{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/210/2100184.htm","path":"chr/ecf/210/2100184.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/210/2100184.htm","text":"The author distinguishes the faith from the errors of Pagans, 1670 Jews, and Heretics, and after explaining the significance of the names \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cLord,\u201d shows clearly the difference of Persons in Unity of Essence. 1671 In dividing the Essence, the Arians not only bring in the doctrine of three Gods, but even overthrow the dominion of the Trinity.\n6. Now this is the declaration of our Faith, that we say that God is One, neither dividing His Son from Him, as do the heathen, 1672 nor denying, with the Jews, that He was begotten of the Father before all worlds, 1673 and afterwards born of the Virgin; nor yet, like Sabellius, 1674 confounding the Father with the Word, and so maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same Person; nor again, as doth Photinus, 1675 holding that the Son first came into existence in the Virgin\u2019s womb: nor believing, with Arius, 1676 in a number of diverse Powers, 1677 and so, like the benighted heathen, making out more than one God. For it is written: \u201cHear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.\u201d 1678\n7. For God and Lord is a name of majesty, a name of power, even as God Himself saith: \u201cThe Lord is My name,\u201d 1679 and as in another place the prophet declareth: \u201cThe Lord Almighty is His name.\u201d 1680 God is He, therefore, and Lord, either because His rule is over all, or because He beholdeth all things, and is feared by all, without difference. 1681\n8. If, then, God is One, one is the name, p. 203 one is the power, of the Trinity. Christ Himself, indeed, saith: \u201cGo ye, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.\u201d 1682 In the name, mark you, not in the names.\u201d 1683\n9. Moreover, Christ Himself saith: \u201cI and the Father are One.\u201d 1684 \u201cOne,\u201d said He, that there be no separation of power and nature; but again, \u201cWe are,\u201d that you may recognize Father and Son, forasmuch as the perfect Father is believed to have begotten the perfect Son, 1685 and the Father and the Son are One, not by confusion of Person, but by unity of nature. 1686\n10. We say, then, that there is one God, not two or three Gods, this being the error into which the impious heresy of the Arians doth run with its blasphemies. For it says that there are three Gods, in that it divides the Godhead of the Trinity; whereas the Lord, in saying, \u201cGo, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,\u201d hath shown that the Trinity is of one power. We confess Father, Son, and Spirit, understanding in a perfect Trinity both fulness of Divinity and unity of power. 1687\n11. \u201cEvery kingdom divided against itself shall quickly be overthrown,\u201d saith the Lord. Now the kingdom of the Trinity is not divided. If, therefore, it is not divided, it is one; for that which is not one is divided. The Arians, however, would have the kingdom of the Trinity to be such as may easily be overthrown, by division against itself. But truly, seeing that it cannot be overthrown, it is plainly undivided. For no unity is divided or rent asunder, and therefore neither age nor corruption has any power over it. 1688\nOr \u201cGentiles.\u201d The Christians regarded themselves as placed in the world much as the Hebrews had been planted in the midst of the \u201cnations round about.\u201d\n202:1671\nThe Latin word is natura, which, at first sight, seems less abstruse and metaphysical than the Greek \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, or \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, or the Latin essentia and substantia, though it is not really so. A man\u2019s natura, nature, is what he is at and from the beginning; \u201cchange of nature\u201d means not an absolute change, but a reformation, a new guidance and treatment of tendencies, passions, powers\u2014some receiving a precedence denied them before, others being suppressed and put in subjection. So God\u2019s \u201cnature\u201d is what He is from and to all eternity, in Himself, unchangingly and unchangeably.\n202:1672\nLit. \u201cthe nations\u201d\u2014gentes, \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f14\u03b8\u03bd\u03b7. The Romans of the Republic used to speak of foreign peoples\u2014especially if subject to kings\u2014as gentes exter\u00e6, in contradistinction to the Populus Romanus. St. Ambrose of course means those who still clung to the ancient religions, who were foreigners to the commonwealth (res publica) of the Church.\n202:1673\nThe original is ante tempora\u2014\u201cbefore the ages\u201d\u2014\u201cbefore time was.\u201d Cf. 1 Cor. 8:6, Phil. 2:6, Col. 1:15 (\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2\u2014\u201cfirst-born of all creation,\u201d which Justin Martyr interprets as meaning \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 \u03c0\u1f70\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u2014\u201cbefore all created things.\u201d) Heb. 1:1, Rev. 1:8, 18, John 1:1. Justin Martyr, Apology, II. 6; Dialogue with Tryphon, 61. Tempora answers to the Greek \u03b1\u1f30\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2, rendered \u201cworlds\u201d in Heb. i. 2.