Fourth Century Christianity

Fragment 182: To the most pious and loving Nicetas Augustus Jovianus. Athanasius and the other bishops, after coming from the face of all the bishops from Egypt and Thebes and Libya.

Seemly for the God-loved king is the policy of being eager to learn and the longing for the heavens. For in this way you will truly have your heart in the hand of God and keep the kingdom in peace for many periods of years. Now since your Piety wanted to learn from us the faith of the catholic church, we gave thanks for this lord and wanted more than anything to remind your Godliness of the faith confessed at Nicaea by the fathers. For some people who deny this variously plotted against us because we have not been persuaded by the Arian heresy, and they became responsible for this kind of heresy and schisms on the catholic church. For the true faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ stood clear to all since it is known and read from the divine scriptures. For in this both the saints were made perfect and testified and now have departed with Christ. The faith would have remained unharmed through everything if the evil of some heretics had not dared to modify it. For a certain Arius and those with him destroy it and attempt to introduce impiety concerning it, claiming that the Son of God is from non-being and a creature and a product and changeable. And with these things he deceived many such that even those who seem to be something (cf. Gal 2:6) were led away with him to blasphemy. And in anticipation our fathers assembled, as we said before, in the synod of Nicaea, which anathematized the heresy of the Arians but confessed the faith of the catholic church in writing so that by it being proclaimed everywhere the heresy enflamed may be extinguished. So this was known and proclaimed in every church. But when they wanted to renew the Arian heresy, some dared to set aside the faith confessed by the fathers at Nicaea, and others pretended to confess it but denied the truths, misinterpreting “consubstantial” and blaspheming against the Holy Spirit when they claim that he is a creature and a product made through the Son. Since we have of necessity seen the harm against the people from this kind of blasphemy, we were eager to add to your Piety the faith confessed in Nicaea in order that your Godliness may know with how much precision it has been written and how deceptive those ones are who teach beyond this. For know this, most God-loved Augustus, that this has been heralded from eternity and the fathers gathered in Nicaea confessed it and all the churches everywhere in every place happened to be of the same opinion as this—churches in Spain and Britain, Gaul and all Italy and Dalmatia, Dacia and Mysia, Macedonia and all Greece and all those in Africa and Sardinia and Cyprus and Crete, Pamphylia and Lycia and Isauria and Pisidia, and those in all Egypt and Lybia and Pontus and Cappadocia and the neighboring regions and the churches in Anatolia, with the exception of the few who thought the things of Arius. For with proof we had knowledge of all those mentioned and we have letters. And you know, o most God-loved Augustus, that even though some certain ones contradict this faith, they cannot make prejudgment against the entire inhabited world. For by blaspheming for a long time from the Arian heresy they are now even more contentiously set against godliness. And concerning your Godliness’s knowing, although it knew yet we were eager to submit the faith confessed in Nicaea by 300 bishops. It is this faith, most God-exalted Augustus, in which it is necessary that all remain as something divine and apostolic and no one alter with their deceptive words and word-fighting, which is just what the Ariomaniacs had done since the beginning, saying the Son of God was from things which did not exist, and that there was a time when he did not exist, and that he is created and made and changeable. For because of this, as we said before, the synod at Nicaea also anathematized this kind of heresy and confessed the faith of the church. They have not simply said that the Son is similar to the Father in order that it could not be simply believed that he was similar to God but not true God from God, but they wrote “consubstantial,” which is of a real and true Son from the true Father also by nature. But they did not alienate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but rather glorified him together with the Father and the Son in the one faith of the holy Triad because the deity in the holy Triad is one. And this is the faith brought forth at Nicaea: “We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten, that is, of the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made both in heaven and on earth. For us men and for our salvation he came down and became incarnate and a man, died and rose on the third day and ascended into heaven, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. As for those who say that there was a time when he did not exist and that before he was begotten he did not exist and that he came from things which did not exist, or claim that he is from a different hypostasis or essence or that the Son of God is changeable or alterable, the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes them.”

Translated by AMJ

Last updated: 6-13-2013

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