{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/204/2040160.htm","path":"chr/ecf/204/2040160.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/204/2040160.htm","text":"p. 74 Council of Nic\u00e6a.\nLetter of Eusebius of C\u00e6sarea to the people of his Diocese 413 .\n1. What was transacted concerning ecclesiastical faith at the Great Council assembled at Nic\u00e6a, you have probably learned, Beloved, from other sources, rumour being wont to precede the accurate account of what is doing. But lest in such reports the circumstances of the case have been misrepresented, we have been obliged to transmit to you, first, the formula of faith presented by ourselves, and next, the second, which [the Fathers] put forth with some additions to our words. Our own paper, then, which was read in the presence of our most pious 414 Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable, ran thus:\u2014\n2. \u201cAs we have received from the Bishops who preceded us, and in our first catechisings, and when we received the Holy Laver, and as we have learned from the divine Scriptures, and as we believed and taught in the presbytery, and in the Episcopate itself, so believing also at the time present, we report to you our faith, and it is this 415 :\u201d\u2014\n3. \u201cWe believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God from God, Light from Light, Life from Life, Son Only-begotten, first-born of every creature, before all the ages, begotten from the Father, by Whom also all things were made; Who for our salvation was made flesh, and lived among men, and suffered, and rose again the third day, and ascended to the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the quick and dead. And we believe also in One Holy Ghost:\u201d\n\u201cbelieving each of these to be and to exist, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son, and the Holy Ghost truly Holy Ghost, as also our Lord, sending forth His disciples for the preaching, said, \u201cGo teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 416 .\u201d Concerning Whom we confidently affirm that so we hold, and so we think, and so we have held aforetime, and we maintain this faith unto the death, anathematizing every godless heresy. That this we have ever thought from our heart and soul, from the time we recollect ourselves, and now think and say in truth, before God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ do we witness, being able by proofs to shew and to convince you, that, even in times past, such has been our belief and preaching.\u201d\n4. On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious Emperor, before any one else, testified that it comprised most orthodox statep. 75 ments. He confessed moreover that such were his own sentiments, and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word, One-in-essence, which moreover he interpreted as not in the sense of the affections of bodies, nor as if the Son subsisted from the Father in the way of division, or any severance; for that the immaterial, and intellectual, and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any corporeal affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And such were the theological remarks of our most wise and most religious Emperor; but they, with a view 417 to the addition of One in essence, drew up the following formula:\u2014\nThe Faith dictated in the Council.\n\u201cWe believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible:\u201d\u2014\n\u201cAnd in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, Very God from Very God, begotten not made, One in essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things in earth; Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and cometh to judge quick and dead.\u201d\n\u201cAnd those who say, \u2018Once He was not,\u2019 and \u2018Before His generation He was not,\u2019 and \u2018He came to be from nothing,\u2019 or those who pretend that the Son of God is \u2018Of other subsistence or essence 418 ,\u2019 or \u2018created\u2019 or \u2018alterable,\u2019 or \u2018mutable,\u2019 the Catholic Church anathematizes.\u201d\n5. On their dictating this formula, we did not let it pass without inquiry in what sense they introduced \u201cof the essence of the Father,\u201d and \u201cone in essence with the Father.\u201d Accordingly questions and explanations took place, and the meaning of the words underwent the scrutiny of reason. And they professed, that the phrase \u201cof the essence\u201d was indicative of the Son\u2019s being indeed from the Father, yet without being as if a part of Him. And with this understanding we thought good to assent to the sense of such religious doctrine, teaching, as it did, that the Son was from the Father, not however a part of His essence 419 . On this account we assented to the sense ourselves, without declining even the term \u201cOne in essence,\u201d peace being the object which we set before us, and stedfastness in the orthodox view.