Son, but one of the works, and the Son by appropriation, adopted, which is what the heretics want; By calling it indisputably consubstantial, we mean the most sincere Son, born of the Father, even though the opponents of Christ were more than once tormented by frustration. This, which I myself found out, and what I heard in the conversation of prudent men, I wrote briefly. And you, being on the basis of the Apostles, containing the traditions of the Fathers, pray that, finally, all strife and envy will cease, the violent questions of heretics and all disputes of words will be condemned, the malicious and murderous heresy of the Arians will be destroyed, and the truth will shine in the hearts of everyone, and that everyone everywhere will say the same thing and philosophize the same thing, and when there will be no more Arian blasphemies left, in the whole Church it was proclaimed and confessed: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5) in Christ Jesus our Lord; To them be the Father glory and power forever and ever! Amen. 55) After I wrote about the Councils, I learned that the most wicked Constantius wrote to the Bishops who were in Ariminum, and tried to get a list from the brethren and send you the Bishops with an answer, so that you would know both the evil trick of the King and the firmness and inflexibility of the Bishops in their opinion about the truth. Constantius the victor and triumphant Augustus to all the Bishops assembled in Ariminum. That we have always had special concern for the divine and revered law, this is not unknown to your kindness. But now they could not yet see the twenty Bishops sent from your prudence, who accepted your instructions; because the necessary campaign against the barbarians forced us to hasten; and as you yourself know, to engage in business that concerns the divine law requires a soul pure from all worries. Therefore, we ordered the Bishops to await our return in Adrianople, so that when all public affairs were settled well, we could already listen and judge what they would report to us. May it not seem burdensome to your firmness to wait for their return, so that when they return and bring you our answers, you can bring about an end that serves the benefit of the universal Church. The bishops received this with three messengers. We have received a letter from your love for mankind, Sovereign, most God-loving Tsar, which contains that, due to the insistence of public affairs, you were not able to see those sent by us; and you command us to wait for their return until your piety learns from them what we have determined, following our ancestors. But even now, with this letter, we inform and confirm that we will in no way deviate from our decision; We instructed those sent by us to prove this very thing. Therefore, we ask you to order with a calm gaze to read what has now been written by our measure, and also accept favorably what we have instructed to convey to our ambassadors. May your meekness consider with us what sorrow and what lamentation there is now, that in your happiest times so many churches do not have Bishops. And therefore, we also ask your love for mankind, Sovereign, most God-loving King, order us, if it pleases your piety, to return to our churches before the onset of the harsh winter, so that we can, together with the people for your kingdom, make the usual prayers to Almighty God, our Lord and Savior Christ, His only begotten Son, as we have always done and are now doing, without ceasing to pray. This cathedral took place in 359. You might be interested in: