De Professione Fidei

APPENDIX. ON THE PROFESSION OF FAITH OF SAINT LUCIFER, BISHOP OF CAGLIARI. We first took notice of this most ancient Fragment, which we subjoin here, from the Italian Journal of the celebrated Bernard de Montfaucon, who testifies to having seen it in Milan at the Ambrosian Library in these words, p. 19: "A codex of the eighth century in Lombardic letters contains certain homilies of Chrysostom: certain works of Eucherius of Lyons: the Confession of Faith of Lucifer: likewise the Confession of Athanasius, which is found among the spurious works attributed to Vigilius: likewise the Faith of Ambrose." Therefore, when we had requested a copy of it by letter from the most distinguished Balthassar Oltrocchio, Prefect of the Ambrosian Library, he most courteously transmitted it to us, and also freely communicated what was necessary for us both to discern the age of the codex in which the Faith of Lucifer is described, and to conjecture whether it is a genuine work of the holy Bishop. The codex, then, consists of membranes, and is written in a round and minuscule Roman character, with the letters connected to each other throughout individual words; it contains, moreover, certain minor works of St. John Chrysostom, to whom, however, the title "Divus" is not prefixed in the codex; part of the book of Hermas, which is entitled "The Shepherd"; various opuscula of St. Eucherius, and then several Professions of Faith: these are: The Faith of St. Ambrose the Bishop: Likewise the Catholic Faith: The Faith of St. Lucifer the Bishop: The Faith which proceeded from the Council of Nicaea: The Faith of the Blessed

of Athanasius, which is altogether different from the Creed published under his name, and which Montfaucon affirms to have been edited among the spurious works attributed to Vigilius; and finally, the title itself and the first line of each little work are painted in red. From these, Oltrocchius conjectures that the entire codex is much more ancient than that from which Antonius Muratorius extracted the Faith of Bachiarius and the Exposition of the Catholic Faith, or the Creed of Venantius Fortunatus, and published them among the Anecdota which he had collected from the Ambrosian Library; and, if that codex is said by Muratorius to have been written a thousand years ago, Oltrocchius professes himself more cautious than he, since he judges that the codex from which he transcribed the Faith of Lucifer is to be assigned at least to the sixth century, although it can seem and be said to be more ancient. Therefore Oltrocchius disagrees with Montfaucon equally in the age of the codex and in determining the form of the letters; nor can we ourselves concede to either opinion, since we are absent and not permitted to examine and carefully inspect the codex itself. But if we consider only the antiquity of the codex, it would perhaps not be blameworthy to judge that this monument of the Luciferian Faith was written or dictated earlier by Lucifer himself; however, there are not a few nor slight difficulties in the Faith Formula itself which prevent us from embracing such an opinion.

Moreover, the style itself and the form of writing differ greatly from Lucifer's manner; then, Lucifer uses no other Creed than the Nicene, which he set forth in full in his book *On Not Sparing Those Who Sin Against God*, and the beginning of which he repeats in the book entitled *That One Must Die for the Son of God*. Furthermore, the expressions he generally employs when discussing the divine nature of the Word differ clearly from those which this Creed presents, in which, moreover, a certain term is omitted, although its force and meaning can be discerned from it; yet Lucifer himself openly introduces this word and its significance in his books, and objects to Constantius. For that word was a definite token of the Catholic faith, which it would have been impious to omit at that time in Creeds and in books written against the Arians. And indeed, at what time and in what place Lucifer would have published this Creed, it would be remarkable that a most learned bishop, who thoroughly understood all the arts, wiles, and snares of the Arians, and who had so long fought bravely to defend that the Son of God is God from God the Father, that is, Consubstantial, should have refrained in a public testimony of his faith from that word which alone confirmed the Catholic doctrine; and it is much more remarkable if he had employed the truly ambiguous words which this Creed contains, since in a matter of such great importance it was then especially necessary to beware of them, and we scarcely find that Lucifer used them.

Such, then, is this expression, by which the Father is said to have a Son made from himself without beginning, not to himself: for the Synod of Nicaea decreed that the word "make" must be rejected from the divine generation of the Son, whom it clearly taught to be begotten, not made; and the writer of this Creed does not in a certain way cohere with himself, when he adds a little further on that the Son is begotten, not made. Although, moreover, even with the added words "from himself" and "without beginning," a Catholic sense of the expression can be drawn forth, the use of this word is certainly imprudent, which is sometimes read in the sacred books where there is discourse concerning the Son of God, but the Fathers teach that it is attributed to His human nature against the calumnies of the Arians, as Petavius discusses in book II of *On the Trinity*, chapter 3. Nor is the other expression "from himself" free from ambiguity, which can signify both an efficient principle and a generating and producing one; this, however, rightly befits God the Father, who is truly a principle generating the Son, but not that other, since that which is "effected" is opposed to the Son of God: concerning which the same Petavius disputes against the Calvinists in book VI, chapter 11, where he warns that this futile hunting after words and syllables, which nevertheless tends not to a simple and moderate evil (as Basil says, dealing with these very little words in his book *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 2), but has a deep and hidden design against piety.

