8 This was the point on which the Semi-arians made their principal stand against the ‘‘one in essence,” though they also objected to it as being of a Sabellian character. E.g. Euseb. Demonstr. iv. 3. p. 148. d.p. 149. a, b. v. 1. pp. 213—215. contr. Marcell. i. 4. p. 20. Eccl. Theol. i. 12. p. 73. in laud. Const. p. 525. de Hide i. ap. Sirmond. tom. i. p. 7. de Fide ii. p. 16, and apparently his de Jncorforalz. And so the Semi-arians at Ancyra, Epiph. Her. 73. 11. p. 858. a, b. And so Meletius, ibid. p. 878 fin. and Cyril Hier. Catech. vii. 5. xi. 18. though of course Catholics would speak as strongly on this point as their opponents.
9 Here again Eusebius does not say ‘‘from the Father's es- sence,” but “‘not from other essence, but from the Father.” Ac- cording to note 5, supr. he considered the will of God a certain matter or substance. Montfaucon in loc. and Collect. Nov. Pref. p- xxvi. translates without warrant ‘‘ex Patris hypostasi et sub- stantia.” As to the Son’s perfect likeness to the Father which he seems here to grant, it has been already shewn, de Decr. 20, note 9, how the admission was evaded. The likeness was but a likeness after its own kind, as a picture is of the original. ‘Though our Saviour Himself teaches,” he says, ‘‘that the Father is the ‘only true God,’ still let me not be backward to confess Him also the true God, ‘as in an image,’ and that possessed; so that the addition of ‘only’ may belong to the Father alone as archetype of the image...As, supposing one king held sway, and his image was carried about into every quarter, no one in his right mind would say that those who held sway were two, but one who was honoured through his image; in like manner,” &c. de Eccles. Theol. ii. 23, vid. zbid. 7.
t Athanasius in like manner, ad A/vos. 6. speaks of ‘‘ testimony of ancient Bishops about 130 years since;” and in de Sym. § 43. of anathematism published by them at the end of the Faith, it did not pain us, because it forbade to use words not in Scripture, from which almost all the confusion and disorder of the Church have come. Since then no divinely inspired Scripture has used the phrases, “out of nothing,” and “once He was not,” and the rest which follow, there appeared no ground for using or teaching them; to which also we assented as a good decision, since it had not been our custom hitherto to use these terms.; 9. Moreover to anathematize “ Before His generation He was not,” did not seem prepos- terous, in that it is confessed by all, that the Son of God was before the generation accord- ing to the flesh ”. \ to. Nay, our most religious Emperor did at the time prove, in a speech, that He was in being even acccrding to His divine generation which is before all ages, since even before He was generated in energy, He was in virtue 3 with the Father ingenerately, the Father being always Father, as King always, and Saviour always, being all things in virtue, and being always in the same respects and in the same way.
11. This we have been forced to transmit to you, Beloved, as making clear to you the deliberation of our inquiry and assent, and how reasonably we resisted even to the last minute as long as we were offended at statements which differed from our own, but received with- out contention what no longer pained us, as soon as, on a candid examination of the sense of the words, they appeared to us to coincide with what we ourselves have professed in the faith which we have already published.
2 Socrates, who advocates the orthodoxy of Eusebius, leaves out this heterodox paragraph [§§ 9, 10] altogether. Bull, however, Defens. F. N. iii. 9. n. 3. thinks it an interpolation. Athanasius alludes to the early part of the clause, supr. § 4. and de Syx. § 13. where he says, that Eusebivs implied that the Arians denied even our Lord’s existence before His incarnation. As to Constantine, he seems to have been used on these occasions by the court Bishops who were his instructors, and who made him the organ of their own heresy. Upon the first rise of the Arian controversy he addressed a sort of pastoral letter to Alexander and Arius, telling them that they were disputing about a question of words, and recommending them to drop it and live together peaceably. Euseb. v7t. C. ii. 69. 72.