\n6. In the same way we also admitted \u201cbegotten, not made;\u201d since the Council alleged that \u201cmade\u201d was an appellative common to the other creatures which came to be through the Son, to whom the Son had no likeness. Wherefore, say they, He was not a work resembling the things which through Him came to be 420 , but was of an essence which is too high for the level of any work; and which the Divine oracles teach to have been generated from the Father 421 , the mode of generation being inscrutable and incalculable to every originated nature.\n7. And so too on examination there are p. 76 grounds for saying that the Son is \u201cone in essence\u201d with the Father; not in the way of bodies, nor like mortal beings, for He is not such by division of essence, or by severance, no, nor by any affection, or alteration, or changing of the Father\u2019s essence and power 422 (since from all such the unoriginate nature of the Father is alien), but because \u201cone in essence with the Father\u201d suggests that the Son of God bears no resemblance to the originated creatures, but that to His Father alone Who begat Him is He in every way assimilated, and that He is not of any other subsistence and essence, but from the Father 423 . To which term also, thus interpreted, it appeared well to assent; since we were aware that even among the ancients, some learned and illustrious Bishops and writers 424 have used the term \u201cone in essence,\u201d in their theological teaching concerning the Father and Son.\n8. So much then be said concerning the faith which was published; to which all of us assented, not without inquiry, but according to the specified senses, mentioned before the most religious Emperor himself, and justified by the forementioned considerations. And as to the anathematism published by them at the end of the Faith, it did not pain us, because it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from which almost all the confusion and disorder of the Church have come. Since then no divinely inspired Scripture has used the phrases, \u201cout of nothing,\u201d and \u201conce He was not,\u201d and the rest which follow, there appeared no ground for using or teaching them; to which also we assented as a good decision, since it had not been our custom hitherto to use these terms.\n9. Moreover to anathematize \u201cBefore His generation He was not,\u201d did not seem preposterous, in that it is confessed by all, that the Son of God was before the generation according to the flesh 425 .\n10. Nay, our most religious Emperor did at the time prove, in a speech, that He was in being even according to His divine generation which is before all ages, since even before He was generated in energy, He was in virtue 426 with the Father ingenerately, the Father being always Father, as King always, and Saviour always, being all things in virtue, and being always in the same respects and in the same way.\n11. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberation of our inquiry and assent, and how reasonably we resisted even to the last minute as long as we were offended at statements which differed from our own, but received without contention what no longer pained us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves have professed in the faith which we have already published.\nThis Letter is also found in Socr. H. E. i. 8. Theod. H. E. i. Gelas. Hist. Nic. ii. 34. p. 442. Niceph. Hist. viii. 22.\n74:414\nAnd so infr. \u201cmost pious,\u201d \u00a74. \u201cmost wise and most religious,\u201d ibid. \u201cmost religious,\u201d \u00a78. \u00a710. Eusebius observes in his Vit. Const. the same tone concerning Constantine, and assigns to him the same office in determining the faith (being as yet unbaptized). E.g. \u201cWhen there were differences between persons of different countries, as if some common bishop appointed by God, he convened Councils of God\u2019s ministers; and not disdaining to be present and to sit amid their conferences,\u201d &c. i. 44. When he came into the Nicene Council, \u201cit was,\u201d says Eusebius, \u201cas some heavenly Angel of God,\u201d iii. 10. alluding to the brilliancy of the imperial purple. He confesses, however, he did not sit down until the Bishops bade him. Again at the same Council, \u201cwith pleasant eyes looking serenity itself into them all, collecting himself, and in a quiet and gentle voice\u201d he made an oration to the Fathers upon peace. Constantine had been an instrument in conferring such vast benefits, humanly speaking, on the Christian Body, that it is not wonderful that other writers of the day besides Eusebius should praise him. Hilary speaks of him as \u201cof sacred memory,\u201d Fragm. v. init. Athanasius calls him \u201cmost pious,\u201d Apol. contr. Arian. 