Hence, although the participle "made" might be referred to these later matters and not to himself alone, these expressions would nevertheless be suspect and not to be approved, especially in a public testimony of the Catholic Faith. This was also warned by the Synodal Letter of the Council of Alexandria, to which Lucifer himself subscribed: "Moreover, the Son is said to be without beginning improperly, whose divine generation has the Father as its beginning; but by a certain manner of writing or speaking less customary among the ancients, 'to be without beginning' signifies the same as 'to be eternal'; and therefore the Son is so called because he is eternal, and his generation is eternal." On this matter Petavius discusses at length in Book V, chapter 5. Lucifer indeed also used this expression "without beginning" in his book *That One Must Die for the Son of God*, but he directly opposed it to the error of the Arians, who attributed a beginning to the Son because he was said by them to be made and created by the Father. These words, however, are not subject to doubtful interpretation: for the Father generates the Son to himself and in the Son, and these are considered relatively, such as being the Word and image of the Father, and the very notion of the Son; but the Son is not relative to the Father if the discussion concerns those things that are enunciated absolutely and according to substance about the Son of God; for the Son is absolutely God, and good, and wise, etc. And in this sense the esteemed Petavius investigates and explains many things according to Augustine's meaning in Book IV, chapter 10, and Book VII, chapter 9, number 8.

But the author of this Creed perhaps employed these words and opposed the error of the Arians, who claimed that the Son was a kind of instrument of the Father, used by him for the creation of other things; and this impious opinion was followed especially by both Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius of Caesarea, as Petavius testifies in book II, chapter 3, number 16, and chapter 7, number 7; hence they taught that the Father made the Son for himself, subject to himself, and an instrumental minister; therefore this Creed professes, with an obscure meaning of the words, that the Father has the Son not directed toward himself; yet you will find that the use of this expression toward oneself was scarcely introduced at the time when Lucifer lived, and it seems to have begun first in the age of Augustine, and later to have been drawn into various senses and various meanings by theologians. Observing this, who would easily persuade himself that Lucifer could have publicly testified to his faith with such ambiguous and obscure expressions? Add to this that more is said about the Holy Spirit in this Creed, indeed in a Catholic manner, than in the others that were published in Lucifer's time either by Catholics or by heretics; and, although the Arians themselves held impious views about the divinity of the Holy Spirit, yet before the Macedonian heresy neither Councils nor Fathers defined anything about it with more abundant words and sentences, since at that time no explicit question had been raised on that matter, as Petavius says in book II, chapter 6, number 4.

After the error of Macedonius had been condemned by the Council of Constantinople in the year 381, it began to be discussed more clearly and more copiously concerning the nature of the Holy Spirit, and the phrases which this Creed presents began to be employed everywhere; unless you except the Council of Alexandria celebrated in the year 362, whose Synodical Letter written to the Antiochenes specifically decreed that the Holy Spirit is to be considered God, and that he is not a creature, nor alien from the substance of the Father and the Son: as Petavius indicates in book I, chapter 14, number. But to this Council and its decrees Lucifer himself gave his assent; as has been shown in his life, §7; and since the Alexandrian Fathers further wished this to be confirmed by the Synod of Sardica, that no one should write or anywhere use another profession of faith besides the Nicene, we certainly cannot persuade ourselves that such a useful and most holy decree, which he himself had approved, was neglected and violated by the same Lucifer. Nor do we deny, indeed, that Lucifer sometimes spoke in his books concerning the Holy Spirit, and sharply attacked the impiety of the Arians in this part also, yet with expressions and words dissimilar to those which are set forth in this Creed, as is easily clear from our preface.

Finally, we add this argument as well, by which it is proven that this Formula is not to be attributed to Lucifer as its author: namely, that no time can be rightly established at which he ought to have confirmed his Faith by a public and written testimony; for in the Council of Milan, at which he was present as a legate of Pope Liberius, he professed the Nicene Creed alone before the Emperor Constantius, as he himself testifies in the book *That One Must Die for the Son of God* in these words: "We, the legates, affirmed in your palace, and we did not cease to affirm, that it had always been believed by Christians, and is believed, just as the sacred faith appears to have been written at Nicaea against your Arian heresy and all errors." And he testified to the same Faith throughout the entire time of his exile in books openly written, using the very words of the Nicene Creed. After his return from exile, when he had devoted himself entirely to settling the disputes of the Church of Antioch and the province of Caesarea, which had arisen concerning the election of their bishops, he returned to his own church in Sardinia, where no one may either guess or safely assert what cause befell him that he should compose and publish a new Creed, one different from the Nicene, and in some part ambiguous and obscure. These are the arguments for us by which we rightly think that someone other than Lucifer was the author of this Formula.