3 [Rather ‘ potentially’ both here and three lines below.] Theognis, [one] of the Nicene Arians, says the same, accord- ing to Philostorgius; viz. ‘‘that God even before He begat the Son was a Father, as having the power, dvvapts, of begetting.” Hist. ii. 15. ‘Though Bull pronounces such doctrine to be heretical, as of course it is, still he considers that it expresses what otherwise stated may be orthodox, viz. the doctrine that our Lord was called the Word from eternity, and the Son upon His descent to create the worlds. And he acutely and ingeniously interprets the Arian formula, ‘‘ Before His generation He was not,” to support this view. Another opportunity will occur of giving an opinion upon this question; meanwhile, the Zavadled on which the heretical doctrine is supported in the text is answered by many writers, on the ground that Father and Son are words of nature, but Creator, King, Saviour, are external, or what may be called accidental to Him. Thus Athanasius observes, that Father actually implies Son, but Creator only the power to create, as expressing a S¥vayis; “a maker is before his works, but he who says Father, forthwith in Father implies the existence of the Son.” Ovat. iii. § 6. vid. Cyril too, Dial. ii. p. 459. Pseudo-Basil, conty. Eun. iv. 1. fin. On the other hand Origen argues the reverse way, that since God is eter- nally a Father, therefore eternally Creator also: ‘‘ As one cannot be father without a son, nor lord without possession, so neither can “long before” the Council of Antioch, a.p. 269. viz. the Dionysii,| God be called All-powerful, without subjects of His power;” &c. vid. note on de Decr. 20.
de Princ. i. 2. n. 10. hence he argued for the eternity of matter, EVM eS Uo ae On the meaning of the phrase ¢& érépas irocracews 7) obaias an the Nicene Anathema.
BisHop Butt has made it a question, whether these words in the Nicene Creed mean the same thing, or are to be considered distinct from each other, advocating himself the latter opinion against Petavius. The history of the word irdésraovs is of too intricate a character to enter upon here; but a few words may be in place in illustration of its sense as it occurs in the Creed, and with reference to the view taken of it by the great divine, who has commented on it.: Bishop Bull, as I understood him (Defens. & UW. ii. 9. § 11.), considers that two distinct ideas are intended by the words otcia and tiréoraats, in the clause ¢& érépas imoardcews i) odoias; as if the Creed condemned those who said that the Son was not from the Father’s essence, and those also who said that He was not from the Father’s hypostasis or subsistence; as if a man might hold at least one of the two without holding the other. And in matter of fact, he does profess to assign two parties of heretics, who denied this or that proposition respectively.
Petavius, on the other hand (de Z7in. iv. 1.), considers that the word iméoracrs is but another term for otc/a, and that not two but one proposition is contained in the clause in question; the word imécraois not being publicly recognised in its present meaning till the Council of Alexandria, in the year 362. Coustant. (Zpist. Pont. Rom. pp. 274. 290. 462.) Tillemont (Memoires S. Denys. d’Alex. § 15.), Huet (Ovigenian. 11. 2. n. 3.), Thomassin (de Incarn. iii. t.), and Morinus (de Sacr. Ordin. ii. 6.), take substantially the same view; while Maranus (Pref. ad S. Basil. § 1. tom. 3. ed. Bened.), Natalis Alexander, Hist. (Sec. 1. Diss, 22. circ. fin.), Burton (Zestimonies to the Trinity, No. 71), and [Routh] (2eligu. Sacr. vol. iii. p. 189.), differ from Petavius, if they do not agree with Bull.
Bull’s principal argument lies in the strong fact, that S. Basil expressly asserts, that the Council did mean the two terms to be distinct, and this when he is answering the Sabellians, who grounded their assertion that there was but one tmdoracis, on the alleged fact that the Council had used otsia and indoracrs indifferently.
Bull refers also to Anastasius Hodeg. 21. (22. p. 343.?) who says, that the Nicene Fathers defined that there are three hypostases or Persons in the Holy Trinity. Petavius considers that he derived this from Gelasius of Cyzicus, a writer of no great authority; but, as the passage occurs in Anastasius, they are the words of Andrew of Samosata. But what is more important, elsewhere Anastasius quotes a passage from Amphilochius to something of the same effect. c. 10. p. 164. He states it besides himself, c. 9. p. 150. and C. 24. Pp. 364. In addition, Bull quotes passages from S. Dionysius of Alexandria, 5. Dionysius of Rome (vid. below, de Decr. 25—27 and notes), Eusebius of Czesarea, and afterwards Origen; in all of which three hypostases being spoken of, whereas antiquity, early or late, never Speaks in the same way of three ovcia, it is plain that trécracis then conveyed an idea which oveia did not. To these may be added a passage in Athanasius, 7 Lllud, Omnia, § 6.
