Epistula synodalis

Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium Even before the letters from your love were delivered, report announced to us both the unalloyed character of your faith, your endurance stretched out toward dangers, your steadfastness in sufferings for Christ, your love for God, and the firmness of future hope among you. But since we have also encountered the letters of your reverence, we have truly seen the stamp of an apostolic church and the zeal of good shepherds and the unflagging diligence befitting true Christians. For the fact that you neither reckoned the length of the journey nor presented your inquiries in a scattered manner, but made the inquiry in common through your letters, has made us very hopeful that, having written in concord, you will also receive the answers from us in concord; and we have received the concord in your letters as a kind of prelude to more perfect harmony. It was indeed our prayer to receive also the most admirable bishop Basil, named with all reverence, as present at the synod and as a partner—or rather, as the leader of the matters concerning you. But since an overwhelming bodily illness prevented him from coming, it is a mark of your perfect love that you have not overlooked even the letters of our insignificance. Yet we have not left your holy church bereft of his voice either; for, having his treatise specifically composed by him on this subject, we have him also, through that writing, speaking in agreement with us.

What then is the answer to the inquiry? We recognize the holy synod of the fathers at Nicaea as truly catholic and apostolic, and we preserve the faith set forth by the fathers at that time as immovable and unshaken, and I pray that it may remain undisturbed forever. At that time, however, it became more necessary for the fathers to explain more fully concerning the glory of the Only-begotten, since the heresy of Arius had then recently sprung up, and they were eager to cut it off, destroying its first seeds before the thorn was fully grown. Since the question concerning the Spirit was at that time passed over in silence, they added nothing more extensive on this account; yet for those who read intelligently, the teaching about the Spirit in that creed is sufficient. For just as they decreed belief in Father and Son, so also they decreed belief in the Spirit, neither introducing any other nature into the divine and blessed Trinity nor separating anything from the Trinity in the exposition of the faith. But since Satan, recently attempting to shake the churches, has instilled in some a doubt concerning the Spirit, it is necessary to go back to the source of the faith, from which the fathers at Nicaea also drew when they composed the exposition of the faith.

What then is the perfection of our faith? The tradition of the Lord, which after his resurrection from the dead he commanded to his holy disciples, ordering: "Go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." It is clear that we received the commandment not only to baptize in this way, but also to disciple in this way, since through this commandment the disease of Sabellius is excluded, the three hypostases being clearly handed down to us, and the mouths of the Anomoeans, the Arians, and the Pneumatomachi are stopped up, the three persons and hypostases being indicated, while the nature and divinity are confessed as one. It is necessary, therefore, that we baptize as we were taught, and believe as we were baptized, and glorify as we believed. For, examining many things in our mind and turning our thoughts in every direction, we can conceive of nothing between the creator and the creation, so that if we separate the Spirit from the divinity, we must count it among the creatures; but if we should dare to call it a creature, how can it be mixed in baptism? We condemn polytheism just as we condemn atheism; and we proclaim neither three principles nor three gods nor three different natures, but, knowing the Father as the principle of all things, we reject none of the three hypostases, and we adduce the dignity of the divine scriptures and the testimonies for each one.

But since a detailed discussion of these matters exceeds the measure of a letter, and we have trusted that your love will be satisfied with the summary of our exposition and will supply the rest from yourselves—for it is said, give a wise man a starting point and he will become wiser—we consider that we have written sufficiently on these matters, to which it is enough to add a brief exhortation. For we exhort you to remain sons of peace, so that you may fulfill the apostolic command, being of one mind and having shared in the sufferings for Christ. Do not give the evil one the opportunity to separate what has been well joined, nor make yourselves more easily caught by the wolves through discord, confirming their prayers. For we have learned how many struggles you have undergone for orthodoxy. Therefore, having conquered the threats and pressures from the adversaries, give no occasion to division. Lest hatred, creeping in little by little, if it finds a place, set great precipices before you. But also in the doxologies, it is necessary to glorify the Spirit together with the Father and the Son, and to know this, that those who commit the unforgivable sin through blasphemy against the Spirit vainly renounce communion with the Arians; for they will be condemned along with them. And we pray that you, having preserved the body of the church undivided without strife, may peacefully pass the remaining time in this present age, and gloriously stand before the tribunal of Christ on the day of judgment.