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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 19
16. And what they wrote by letter to the blessed Alexander, the Bishop, runs as follows:--
To Our Blessed Pope [3509] and Bishop, Alexander, the Presbyters and Deacons send health in the Lord.
Our faith from our forefathers, which also we have learned from thee, Blessed Pope, is this:--We acknowledge One God, alone Ingenerate, alone Everlasting, alone Unbegun, alone True, alone having Immortality, alone Wise, alone Good, alone Sovereign; Judge, Governor, and Providence of all, unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of Law and Prophets and New Testament; who begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom He has made both the ages and the universe; and begat Him, not in semblance, but in truth; and that He made Him subsist at His own will, unalterable and unchangeable; perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures; offspring, but not as one of things begotten; nor as Valentinus pronounced that the offspring of the Father was an issue [3510] ; nor as Manichaeus taught that the offspring was a portion of the Father, one in essence [3511] ; or as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, speaks of a Son-and-Father [3512] ; nor as Hieracas, of one torch from another, or as a lamp divided into two [3513] ; nor that He who was before, was afterwards generated or new-created into a Son [3514] , as thou too thyself, Blessed Pope, in the midst of the Church and in session hast often condemned; but, as we say, at the will of God, created before times and before ages, and gaining life and being from the Father, who gave subsistence to His glories together with Him. For the Father did not, in giving to Him the inheritance of all things, deprive Himself of what He has ingenerately in Himself; for He is the Fountain of all things. Thus there are Three Subsistences. And God, being the cause of all things, is Unbegun and altogether Sole, but the Son being begotten apart from time by the Father, and being created and founded before ages, was not before His generation, but being begotten apart from time before all things, alone was made to subsist by the Father. For He is not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has He His being together with the Father, as some speak of relations [3515] , introducing two ingenerate beginnings, but God is before all things as being Monad and Beginning of all. Wherefore also He is before the Son; as we have learned also from thy preaching in the midst of the Church. So far then as from God He has being, and glories, and life, and all things are delivered unto Him, in such sense is God His origin. For He is above Him, as being His God and before Him. But if the terms 'from Him,' and 'from the womb,' and 'I came forth from the Father, and I am come [3516] ' (Rom. xi. 36; Ps. cx. 3; John xvi. 28), be understood by some to mean as if a part of Him, one in essence or as an issue, then the Father is according to them compounded and divisible and alterable and material, and, as far as their belief goes, has the circumstances of a body, Who is the Incorporeal God.
This is a part of what Arius and his fellows vomited from their heretical hearts.
[3509] [The ordinary title of eminent bishops, especially of the bishop of Alexandria.]
[3510] What the Valentinian probole was is described in Epiph. Haer. 31, 13 [but see D.C.B. iv. 1086 sqq.] Origen protests against the notion of probole, Periarch. iv. p. 190, and Athanasius Expos. S:1. The Arian Asterius too considers probole to introduce the notion of teknogonia, Euseb. contr. Marc. i. 4. p. 20. vid. also Epiph. Haer. 72. 7. Yet Eusebius uses the word proballesthai. Eccl. Theol. i. 8. On the other hand Tertullian uses it with a protest against the Valentinian sense. Justin has problethen gennema, Tryph. 62. And Nazianzen calls the Almighty Father proboleus of the Holy Spirit. Orat. 29. 2. Arius introduces the word here as an argumentum ad invidiam. Hil. de Trin. vi. 9.
[3511] The Manichees adopting a material notion of the divine substance, considered that it was divisible, and that a portion of it was absorbed by the power of darkness.
[3512] huiopatora. The term is ascribed to Sabellius, Ammon. in Caten. Joan. i. 1. p. 14: to Sabellius and [invidiously to] Marcellus, Euseb. Eccl. Theol. ii. 5: Cf., as to Marcellus, Cyr. Hier. Catech. xv. 9. also iv. 8. xi. 16; Epiph. Haer. 73. 11 fin.: to Sabellians, Athan. Expos. Fid. 2. and 7, and Greg. Nyssen. contr. Eun. xii. p. 733: to certain heretics, Cyril. Alex. in Joann. p. 243: to Praxeas and Montanus, Mar. Merc. p. 128: to Sabellius, Caesar. Dial. i. p. 550: to Noetus, Damasc. Haer. 57.
[3513] [On Hieracas, see D.C.B. iii. 24; also Epiph. Haer. 67; Hil. Trin. vi. 12.]
[3514] Bull considers that the doctrine of such Fathers is here spoken of as held that our Lord's sunkatabasis to create the world was a gennesis, and certainly such language as that of Hippol. contr. Noet. S:15. favours the supposition. But one class of [Monarchians] may more probably be intended, who held that the Word became the Son upon His incarnation, such as Marcellus, vid. Euseb. Eccles. Theol. i. 1. contr. Marc. ii. 3. vid. also Eccles. Theol. ii. 9. p. 114 b. med' allote allen k.t.l. Also the Macrostich says, 'We anathematize those who call Him the mere Word of God, not allowing Him to be Christ and Son of God before all ages, but from the time He took on Him our flesh: such are the followers of Marcellus and Photinus, &c.' infr. S:26. Again, Athanasius, Orat. iv. 15, says that, of those who divide the Word from the Son, some called our Lord's manhood the Son, some the two Natures together, and some said 'that the Word Himself became the Son when He was made man.' It makes it more likely that Marcellus is meant, that Asterius seems to have written against him before the Nicene Council, and that Arius in other of his writings borrowed from Asterius. vid. de Decret. S:8.
[3515] Eusebius's letter to Euphration, which is mentioned just after, expresses this more distinctly--'If they coexist, how shall the Father be Father and the Son Son? or how the One first, the Other second? and the One ingenerate and the other generate?' Acta Conc. 7. p. 301. The phrase ta pros ti Bull well explains to refer to the Catholic truth that the Father or Son being named; the Other is therein implied without naming. Defens. F. N. iii. 9. S:4. Hence Arius, in his Letter to Eusebius, complains that Alexander says, aei ho theos, aei ho hui& 231;s hama pater, hama hui& 231;s. Theod. H. E. i. 4.
[3516] heko, and so Chrys. Hom. 3. Hebr. init. Epiph. Haer. 73. 31, and 36.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=19