4 [This excursus supports the view taken above, Prolegg. ch. ii. | head of that section of the Prolegg. The word ‘Semi-arian’ is (2) b3 the student should supplement Newman's discussion | used in a somewhat inexact sense in this excursus, sce Prolegg. by Zahn Marcellus and Harnack Dogmengesch. as quoted at the!ch. ii. § 3 (2) c, and § 8 (2) c.]
78 EXCURSUSTON? THESWORDSHYPOSTASIS Bishop Bull adds the following explanation of the two words as they occur in the Creed: he conceives that the one is intended to reach the Arians, and the other the Semi-arians; that the Semi-arians did actually make a distinction between ovoia and imécracts, admitting in a certain sense that the Son was from the imdoraois of the Father, while they denied that He was from His oteia. They then are anathematized in the words é& érépas ovoias; and, as he would seem to mean, the Arians in the é& érépas tmooraceas.
Now I hope it will not be considered any disrespect to so great an authority, if I differ from this view, and express my reasons for doing so.
1. First then, supposing his account of the Semi-arian doctrine ever so free from objection, granting that they denied the e& ovcias, and admitted the é& trocracews, yet who are they who, according to his view, dented the e& iroordcews, or said that the Son was ¢& érépas imoordoews? he does not assign any parties, though he implies the Arians. Yet though, as is notorious, they denied the ¢& otvias, there is nothing to shew that they or any other party of Arians maintained specifically that the Son was not [from] the éméoracts, or subsistence of the Father. That is, the hypothesis supported by this eminent divine does not answer the very question which it raises. It professes that those who denied the é€ iroardoews, were not the same as those who denied the ¢& otaias; yet it fails to tell us who did deny the é& imocrdcews, in a sense distinct from é& ovatas.
2. Next, his only proof that the Semi-arians did hold the ée& troordcews as distinct from the éé ovaias, lies in the circumstance, that the three (commonly called) Semi-arian confessions of A.D. 341, 344, 351, known as Mark’s of Arethusa [i.e. the ‘fourth Antiochene’], the Macros- tich, and the first Sirmian, anathematize those who say that the Son is ¢& érépas imoordcews kal py €k Tod Oeov, not anathematizing the éé érépas ovcias, which he thence infers was their own belief. Another explanation of this passage will be offered presently; meanwhile, it is well to observe, that Hilary, in speaking of the confession of Philippopolis which was taken from Mark’s, far from suspecting that the clause involved an omission, defends it on the ground of its retaining the Anathema (de Synod. 35.), thus implying that e& érépas troordcews Kal pr) ex Tod cod was equivalent to ¢& érépas bmoordcews 4 otaias. And it may be added, that Athanasius in like manner, in his account of the Nicene Council (de Decret. § 20. fin.), when repeating its anathema, drops the e& imoordcews altogether, and reads rovs 5€ Aéyovras && ovk dvrwv,...i} roinua, 7) €& érépas ovaias, TovTous dvabepariCer K. T. dr.
3. Further, Bull gives us no proof whatever that the Semi-arians dd deny the e& otcias; while it is very clear, if it is right to contradict so great a writer, that most of them did not deny it. He says that it is “ certissimum” that the heretics who wrote the three confessions above noticed, that is, the Semi-arians, ‘‘ wunguam fassos, nunquam fassuros fuisse filium é€ ovcias, e substantia, Patris progenitum.” His reason for not offering any proof for this naturally is, that Petavius, with whom he is in controversy, maintains it also, and he makes use of Petavius’s admission against himself. Now it may seem bold in a writer of this day to differ not only with Bull, but with Petavius; but the reason for doing so is simple; it is because Athanasius asserts the very thing which Petavius and Bull deny, and Petavius admits that he does; that is, he allows it by implication when he complains that Athanasius had not got to the bottom of the doctrine of the Semi-arians, and thought too favourably of them. ‘“ Horum Semi-arianorum, quorum antesignanus fuit Basilius Ancyre episcopus, prorsus obscura fuit heresis...ut ne ipse quidem Athanasius satis illam exploratam habuerit.” de Trin. i. x. § 7.