9; \u201cof blessed memory,\u201d ad Ep. \u00c6g. 18. 19. Epiphanius \u201cmost religious and of ever-blessed memory,\u201d H\u00e6r. 70. 9. Posterity, as was natural, was still more grateful.\n74:415\n\u201cThe children of the Church have received from their holy Fathers, that is, the holy Apostles, to guard the faith; and withal to deliver and preach it to their own children\u2026.Cease not, faithful and orthodox men, thus to speak, and to teach the like from the divine Scriptures, and to walk, and to catechise, to the confirmation of yourselves and those who hear you; namely, that holy faith of the Catholic Church, as the holy and only Virgin of God received its custody from the holy Apostles of the Lord; and thus, in the case of each of those who are under catechising, who are to approach the Holy Laver, ye ought not only to preach faith to your children in the Lord, but also to teach them expressly, as your common mother teaches, to say: \u2018We believe in One God,\u2019\u201d &c. Epiph. Ancor. 119 fin., who thereupon proceeds to give at length the [so-called] Constantinopolitan Creed. And so Athan. speaks of the orthodox faith, as \u201cissuing from Apostolical teaching and the Fathers\u2019 traditions, and confirmed by New and Old Testament.\u201d Letter 60. 6. init. Cyril Hier. too as \u201cdeclared by the Church and established from all Scripture.\u201d Cat. v. 12. \u201cLet us guard with vigilance what we have received\u2026What then have we received from the Scriptures but altogether this? that God made the world by the Word,\u201d &c., &c. Procl. ad Armen. p. 612. \u201cThat God, the Word, after the union remained such as He was, &c., so clearly hath divine Scripture, and moreover the doctors of the Churches, and the lights of the world taught us.\u201d Theodor. Dial. 3 init. \u201cThat it is the tradition of the Fathers is not the whole of our case; for they too followed the meaning of Scripture, starting from the testimonies, which just now we laid before you from Scripture.\u201d Basil de Sp. \u00a716. vid. also a remarkable passage in de Synod. \u00a76 fin. infra.\n74:416 75:417\n[Or, \u2018taking the addition as their pretext.\u2019]\n75:418\nThe only clauses of the Creed which admit of any question in their explanation, are the \u201cHe was not before His generation,\u201d and \u201cof other subsistence or essence.\u201d Of these the former shall be reserved for a later part of the volume; the latter is treated of in a note at the end of this Treatise [see Excursus A.].\n75:419\nEusebius does not commit himself to any positive sense in which the formula \u201cof the essence\u201d is to be interpreted, but only says what it does not mean. His comment on it is \u201cof the Father, but not as a part;\u201d where, what is not negative, instead of being an explanation, is but a recurrence to the original words of Scripture, of which \u1f10\u03be \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 itself is the explanation; a curious inversion. Indeed it is very doubtful whether he admitted the \u1f10\u03be \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 at all. He says, that the Son is not like the radiance of light so far as this, that the radiance is an inseparable accident of substance, whereas the Son is by the Father\u2019s will, \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, Demonstr. Ev. iv. 3. And though he insists on our Lord being alone, \u1f10\u03ba \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6, yet he means in the sense which Athan. refutes, supr. \u00a76, viz. that He alone was created immediately from God, vid. next note 6. It is true that he plainly condemns with the Nicene Creed the \u1f10\u03be \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd of the Arians, \u201cout of nothing,\u201d but an evasion was at hand here also; for he not only adds, according to Arian custom, \u201cas others\u201d (vid. note following) but he has a theory that no being whatever is out of nothing, for non-existence cannot be the cause of existence. God, he says, \u201cproposed His own will and power as \u2018a sort of matter and substance\u2019 of the production and constitution of the universe, so that it is not reasonably said, that any thing is out of nothing. For what is from nothing cannot be at all. How indeed can nothing be to any thing a cause of being? but all that is, takes its being from One who only is, and was, who also said \u2018I am that I am.