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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 36
31. However, they did not stand even to this: for coming down from Constantinople to Antioch, they were dissatisfied that they had written at all that the Son was 'Like the Father, as the Scriptures say;' and putting their ideas upon paper [3597] , they began reverting to their first doctrines, and said that 'the Son is altogether unlike the Father,' and that the 'Son is in no manner like the Father,' and so much did they change, as to admit those who spoke the Arian doctrine nakedly and to deliver to them the Churches with licence to bring forward the words of blasphemy with impunity [3598] . Because then of the extreme shamelessness of their blasphemy they were called by all Anomoeans, having also the name of Exucontian [3599] , and the heretical Constantius for the patron of their irreligion, who persisting up to the end in irreligion, and on the point of death, thought good to be baptized [3600] ; not however by religious men, but by Euzoius [3601] , who for his Arianism had been deposed, not once, but often, both when he was a deacon, and when he was in the see of Antioch.
32. The forementioned parties then had proceeded thus far, when they were stopped and deposed. But well I know, not even under these circumstances will they stop, as many as have now dissembled, [3602] but they will always be making parties against the truth, until they return to themselves and say, 'Let us rise and go to our fathers, and we will say unto them, We anathematize the Arian heresy, and we acknowledge the Nicene Council;' for against this is their quarrel. Who then, with ever so little understanding, will bear them any longer? who, on hearing in every Council some things taken away and others added, but perceives that their mind is shifty and treacherous against Christ? who on seeing them embodying to so great a length both their professions of faith, and their own exculpation, but sees that they are giving sentence against themselves, and studiously writing much which may be likely by their officious display and abundance of words to seduce the simple and hide what they are in point of heresy? But as the heathen, as the Lord said, using vain words in their prayers (Mat. vi. 7), are nothing profited; so they too, after all this outpouring, were not able to quench the judgment pronounced against the Arian heresy, but were convicted and deposed instead; and rightly; for which of their formularies is to be accepted by the hearer? or with what confidence shall they be catechists to those who come to them? for if they all have one and the same meaning, what is the need of many? But if need has arisen of so many, it follows that each by itself is deficient, not complete; and they establish this point better than we can, by their innovating on them all and remaking them. And the number of their Councils, and the difference of their statements is a proof that those who were present at them, while at variance with the Nicene, are yet too feeble to harm the Truth.
[3597] 11th Confession at Antioch, a.d. 361. [Socr. ii. 45. The occasion was the installation of Euzoius in place of Meletius.]
[3598] Acacius, Eudoxius, and the rest, after ratifying at Constantinople the Creed framed at Nike and subscribed at Ariminum, appear next at Antioch a year and a half later, when they throw off the mask, and, avowing the Anomoean Creed, 'revert,' as S. Athanasius says, 'to their first doctrines,' i.e. those with which Arius started.
[3599] From ex ouk onton, 'out of nothing,' one of the original Arian positions concerning the Son. Theodoret says that they were also called Hexakionitae, from the nature of their place of meeting, Haer. iv. 3. and Du Cange confirms it so far as to show that there was a place or quarter of Constantinople Hexakionium. [Cf. Soph. Lex. s.v.]
[3600] This passage shews that Athanasius did not insert these sections till two years after the composition of the work itself; for Constantine died a.d. 361.
[3601] Euzoius, now Arian Bishop of Antioch, was excommunicated with Arius in Egypt and at Nicaea, and was restored with him to the Church at the Council of Jerusalem.
[3602] hupekrinanto. Hypocrites is almost a title of the Arians (with an apparent allusion to 1 Tim. iv. 2. vid. Socr. i. p. 5, Orat. i. S:8).
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=36
