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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 84 Pages
Page 61
Letter LIX.--To Epictetus.
To my Lord, beloved brother, and most-longed-for fellow-minister Epictetus [4700] , Athanasius greeting in the Lord. I thought that all vain talk of all heretics, many as they may be, had been stopped by the Synod which was held at Nicaea. For the Faith there confessed by the Fathers according to the divine Scriptures is enough by itself at once to overthrow all impiety, and to establish the religious belief in Christ. For this reason at the present time, at the assembling of diverse synods, both in Gaul and Spain, and great Rome [4701] , all who came together, as though moved by one spirit, unanimously anathematised those who still were secretly holding with Arius, namely Auxentius of Milan, Ursacius, Valens, and Gaius of Pannonia. And they wrote everywhere, that, whereas the above-said were devising the names of synods to cite on their side, no synod should be cited in the Catholic Church save only that which was held at Nicaea, which was a monument of victory over all heresy, but especially the Arian, which was the main reason of the synod assembling when it did. How then, after all this, are some attempting to raise doubts or questions? If they belong to the Arians, this is not to be wondered at, that they find fault with what was drawn up against themselves, just as the Gentiles when they hear that 'the idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands [4702] ,' think the doctrine of the divine Cross folly. But if those who desire to reopen everything by raising questions belong to those who think they believe aright, and love what the fathers have declared, they are simply doing what the prophet describes, giving their neighbour turbid confusion to drink [4703] , and fighting about words to no good purpose, save to the subversion of the simple.
[4700] Of Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, nothing else is known. This letter reflects the uncertainty, which attended the victory of the Nicene Creed, as to the relation of the Historical Christ to the Eternal Son. The questions raised at Corinth were those which troubled the Eastern Church generally, and which came to a head in the system of Apollinarius, whose distinctive tenet, however, is not mentioned in this letter. Persons anxious to place the Nicene doctrine in intelligible connection with the matter of the Gospel Narrative had debated the question before Epictetus, and with deference to his ruling. Their tentative solutions (S:2 infr.) fall into two classes, both of which, in attempting to solve the problem, proceed upon the assumption incidentally combated by Athan., that the Manhood of Christ was a Hypostasis or Person, which if invested with Divine attributes, would introduce a fourth hypostatic entity into the Trinity. To avoid this, one class identified the Logos and the ,'Anthropos, either by assuming that the Logos was changed into flesh, or that the flesh was itself non-natural and of the Divine Essence. The other class excluded the Man Jesus from the Trinity, explaining His relation to God on the lines of Photinus or the later Nestorians. Both alternatives are already glanced at (supr. p. 485) by the Council of 362. In the present case, both classes of suggestions seem to have been made tentatively and bona fide (S:12). The letter must have been written before the two books against Apollinarianism, which (if genuine) fall about 372. Its more exact date depends on the identification of the Councils referred to in S:1 (nun genomenon), and is therefore very doubtful. At any rate Apollinarianism proper is not alluded to, and Apollinarius is said to have expressed to Serapion of Thmuis his high opinion of our Letter (see Letter 54, note 1). It was much quoted in the Christological controversies of the next 80 years, e.g. by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, by Theodoret, Cyril, and Leo the Great (see Migne xxvi. 1050; Bright, Later Treatises, pp. 43 sq., and D.C.B. s.v. Epictetus and Apollinaris the younger).
[4701] Are these those referred to in the letter to Ruf., and held a.d. 362-3, or are they to be identified with one or other of those held under Damasus (see Introd. to ad Afros.)?
[4702] Ps. cxv. 4.
[4703] Hab. ii. 15, LXX.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/letters-2.asp?pg=61