Now S. Athanasius’s words are most distinct and express; “ As to those who receive all else that was defined at Nicaea, but dispute about the ‘One in essence’ only, we must not feel as towards enemies...for, as confessing that the Son is from the essence of the Father and not of other subsistence, éx THs ovaias TOD matpds elvat, Kal py e& Erépas brooTdcews TOY QUOTES ts they are not far from receiving the phrase ‘One in essence’ also. Such is Basil of Ancyra, in what he has written about the faith” de Syn. § 41;—a passage, not only express for IN THE NICENE ANATHEMA. 79 the matter in hand, but remarkable too, as apparently using brdcracis and odcia as synonymous, which is the main point which Bull denies. What follows in Athanasius is equally to the purpose: he urges the Semi-arians to accept the épooveror, in consistency, decause they maintain the é ove/as and the éposotcwr would not sufficiently secure it.
Moreover Hilary, while defending the Semi-arian decrees of Ancyra or Sirmium, says expressly, that according to them, among other truths, “non creatura est Filius genitus, sed a natura Patris indiscreta substantia est.” de Sy. 27.
Petavius, however, in the passage to which Bull appeals, refers in proof of this view of Semi-arianism, to those Ancyrene documents, which Epiphanius has preserved, Her. 73. and which he considers to shew, that according to the Semi-arians the Son was not ef oteias roi matpés. He says, that it is plain from their own explanations that they considered our Lord to be, not ek ris oveias, but ex rijs éuournros (he does not say vrooraceas, aS Bull wishes) rod rarpds and that, évepyeia yevynrixy, which was one of the divine évépyeca, as creation, 4 kristi}, was another. Yet surely Epiphanius does not bear out this representation better than Athanasius; since the Semi-arians, whose words he reports, speak of “vidy éuovov kal kar’ obciav ex tod marpds, p. 825 b, as 7 copia rod codod vids, ovaia ovcias, Pp. 853 C, Kat ovoiay vidy Tod Oeod Kal marpos, p. 854 c, e€oveig dp0d kal obaia matpds povoyevods viod. p. 858 d, besides the strong word yvjows, ibid. and Athan. de Sy. § 41. not to insist on other of their statements.
The same fact is brought before us even in a more striking way in the conference at Con- stantinople, A.D. 360, before Constantius, between the Anomceans and Semi-arians, where the latter, according to Theodoret, shew no unwillingness to acknowledge even the dépoovcuor, because they acknowledge the e& otctas. When the Anomceans wished the former condemned, Silvanus of Tarsus said, “If God the Word be not out of nothing, nor a creature, nor of other essence, ovaias, therefore is He one in essence, dpoovotos, with God who begot Him, as God from God, and Light from Light, and He has the same nature with His Father.” 4 £. ii. 23. Here again it is observable, as in the passage from Athanasius above, that, while apparently reciting the Nicene Anathema, he omits e€ érépas troordceas, as if it were superfluous to mention a synonym.
At the same time there certainly is reason to suspect that the Semi-arians approximated towards orthodoxy as time went on; and perhaps it is hardly fair to determine what they held at Niczea by their statements at Ancyra, though to the latter Petavius appeals. Several of the most eminent among them, as Meletius, Cyril, and Eusebius of Samosata conformed soon after; on the other hand in Eusebius, who is their representative at Niczea, it will perhaps be difficult to find a clear admission of the e& ovolas. But at any rate he does not maintain the e& imo- ordocews, which Bull’s theory requires.
On various grounds then, because the Semi-arians as a body did not deny the e& ovcias, nor confess the é& froordoews, nor the Arians deny it, there is reason for declining Bishop Bulls explanation of these words as they occur in the Creed; and now let us turn to the consideration of the authorities on which that explanation rests, As to Gelasius, Bull himself does not insist upon his testimony, and Anastasius [about 700 A.D.] is too late to be of authority. The passage indeed which he quotes from Amphi- lochius is important, but as he was a friend of S. Basil, perhaps it does not very much increase the weight of S. Basil’s more distinct and detailed testimony to the same point, and no one can say that that weight is inconsiderable.
Yet there is evidence the other way which overbalances it. Bull, who complains of Petavius’s rejection of S. Basil’s testimony concerning a Council which was held before his birth, cannot maintain his own explanation of its Creed without rejecting Athanasius’s testimony respecting the doctrine of his contemporaries, the Semi-arians; and moreover the more abe evidence, as we shall see, of the Council of Alexandria, A.D. 362, S. Jerome, Basil of Ancyra, and Socrates.
