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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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128 Pages (Part I)
Page 124
It may be well to add a few words upon the supposed Coptic acts of this council, and upon their connection with the very ancient Syntagma Doctrinae, wrongly so named, and wrongly ascribed to Athanasius. These 'acts' are in reality a series of documents consisting of (1) The Nicene Creed, Canons, and Signatures; (2) A Coptic recension of the Syntagma Doctrinae; (3) the letter of Paulinus from Tom. Ant., sub fin., a letter of Epiphanius, and a fragmentary letter of 'Rufinus,' i.e. Rufinianus (see infr. p. 566, note 1). Revillout, who published these texts from a Turin and a Roman (Borgia) manuscript in 1881 (Le Concile de Nicee d'apres les textes Coptes) jumped (Archives des missions scientifiques et litteraires, 1879) at the conclusion that the whole series emanated from the council of 362, from whose labours all our copies of the Nicene canons and signatures are supposed by him to emanate. His theory cannot be discussed at length in this place. It is worked out with ingenuity, but with insufficient knowledge of general Church history. It appears to be adopted wholesale by Eichhorn in his otherwise critical and excellent Athanasii de vita ascetica testimonia (see below, p. 189); but even those whose scepticism has not been awaked by the hypothesis itself must I think be satisfied by the careful study of M. Batiffol (Studia Patristica, fasc. ii.) that Revillout has erected a castle in the air. Of any 'acts' of the Council of 362 the documents contain no trace at all. It is therefore out of place to do more than allude here to the great interest of the Syntagma in its three or four extant recensions in connection at once with the history of Egyptian Monasticism and with the literature of the Didache ton ib' apostolon (see Harnack in Theol. Litzg. 1887, pp. 32, sqq., Eichhorn, ib. p. 569, Warfield in Andover Review, 1886, p. 81, sqq., and other American literature referred to by Harnack a.a.O).
All over the Empire the exiles were returning, and councils were held (p. 489), repudiating the Homoean formula of union, and affirming that of Nicaea. In dealing with the question of those who had formerly compromised themselves with Arianism, these councils followed the lead of that of Alexandria, which accordingly is justly said by Jerome (adv. Lucif. 20) to have snatched the world from the jaws of Satan, by obviating countless schisms and attaching to the Church many who might otherwise have been driven back into Arianism.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism.asp?pg=124
