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Valentinian ordered a council to be held in Illyricum and sent to the
disputants the decrees ratified by the bishops there assembled. They
had decided to hold fast the creed put forth at Nicaea and the emperor
himself wrote to them, associating his brother with him in the
dispatch, urging that the decrees be kept.
The edict clearly proclaims the piety of the emperor and similarly
exhibits the soundness of Valens in divine doctrines at that time. I
shall therefore give it in full. The mighty emperors, ever august,
augustly victorious, Valentinianus, Valens, and Gratianus, to the
bishops of Asia, Phrygia, Carophrygia Pacatiana, greeting in the
Lord.
A great council having met in Illyricum, after much discussion
concerning the word of salvation, the thrice blessed bishops have
declared that the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is of
one substance. This Trinity they worship, in no wise remitting the
service which has duly fallen to their lot, the worship of the great
King. It is our imperial will that this Trinity be preached, so
that none may say "We accept the religion of the sovereign who rules
this world without regard to Him who has given us the message of
salvation," for, as says the gospel of our God which contains this
judgment, "we should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's
and to God the things that are God's."
What say you, ye bishops, ye champions of the Word of salvation?
If these be your professions, thus then continue to love one another,
and cease to abuse the imperial dignity. No longer persecute those who
diligently serve God, by whose prayers both wars cease upon the
earth, and the assaults of apostate angels are repelled. These
striving through supplication to repel all harmful demons both know how
to pay tribute as the law enjoins, and do not gainsay the power of
their sovereign, but with pure minds both keep the commandment of the
heavenly King, and are subject to our laws. But ye have been shewn
to be disobedient. We have tried every expedient but you have given
yourselves up. We however wish to be pure from you, as Pilate at the
trial of Christ when He lived among us, was unwilling to kill Him,
and when they begged for His death, turned to the East, asked water
for his hands and washed his hands, saying I am innocent of the blood
of this righteous man.
Thus our majesty has invariably charged that those who are working in
the field of Christ are not to be persecuted, oppressed, or ill
treated; nor the stewards of the great King driven into exile; lest
today under our Sovereign you may seem to flourish and abound, and
then together with your evil counsellor trample on his covenant, as in
the case of the blood of Zacharias, but he and his were destroyed by
our Heavenly King Jesus Christ after His coming, being delivered
to death's judgment, they and the deadly fiend who abetted them. We
have given these orders to Amegetius, to Ceronius to Damasus, to
Lampon and to Brentisius by word of mouth, and we have sent the
actual decrees to you also in order that you nay know what was enacted
in the honourable synod.
To this letter we subjoin the decrees of the synod, which are briefly
as follows.
In accordance with the great and orthodox synod we confess that the
Son is of one substance with the Father. And we do not so understand
the term 'of one substance' as some formerly interpreted it who signed
their names with reigned adhesion; nor as some who now-a-days call
the drafters of the old creed Fathers, but make the meaning of the
word of no effect, following the authors of the statement that "of one
substance" means "like," with the understanding that since the Son
is comparable to no one of the creatures made by Him, He is like to
the Father alone. For those who thus think irreverently define the
Son "as a special creation of the Father," but we, with the
present synods, both at Rome and in Gaul, hold that there is one and
the same substance of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in three
persons, that is in three perfect essences. And we confess,
according to the exposition of Nicaea, that the Son of God being of
one substance, was made flesh of the Holy Virgin Mary, and hath
tabernacled among men, and fulfilled all the economy for our sakes in
birth, in passion, in resurrection, and in ascension into Heaven;
and that He shall come again to render to us according to each man's
manner of life, in the day of judgment, being seen in the flesh, and
showing forth His divine power, being God bearing flesh, and not man
bearing Godhead.
Them that think otherwise we damn, as we do also them that do not
honestly damn him that said that before the Son was begotten He was
not, but wrote that even before He was actually begotten He was
potentially in the Father. For this is true in the case of all
creatures, who are not for ever with God in the sense in which the
Son is ever with the Father, being begotten by eternal generation.
Such was the short summary of the emperor. I will now subjoin the
actual dispatch of the synod.
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