80 EXCURSUS ON THE WORD HYPOSTASIS First, however, no better comment upon the sense of the Council can be required than the incidental language of Athanasius and others, who in a foregoing extract exchanges ovoia for inéoraots in a way which is natural only on the supposition that he used them as synonyms. Elsewhere, as we have seen, he omits the word # émoordcews in the Nicene Anathema, while Hilary considers the Anathema sufficient wth that omission.
In like manner Hilary expressly translates the clause in the Creed by ex altera substantia vel essentia. #vagm. ii. 27. And somewhat in the same way Eusebius says in his letter, ef érépas Twos Umoatacews TE Kal ovcias.
But further, Athanasius says expressly, ad A/ros, —‘‘ Hypostasis is essence, ovota, and means nothing else than simply being, which Jeremiah calls existence when he says,” &c. § 4. It is true, he elsewhere speaks of three Hypostases, but this only shews that he attached no fixed sense to the word [Rather, he abandons the latter usage in his middle and later writings.| This is just what I would maintain; its sense must be determined by the context; and, whereas it always stands in all Catholic writers for the Una Res (as the 4th Lateran speaks), which otefa denotes, when Athanasius says, “three hypostases,” he takes the word to mean ovoia in that particular sense in which it is three, and when he makes it synony- mous with ovcia, he uses it to signify Almighty God in that sense in which He is one.
Leaving Athanasius, we have the following evidence concerning the history of the word iméoracts. S. Jerome says, “The whole school of secular learning understanding nothing else by hypostasis than usia, essence,” £Z. xv. 4, where, speaking of the Three Hypostases he uses the strong language, “If you desire it, then be a mew faith framed after the Nicene, and let the orthodox confess in terms like the Arian.”
In like manner, Basil of Ancyra, George, and the other Semi-arians, say distinctly, “ This hypostasis our Fathers called essence,” oicia. Epiph. Mer. 74. 12. fin.; in accordance with which is the unauthorized addition to the Sardican Epistle, “trdécracw, hv avrot of aiperioi ovatay mpoaayopevovat.” Theod. 4. £. ii. 6.
If it be said that Jerome from his Roman connection, and Basil and George as Semi-arians, would be led by their respective theologies for distinct reasons thus to speak, it is true, and may have led them to too broad a statement of the fact; but then on the other hand it was in accordance also with the theology of S. Basil, so strenuous a defender of the formula of the Three Hypostases, to suppose that the Nicene Fathers meant to distinguish imécraois from ovoia in their anathema.
Again, Socrates informs us that, though there was some dispute about hypostasis at Alex- andria shortly before the Nicene Council, yet the Council itself “devoted not a word to the question,” A. £. iii. 7.; which hardly consists with its having intended to rule that éé érépas iroatdcews Was distinct from é€ érépas ovcias.
And in like manner the Council of Alexandria, A.D. 362, in deciding that the sense of Hypostasis was an open question, not only from the very nature of the case goes on the sup- position that the Nicene Council had not closed it, but says so in words again and again in its Synodal Letter. If the Nicene Council had already used “hypostasis” in its present sense, what remained to Athanasius at Alexandria but to submit to it?
Indeed the history of this Council is perhaps the strongest argument against the supposed: discrimination of the two terms by the Council of Nica. Bull can only meet it by considering that an innovation upon the “veterem vocabuli usum” began at the date of the Council of Sardica, though Socrates mentions the dispute as existing at Alexandria before the Nicene Council, 7. Z. iii. 4. 5. while the supposititious confession of Sardica professes to have received the doctrine of the one hypostasis by tradition as Catholic.