But all ambiguity concerning the author himself has been removed for us, since we have seen the very same Formula of Faith, almost word for word, already published earlier by Paschasius Quesnellus in the volume of the Works of Pope Leo the Great, in the Codex of Ecclesiastical Canons, etc., chapter 38, and again published in Venice in the volume of the same Works, page 278, which were elucidated by the Ballerini Brothers with indeed learned and erudite labor against the errors of Quesnellus. This text bears the name of the Presbyter Faustinus in its title, and it is the same one that is inscribed by Mabillonius as *Breve Fidei* from the Augiensis manuscript, as the Ballerini testify; and the same Augiensis codex, as we suppose, is the one that Mabillonius indicates in his *Iter Germanicum* as having been seen by him at Augia: a notable book in large folio, in which are contained all the Fathers' expositions on the Lord's Prayer, and also various Confessions of Faith. The Oxford manuscript, from which Quesnellus published the Codex of Canons, etc., bears this title: *The Faith of the Presbyter Faustinus Sent to the Emperor Theodosius*; another manuscript from the library of Thou: *Item, the Confession of the True Faith of the Presbyter Faustinus, which the Emperor Theodosius ordered to be written and transmitted*; Quesnellus corrects this in Dissertation 14, number, conjecturing that this Faith was copied by Faustinus at the command of Theodosius, and sent by Theodosius to Damasus, to be subsequently inserted into the archives of the Apostolic See; whence it was transferred into the Roman Codex; but the opinion of Quesnellus is rejected by the Ballerini in the Preface.

To the new edition of this Codex, which they believe was produced not in Italy nor in Rome, but in Gaul; and from the Viennese manuscript of the same Codex they adduce this title: *Item Faustini Presbyteri confessio verae fidei, quam Presbyter scribit sibi transmitti jussit Theodosius Imperator*; the Ballerini note: *scripsit, et sibi*, etc. Three very ancient codices therefore attribute this Faith to Faustinus; but no other Faustinus occurs, as Quesnellus observes in the cited Dissertation, who was the author of this little book, besides that Luciferian Presbyter Faustinus, who, having written seven books against the Arians and Macedonians to Flaccilla, the wife of the Emperor Theodosius, and having presented a little book of prayers together with the Presbyter Marcellinus to Theodosius himself, could easily have sent to the same Emperor a little book as a witness of his Faith; to which opinion we assent.

The reason, however, why Faustinus published his booklet of Faith, Quesnellus indicates in the same place: namely, because he was harassed by Turbo, Bishop of Eleutheropolis—in which city Faustinus, driven from Rome along with Marcellinus and the Luciferian himself on account of the Ursicinian schism, was then living—as a follower of the errors of Sabellius and Apollinaris, together with his colleague. For Faustinus himself complains bitterly about Turbo, both in his own name and in that of Marcellinus, in the *Libellus precum* sent to the Emperors from Eleutheropolis, namely Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, as in the Preface to the *Libellus precum*: "The eminent Turbo," he says, "Bishop of the city of Eleutheropolis, despising our insignificance... after he heard that certain persons were joining themselves to the sound Faith, and that through the grace of God the truth of the matter was increasing, threatens us with destruction and creates disturbance." Whether Faustinus offered his Faith to Theodosius of his own accord, or was commanded by Theodosius, Quesnellus sets the time of its publication not before the year to which the beginnings of Theodosius's reign are assigned, nor long after; because of the deep silence in it concerning Macedonius, and concerning the First Council of Constantinople, by which he was condemned in the year 381, and also because it speaks of the error against the Holy Spirit in no other way than that in which the Fathers of the Council of Alexandria wrote against that heretic in the Synodal Letter of the year 362. Lequienius, in vol. 3 of *Oriens Christianus*.

It seems to refer the beginnings of Turbo's episcopate among the Bishops of Eleutheropolis to roughly the same time, whom he says held the episcopate almost until the death of Theodosius, that is, until 395; but the year in which Eutychius, the bishop before Turbo, died is unknown. Therefore, having discovered the author of this Formula, and the time when it was written, and also the known reason for its composition, let us see how little Quesnellus's copy differs from ours. Faustinus prefixes a brief excuse there as to why he wrote another Faith besides the Nicene, lest he seem, of course, to violate the decrees of the Synod of Sardica, which had approved the Alexandrian [creed], forbidding that any new Formulas of Faith be published by anyone thereafter; this exordium, however, is absent from our copy from the Ambrosian codex. Then he himself attests his Faith in exactly the same words, except for these: "begotten, not made, from the beginning of himself"; since in the Ambrosian copy a certain obscurity and ambiguity inheres in these matters, as we noted above. Finally, he briefly defends himself against the calumny of the Apollinarist heresy brought against him, and condemns those who confess three hypostases, which clause is likewise absent from the Ambrosian [copy].