\u2019\u201d Demonstr. Ev. iv. 1. Again, speaking of our Lord, \u201cHe who was from nothing would not truly be Son of God, \u2018as neither is any other of things generate.\u2019\u201d Eccl. Theol. i. 9 fin. [see, however, D.C.B. ii. p. 347].\n75:420\nEusebius distinctly asserts, Dem. Ev. iv. 2, that our Lord is a creature. \u201cThis offspring,\u201d he says, \u201cdid He first produce Himself from Himself as a foundation of those things which should succeed, the perfect handy-work, \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c1\u03b3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, of the Perfect, and the wise structure, \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, of the Wise,\u201d &c. Accordingly his avowal in the text is but the ordinary Arian evasion of \u201can offspring, not as the offsprings.\u201d E.g. \u201cIt is not without peril to say recklessly that the Son is originate out of nothing \u2018similarly to the other things originate.\u2019\u201d Dem. Ev. v. 1. vid. also Eccl. Theol. i. 9. iii. 2. And he considers our Lord the only Son by a divine provision similar to that by which there is only one sun in the firmament, as a centre of light and heat. \u201cSuch an Only-begotten Son, the excellent artificer of His will and operator, did the supreme God and Father of that operator Himself first of all beget, through Him and in Him giving subsistence to the operative words (ideas or causes) of things which were to be, and casting in Him the seeds of the constitution and governance of the universe;\u2026Therefore the Father being One, it behoved the Son to be one also; but should any one object that He constituted not more, it is fitting for such a one to complain that He constituted not more suns, and moons, and worlds, and ten thousand other things.\u201d Dem. Ev. iv. 5 fin. vid. also iv. 6.\n75:421\nEusebius does not say that our Lord is \u201cfrom the essence of\u201d the Father, but has \u201can essence from\u201d the Father. This is the Semi-arian doctrine, which, whether confessing the Son from the essence of the Father or not, implied that His essence was not the Father\u2019s essence, but a second essence. The same doctrine is found in the Semi-arians of Ancyra, though they seem to have confessed \u201cof the essence.\u201d And this is one object of the \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, to hinder the confession \u201cof the essence\u201d from implying a second essence, which was not obviated or was even encouraged by the \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd. The Council of Ancyra, quoting the text \u201cAs the Father hath life in Himself so,\u201d &c., says, \u201csince the life which is in the Father means essence, and the life of the Only-begotten which is begotten from the Father means essence, the word \u2018so\u2019 implies a likeness of essence to essence.\u201d H\u00e6r. 73. 10 fin. Hence Eusebius does not scruple to speak of \u201ctwo essences,\u201d and other writers of three essences, contr. Marc. i. 4. p. 25. He calls our Lord \u201ca second essence.\u201d Dem. Ev. vi. Pr\u00e6f. Pr\u00e6p. Ev. vii. 12. p. 320, and the Holy Spirit a third essence, ibid. 15. p. 325. This it was that made the Latins so suspicions of three hypostases, because the Semi-arians, as well as they, understood \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 to mean essence [but this is dubious]. Eusebius in like manner [after Origen] calls our Lord \u201canother God,\u201d \u201ca second God.\u201d Dem. Ev. v. 4. p. 226. v. fin. \u201csecond Lord.\u201d ibid. 3 init. 6. fin. \u201csecond cause.\u201d Dem. Ev. v. Pr\u00e6f. vid. also \u1f15\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1fbd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, Dem. Ev. v. 1. p. 215. \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u1fbd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. ibid. iv. 3. And so \u1f15\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1. Eccl. Theol. i. 60. p. 90. and \u03b6\u03c9\u1f74\u03bd \u1f30\u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd. ibid. and \u03b6\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f51\u03c6\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u1f7c\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd \u1f14\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. ibid. Hence Athan. insists so much, as in de Decr., on our Lord not being external to the Father. Once admit that He is in the Father, and we may call the Father, the only God, for He is included. And so again as to the Ingenerate, the term does not exclude the Son, for He is generate in the Ingenerate.