Nor is the use of the word in earlier times inconsistent with these testimonies; though it occurs so seldom, in spite of its being a word of S. Paul [i.e. Heb. i. 3], that testimony is our principal evidence. Socrates’ remarks deserve to be quoted; “Those among the Greeks who IN THE NICENE ANATHEMA. 81 have treated of the Greek philosophy, have defined essence, odcia, in many ways, but they had made no mention at all of hypostasis. Irenzeus the Grammarian, in his alphabetical Atticist, even calls the term barbarous; because it is not used by any of the ancients, and if anywhere found, it does not mean what it is now taken for. Thus in the Phoenix of Sophocles it means an ‘ambush;’ but in Menander, ‘preserves,’ as if one were to call the wine-lees in a cask “hypostasis.’ However it must be observed, that, in spite of the old philosophers being silent about the term, the more modern continually use it for essence, ovcias,” HW. &. iii. he ables word principally occurs in Origen among Ante-Nicene writers, and he, it must be confessed uses it, as far as the context decides its sense, to mean subsistence or person. In other words, it was the word of a certain school in the Church, which afterwards was accepted by the Church; but this proves nothing about the sense in which it was used at Nicaea. The three Hypostases are spoken of by Origen, his pupil Dionysius, as afterwards by Eusebius of Czesarea (though he may notwithstanding have considered hypostasis synonymous with essence), and Athanasius (Origen zz Joan. ii. 6. Dionys. ap. Basil de Sp. S. n. 72. Euseb. ap. Socr. i. 23. Athan. 7” //ud Omnia, &c. 6); and the Two Hypostases of the Father and the Son, by Origen, Ammonius, and Alexander (Origen ¢ Ce/s. viii. 2, Ammon. ap. Caten. in Joan. x. 30. Alex. ap.
Theod. i. 3. p. 740). As to the passage in which two hypostases are spoken of in Dionysius’ letter to Paul of Samosata, that letter certainly is not genuine, as might be shewn on a fitting occasion, though it is acknowledged by very great authorities.
I confess that to my mind there is an antecedent probability that the view which has here been followed is correct. Judging by the general history of doctrine, one should not expect that the formal ecclesiastical meaning of the word should have obtained everywhere so early. Nothing is more certain than that the doctrines themselves of the Holy Trinity and the Incar- nation were developed, or, to speak more definitely, that the propositions containing them were acknowledged, from the earliest times; but the particular terms which now belong to them are most uniformly of a later date. Ideas were brought out, but technical phrases did not obtain. Not that these phrases did not exist, but either not as technical, or in use in a particular School or Church, or with a particular writer, or as dmaé deydpeva, as words discussed, nay resisted, perhaps used by some local Council, and then at length accepted generally from their obvious propriety. Thus the words of the Schools pass into the service of the Catholic Church. Instead then of the word imdcracis being, as Maran says, received in the East “ summo consensu,” from the date of Noetus or at least Sabellius, or of Bull’s opinion “ apud Catholicos Dionysii state ratum et fixum illud fuisse, tres esse in divinis hypostases,” I would consider that the present use of the word was in the first instance Alexandrian, and that it was little more than Alexandrian till the middle of the fourth century.
Lastly, it comes to be considered how the two words are to be accounted for in the Creed, if they have not distinct senses. Coustant supposes that ¢é& odotas was added to explain e€ imoardcews, lest the latter should be taken in a Sabellian sense. On which we may perhaps remark besides, that the reason why tmdaraots was selected as the principal term was, that it was agreeable to the Westerns as well as admitted by the Orientals. Thus, by way of contrast, we find the Second General Council, at which there were no Latins, speaking of Three Hypostases, and Pope Damasus and the Roman Council speaking a few years sooner of the Holy Ghost as of the same hypostasis and usia with the Father and the Son. Theod. H. E. ii. 17. Many things go to make this probable. For instance, Coustant acutely points out, though Maran and the President of Magdalen [Routh, Rel. Sac. iii. 383] dissent, that this probably was a point of dispute between the two Dionysii; the Bishop of Alexandria asserting, as we know he did assert, Three Hypostases, the Bishop of Rome protesting in reply against “Three partitive Hypostases,” as involving tritheism, and his namesake rejoining, “If because there are Three Hypostases, any say thatthey are partitive, three there are, though they like it not.” Again, the influence of the West shews itself in the language of Athanasius, who, VOL. IV. G 82 EXCURSUS ON-THE WOKD HYPOSTASIS, Ete.
contrary to the custom of his Church, of Origen, Dionysius, and his own immediate patron and master Alexander, so varies his own use of the word, as to make his writings almost an example of that freedom which he vindicated in the Council of Alexandria. Again, when Hosius went to Alexandria before the Nicene Council, and a dispute arose with reference to Sabellianism about the words indoraois and ovcia, what is this too, but the collision of East and West? It should be remembered moreover that Hosius presided at Niczea, a Latin- in an Eastern city; and again at Sardica, where, though the decree in favour of the One Hypostasis was not passed, it seems clear from the history that he was resisting persons with whom in great measure he agreed. Further, the same consideration accounts for the omission of the éé ovetas from the Confession of Mark and the two which follow, on which Bull relies in proof that the Semi-arians rejected this formula. These three Semi-arian Creeds, and these only, were addressed to the Latins, and therefore their compilers naturally select that synonym which was most pleasing to them, as the means of securing a hearing; just as Athanasius on the other hand in his de Decretis, writing to the Greeks, omits éroardcews and writes ovelas.