\n202:1674\nSabellius was a presbyter in the Libyan Pentapolis (Barca), who came to Rome and there ventilated his heretical teaching, early in the third century, a.d. (about 210). He appears to have maintained that there was no real distinction of Persons in the Godhead. God, he said, was one individual Person: when different divine Persons were spoken of, no more was meant than different aspects of, or the assumption of different parts by, the same subject. Sabellius thus started from the ordinary usages of the term \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd as denoting (1) a mask, (2) a character or part in a drama. The Latin persona was used in the same way. Sabellianism never counted many adherents; its professors were called Patripassians, because their doctrine was tantamount to asserting that God the Father was crucified.\n202:1675\nPhotinus was a Galatian, who became Bishop of Sirmium (Mitrovitz in Slavonia) in the fourth century. He taught that Jesus Christ did not exist before His mother Mary, but was begotten of her by Joseph. The man Jesus, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, was enlightened and guided by the influence of the Logos, or Divine Reason, whereby He became the Son of God, preeminent over all other prophets and teachers.\n202:1676\nArius was a presbyter of Alexandria; the origin of his heresy, however, is, as Cardinal Newman has shown, to be sought in Syria rather than in Egypt, in the sophistic method of the Antiochene schools more than in the mysticism of the Alexandrian. It was in the year 319 that Arius began to attract attention by his heterodox teaching, which led eventually to his excommunication. He found favour, however, with men of considerable importance in the Church, such as Eusebius of C\u00e6sarea in Palestine, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Athanasius of Anazarbus, and others. The question was finally discussed in a synod of bishops convened, on the summons of the Emperor Constantine, at Nic\u00e6a in Bithynia. The acts of that Council condemned Arianism\u2014notwithstanding which, the heresy prevailed in the East till the reign of Theodosius the Great (379\u2013395 a.d.); and having won the acceptance of the Goths, it was predominant in Gaul and Italy during the fifth century, and in Spain till the Council of Toledo (589 a.d.), and its influence affected Christian thought for centuries afterwards\u2014possibly it is not even yet dead.\nArius urged the following dilemma: \u201cEither the Son is an original Divine Essence; if so we must acknowledge two Gods. Or He was created, formed, begotten; if so, He is not God in the same sense as the Father is God.\u201d Arius himself chose the latter alternative, which St. Ambrose regarded as a lapse into paganism, with its \u201cgods many and lords many,\u201d dii majores and dii minores, and divinities begotten of gods and goddesses.\nArius\u2019s errors are summarized in the anathema appended to the original Nicene Creed. \u201cBut those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that He had no existence before He was begotten, or that He was formed of things non-existent, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different substance or essence, or is created, mutable, or variable, these men the Catholic and Apostolic Church of God holds accursed.\u201d\n202:1677\nCompare Eph. 1:21, Col. 1:16. Hierarchies of \u201cThrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,\u201d were characteristic features of the Gnostic systems of the second century. The Gnostics generally thought that the world had been created by an inferior, secondary, limitary power, identified with the God of the Old Testament, whom they distinguished from the true Supreme God.\n202:1678\nThe A.V. of 1611 runs thus: \u201cHear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord\u201d (Jahveh our God is one Jahveh).\n202:1679 202:1680\n\u201cEgo Dominus; hoe est nomen meum.\u201d\u2014Vulg., Is. xlii. 8. \u201cI am the Lord, that is My name.\u201d\u2014A.V. 1611, ibid.\n202:1681\nThe word \u0398\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, \u201cGod,\u201d is derived by most authorities from \u03b8\u03b5\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, which means \u201cto look upon.\u201d Here we have another derivation suggested, viz., from \u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2, \u201cfear,\u201d on this ground that God inspires fear.\u2014H. Neither derivation is correct. The best perhaps is given by Herodotus (II. 52), viz., from the verb \u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9, to place, set, array, the idea being that God is the principal of all order and law.\n203:1682\nS. Matt. xxviii. 19.\n203:1683\nA similar argument in Gal. iii. 16.\n203:1684\nS. John x. 30.\n203:1685\nCf. S. Matt. v. 48.\n203:1686 203:1687\nOr \u201cperfect fulness of Divinity, and perfect unity of power.\u201d\n203:1688\nS. Matt. 12:25, Ps. 2:25, Dan. 4:3.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. X: Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons.: Chapter I. The author distinguishes the faith from the errors of Pagans, Jews, and Heretics, and after explaining the significance of the names \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cLord,\u201d shows clearly the difference of Persons in Unity of Essence. In dividing the Essence, the Arians not only bring in the doctrine of three Gods, but even overthrow the dominion of the Trinity.","type":"page"}