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AFTER the lapse of about three years from the events above
recorded, the Eastern bishops again assembled a Synod, and having
composed another form of faith, they transmitted it to those in Italy
by the hands of Eudoxius, at that time bishop of Germanicia, and
Martyrius, and Macedonius, who was bishop of Mopsuestia in
Cilicia. This expression of the Creed, being written in more
lengthy form. contained many additions to those which had preceded it,
and was set forth in these words:
'We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator and
Maker of all things, of whom the whole family in heaven and upon earth
is named; and in his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who
was begotten of the Father before all ages; God of God; Light of
Light; through whom all things in the heavens and upon the earth,
both visible and invisible, were made: who is the Word, and
Wisdom, and Power, and Life, and true Light: who in the last
days for our sake was made man, and was born of the holy virgin; who
was crucified, and died, and was buried, and rose again from the dead
on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right
hand of the Father, and shall come at the consummation of the ages,
to judge the living and the dead, and to render to every one according
to his works: whose kingdom being perpetual shall continue to infinite
ages; for he sits at the right hand of the Father, not only in this
age, but also in that which is to come. We believe also in the Holy
Spirit, that is, in the Comforter, whom the Lord according to his
promise sent to his apostles after his ascension into heaven, to teach
them and bring all things to their remembrance, through whom also the
souls of those who sincerely believe on him are sanctified. But those
who assert that the Son was made of things not in being, or of another
substance, and not of God, or that there was a time or age when he
did not exist, the holy Catholic Church accounts as aliens. The
holy and catholic Church likewise anathematizes those also who say that
there are three Gods, or that Christ is not God before all ages, or
that he is neither Christ, nor the Son of God, or that the same
person is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or that the Son was not
begotten, or that the Father begat not the Son by his own will or
desire. Neither is it safe to affirm that the Son had his existence
from things that were not, since this is nowhere declared concerning
him in the divinely inspired Scriptures. Nor are we taught that he
had his being from any other pre-exist-ing substance besides the
Father, but that he was truly begotten of God alone; for the Divine
word teaches that there is one unbegotten principle without beginning,
the Father of Christ. But those who unauthorized by Scripture
rashly assert that there was a time when he was not, ought not to
preconceive any antecedent interval of time, but God only who without
time begat him; for both times and ages were made through him. Yet it
must not be thought that the Son is co-inoriginate, or co-unbegotten
with the Father: for there is properly no father of the
co-inoriginate or co-unbegotten. But we know that the Father alone
being inoriginate and incomprehensible, has ineffably and
incomprehensibly to all begotten, and that the Son was begotten before
the ages, but is not unbegotten like the Father, but has a
beginning, viz. the Father who begat him, for "the head of Christ
is God." Now although according to the Scriptures we acknowledge
three things or persons, viz. that of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, we do not on that account make three Gods:
since we know that that there is but one God perfect in himself,
unbegotten, inoriginate, and invisible, the God and Father of the
only-begotten, who alone has existence from himself, and alone
affords existence abundantly to all other things. But neither while we
assert that there is one God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the only-begotten, do we therefore deny that Christ is God
before the ages, as the followers of Paul of Samosata do, who affirm
that after his incarnation he was by exaltation deified, in that he was
by nature a mere man. We know indeed that he was subject to his God
and Father: nevertheless he was begotten of God, and is by nature
true and perfect God, and was not afterwards made God out of man;
but was for our sake made man out of God, and has never ceased to be
God. Moreover we execrate and anathematize those who falsely style
him the mere unsubstantial word of God, having existence only in
another, either as the word to which utterance is given, or as the
word conceived in the mind: and who pretend that before the ages he was
neither the Christ, the Son of God, the Mediator, nor the Image
of God; but that he became the Christ, and the Son of God, from
the time he took our flesh from the virgin, about four hundred years
ago. For they assert that Christ had the beginning of his kingdom
from that time, and that it shall have an end after the consummation of
all things and the judgment. Such persons as these are the followers
of Marcellus and Photinus, the Ancyro-Galatians, who under
pretext of establishing his sovereignty, like the Jews set aside the
eternal existence and deity of Christ, and the perpetuity of his
kingdom. But we know him to be not simply the word of God by
utterance or mental conception, but God the living Word subsisting of
himself; and Son of God and Christ; and who did, not by presence
only, co-exist and was conversant with his Father before the ages,
and ministered to him at the creation of all things, whether visible or
invisible, but was the substantial Word of the Father, and God of
God: for this is he to whom the Father said, "Let, us make man in
our image, and according to our likeness:" who in his own person
appeared to the fathers, gave the law, and spake by the prophets; and
being at last made man, he manifested his Father to all men, and
reigns to endless ages. Christ has not attained any new dignity; but
we believe that he was perfect from the beginning, and like his Father
in all things; and those who say that the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, are the same person, impiously supposing the three names to
refer to one and the same thing and person, we deservedly expel from
the church because by the incarnation they render the Father, who is
incomprehensible and insusceptible of suffering, subject to
comprehension and suffering. Such are those denominated Patropassians
among the Romans, and by us Sabellians. For we know that the
Father who sent, remained in the proper nature of his own immutable
deity; but that Christ who was sent, has fulfilled the economy of the
incarnation. In like manner those who irreverently affirm that Christ
was begotten not by the will and pleasure of his Father; thus
attributing to God an involuntary necessity not springing from choice,
as if he begat the Son by constraint, we consider most impious and
strangers to the truth because they have dared to determine such things
respecting him as are inconsistent with our common notions of God, and
are contrary indeed to the sense of the divinely-inspired Scripture.
For knowing that God is self-dependent and Lord of himself we
devoutly maintain that of his own volition and pleasure he begat the
Son. And while we reverentially believe what is spoken Concerning
him; "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways on account of
his works": yet we do not suppose that he was made similarly to the
creatures or works made by him. For it is impious and repugnant to the
church's faith to compare the Creator with the works created by him;
or to imagine that he had the same manner of generation as things of a
nature totally different from himself: for the sacred Scriptures teach
us that the alone only-begotten Son was really and truly begotten.
Nor when we say that the Son is of himself, and lives and subsists in
like manner to the Father, do we therefore separate him from the
Father, as if we supposed them dissociated by the intervention of
space and distance in a material sense. For we believe that they are
united without medium or interval, and that they are incapable of
separation from each other: the whole Father embosoming the Son; and
the whole Son attached to and eternally reposing in the Father's
bosom. Believing, therefore, in the altogether perfect and most holy
Trinity, and asserting that the Father is God, and that the Son
also is God, we do not acknowledge two Gods, but one only, on
account of the majesty of the Deity, and the perfect blending and
union of the kingdoms: the Father ruling over all things universally,
and even over the Son himself; the Son being subject to the Father,
but except him, ruling over all things which were made after him and by
him; and by the Father's will bestowing abundantly on the saints the
grace of the Holy Spirit. For the Sacred Oracles inform us that in
this consists the character of the sovereignty which Christ exercises.
'We have been compelled, since the publication of our former
epitome, to give this more ample exposition of the creed; not in order
to gratify a vain ambition, but to clear ourselves from all strange
suspicion respecting our faith which may exist among those who are
ignorant of our real sentiments. And that the inhabitants of the West
may both be aware of the shameless misrepresentations of the heterodox
party; and also know the ecclesiastical opinion of the Eastern bishops
concerning Christ, confirmed by the unwrested testimony of the
divinely-inspired Scriptures, among all those of unperverted
minds.'
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