\n76:422\nThis was the point on which the Semi-arians made their principal stand against the \u201cone in essence,\u201d though they also objected to it as being of a Sabellian character. E.g. Euseb. Demonstr. iv. 3. p. 148. d.p. 149. a, b. v. 1. pp. 213\u2013215. contr. Marcell. i. 4. p. 20. Eccl. Theol. i. 12. p. 73. in laud. Const. p. 525. de Fide i. ap. Sirmond. tom. i. p. 7. de Fide ii. p. 16, and apparently his de Incorporali. And so the Semi-arians at Ancyra Epiph. H\u00e6r. 73. 11. p. 858. a, b. And so Meletius ibid. p. 878 fin. and Cyril Hier. Catech. vii. 5. xi. 18. though of course Catholics would speak as strongly on this point as their opponents.\n76:423\nHere again Eusebius does not say \u201cfrom the Father\u2019s essence,\u201d but \u201cnot from other essence, but from the Father.\u201d According to note 5, supr. he considered the will of God a certain matter or substance. Montfaucon in loc. and Collect. Nov. Pr\u00e6f. p. xxvi. translates without warrant \u201cex Patris hypostasi et substanti\u00e2.\u201d As to the Son\u2019s perfect likeness to the Father which he seems here to grant, it has been already shewn, de Decr. 20, note 9, how the admission was evaded. The likeness was but a likeness after its own kind, as a picture is of the original. \u201cThough our Saviour Himself teaches,\u201d he says, \u201cthat the Father is the \u2018only true God,\u2019 still let me not be backward to confess Him also the true God, \u2018as in an image,\u2019 and that possessed; so that the addition of \u2018only\u2019 may belong to the Father alone as archetype of the image.\u2026As, supposing one king held sway, and his image was carried about into every quarter, no one in his right mind would say that those who held sway were two, but one who was honoured through his image; in like manner,\u201d &c. de Eccles. Theol. ii. 23, vid. ibid. 7.\n76:424\nAthanasius in like manner, ad Afros. 6. speaks of \u201ctestimony of ancient Bishops about 130 years since;\u201d and in de Syn. \u00a743. of \u201clong before\u201d the Council of Antioch, a.d. 269. viz. the Dionysii, &c. vid. note on de Decr. 20.\n76:425\nSocrates, who advocates the orthodoxy of Eusebius, leaves out this heterodox paragraph [\u00a7\u00a79, 10] altogether. Bull, however, Defens. F. N. iii. 9. n. 3. thinks it an interpolation. Athanasius alludes to the early part of the clause, supr. \u00a74. and de Syn. \u00a713. where he says, that Eusebius implied that the Arians denied even our Lord\u2019s existence before His incarnation. As to Constantine, he seems to have been used on these occasions by the court Bishops who were his instructors, and who made him the organ of their own heresy. Upon the first rise of the Arian controversy he addressed a sort of pastoral letter to Alexander and Arius, telling them that they were disputing about a question of words, and recommending them to drop it and live together peaceably. Euseb. vit. C. ii. 69. 72.\n76:426\n[Rather \u2018potentially\u2019 both here and three lines below.] Theognis, [one] of the Nicene Arians, says the same, according to Philostorgius; viz. \u201cthat God even before He begat the Son was a Father, as having the power, \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2, of begetting.\u201d Hist. ii. 15. Though Bull pronounces such doctrine to be heretical, as of course it is, still he considers that it expresses what otherwise stated may be orthodox, viz. the doctrine that our Lord was called the Word from eternity, and the Son upon His descent to create the worlds. And he acutely and ingeniously interprets the Arian formula, \u201cBefore His generation He was not,\u201d to support this view. Another opportunity will occur of giving an opinion upon this question; meanwhile, the parallel on which the heretical doctrine is supported in the text is answered by many writers, on the ground that Father and Son are words of nature, but Creator, King, Saviour, are external, or what may be called accidental to Him. Thus Athanasius observes, that Father actually implies Son, but Creator only the power to create, as expressing a \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2; \u201ca maker is before his works, but he who says Father, forthwith in Father implies the existence of the Son.\u201d Orat. iii. \u00a76. vid. Cyril too, Dial. ii. p. 459. Pseudo-Basil, contr. Eun. iv. 1. fin. On the other hand Origen argues the reverse way, that since God is eternally a Father, therefore eternally Creator also: \u201cAs one cannot be father without a son, nor lord without possession, so neither can God be called All-powerful, without subjects of His power;\u201d de Princ. i. 2. n. 10. hence he argued for the eternity of matter.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. IV: Letter of Eusebius. (Epistola Eusebii.): Letter of Eusebius. (Epistola Eusebii.)","type":"page"}