toe eg Oe eles ial @)ee tag lade) oll, THE date of this highly interesting document is quite uncertain, but there is every ground for placing it earlier than the explicitly anti-Arian treatises. Firstly, the absence of any express reference to the controversy against Arians, while yet it is clearly in view in §§ 3 and 4, which lay down the rule afterwards consistently adopted by Athanasius with regard to texts which speak of the Saviour as created. Secondly, the untroubled use of 8uous (§ 1, note 4) to express the Son’s relation to the Father. Thirdly, the close affinity of this Statement to the Sermo Major de Fide which in its turn has very close points of contact with the pre-Arian treatises. But see Prolegg. ch. iii. § 1 (37).
If we are to hazard a conjecture, we may see in this “éOeous” a statement of faith published by Athanasius upon his accession to the Episcopate, a.p. 328. The statement proper (Hahn § 119) consists of § 1. §§ 2—4 are an explanatory comment insisting on the distinct Existence of the Son, and on His essential uncreatedness.
The translation which follows has been carefully compared with one made by the late Prof. Swainson in his work on the Creeds, pp. 73—76. Dr. Swainson there refers to a former ‘imperfect and misleading’ translation (in Irons’ Athanasius contra Mundum) which the present editor has not seen. Dr. Swainson expresses doubts as to the Athanasian authorship of the Ecthesis, but without any cogent reason. The only point of importance is one which acquaintance with the usual language of Athanasius shews to make distinctly in favour of, and not against, the genuineness of this little tract. Three times in the course of it the Human Body, or Humanity of the Lord is spoken of as 6 Kupiakds dvOpwmes. Dr. Swainson exaggerates the strangeness of the expression by the barbarous rendering ‘ Zord/y man’ (How would he translate kupiaxdy Seimvov?). But the phrase certainly requires explanation, although the explanation is not difficult. (1) It is quoted by Facundus of Hermiane from the present work (Def. Tr. Cap. xi. 5), and by Rufinus from an unnamed work of Athanasius (‘libellus’), probably the present one. Moreover, Athanasius himself uses the phrase, frequently in the Sermo Major de Fide, and in his exposition of Psalm xl. (xli.), Epiphanius uses it at least twice (Ancor. 78 and 95); and from these Greek Fathers the phrase (‘ Dominicus Homo’) passed on to Latin writers such as Cassian and Augustine (below, note 5), who, however, subsequently cancelled his adoption of the expression (Zefr. I. xix. 8). The phrase, therefore, is not to be objected to as un-Athanasian. In fact (2) it is founded upon the profuse and characteristic use by Ath. of the word dvOpemos to designate the manhood of our Lord (see Orat. ¢c. Ar. i. 41, 45, il. 45, note 2. Dr. Swainson appears unaware of this in his unsatisfactory paragraph p. 77, lines 14 and foll.). If the human nature of Christ may be called dépemos (x Tim. ii. 5) at all, there is no difficulty in its being called 6 dv6p. rod cwrjpos (Serm. M. de F. 24 and 30), or kupsakds dvOpenos, a phrase equated with 7d [kuptaxdy] cpa in Serm. M. de EF. 19 and 28—31 (see also a discussion in Thilo Athan. Opp. Dogm. select. p, 2). This use of the word a@pemos, if carelessly employed, might lend itself to a Nestorian sense. But Athanasius does not employ it carelessly, nor in an ambiguous context; although of course he might have used different language had he foreseen the controversies of the fifth cen- tury. At any rate, enough has been said to shew that its use in the present treatise does not expose its genuineness to cavil.
STATEMENT OF FAITH.
1. WE believe in one Unbegotten9 God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself. And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced * nor mental, nor an effluence? of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue3; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful (Heb. iv. 12), the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’ (Joh. v. 23): very God of very God, as John says in his general Epistles, ‘And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and everlasting life’ (1 Joh. v. 20): Almighty of