But Quesnellus observes thus: Faustinus, like his colleague Marcellinus, was infected with the Luciferian schism, and therefore opposed the decree of the Council of Alexandria, by which it had been established that participants in Arian communion under the Emperor Constantius, especially bishops, should be received back into grace with the Catholics. Hence he was held suspect of the Sabellian and Apollinarist error: for the Fathers of the Synod of Alexandria had decreed that those who returned to the Church from association with the Arians should also condemn the impious dogmas of Sabellius; likewise that they should confess the Holy Spirit not to be a creature, nor alien, but proper to and undivided from the essence of the Father and the Son; finally, that they should execrate the foolish error of Apollinaris, who had taught that the Word of God, the Son, assumed a body without life and devoid of sensation and mind.

Therefore Faustinus, lest he seem to reject the Catholic doctrine proposed by the Alexandrian Fathers and approved by the consensus of the whole Church, while he rejected the decree concerning the reception of those who had returned from the Arians, expressly condemns Sabellius and, against his error, openly distinguishes the persons in the Trinity; he confesses the divine nature of the Holy Spirit in almost the same words of the Synod, and clearly detests the heresy of Apollinaris; but concerning the indulgence granted to the lapsed he is altogether silent; and he utterly denies that the use of the three hypostases, on account of which the lapsed had been accused as if suspected of heresy before they obtained pardon, and whose correct and Catholic meaning they had approved to the Synod, is to be tolerated among Catholics: whence there is another reason why he would be called a Sabellian by those who confessed three hypostases in the Trinity, that is, three persons; for Sabellius asserted that God, that is, that there is one person in God, the Father and the Son, as Athanasius says in the Exposition of the Faith; and he thought concerning the Holy Spirit just as concerning the Son, so as to make them neither separate from the person of the Father, but to establish one and the same and, as it were, primary hypostasis, of which those two, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, were parts, as Petavius says in Book I, chapter 6.

Indeed, since the ancient Fathers, especially before the Council of Nicaea, employed the Greek term for "substance" or "essence," and since that term truly signifies both that which simply exists, i.e., essence, and that which subsists by itself, i.e., an individual or person—on which matters see Petavius in Book IV, chapters 1, 4, 7—the Greek Fathers later used it in this individual sense, just as it was also used by those who had returned to communion with the right Faith from the Arians; for by the name of three hypostases they understood not three essences, nor three Gods, nor three principles, but three persons in the Trinity: the Father, who truly is and subsists; the Son, as existing and subsisting; and the Holy Spirit, as subsisting and existing. This the Synodal Letter of Alexandria attests. Thus the disputes had quieted, and the controversies that had arisen concerning the term, especially at Antioch—whence the Antiochene schism was kindled, as Basil testifies in Epistle 349 of the old edition, in Petavius Book IV, chapter 4, number 11, when he writes to Count Terentius that he considers those questions, on account of which the schism was initially kindled, to be of no small moment. In this passage it is to be noted that this dissension first began among the Eastern Greeks, not between Greeks and Latins, as the preface to the Synodal Letters of the Council of Alexandria, in volume 2 of the Venetian edition of the Councils, affirms.

At the time when Faustinus published this Creed, the fire of contention, which had been smoldering, had already blazed up more fiercely, and the Latins also were fanning it with great partisan zeal. For some wished the term to be understood as essence, that is, ousia or substantia; others as person, that is, personal subsistence, and they were disputing among themselves about substantia, some interpreting it as subsistence, others as essence, concerning the very force of these same words in the Latin language. Therefore Faustinus, since he maintained that the word substantia signified essence, denied that three substances should be spoken of in the Trinity; for it followed that those who confessed three substances in that sense would be confessing three Gods; and in describing the Creed itself, he seems to have repeated the name substantia, insofar as it expresses essence, almost deliberately. But those who said that the term expressed person accused Faustinus and his colleague Marcellinus of Sabellianism, since they seemed to them to defend one person in the Trinity. And from these things it is possible to conjecture that Faustinus also introduced mention of three substances into the Formula of the Creed for this reason, namely, to curry the favor of Damasus, the Roman Pontiff, to whom he had been hostile in the Ursicinian Schism; for Damasus had imposed silence on the controversy about the three, as Baronius holds for the year 372, from the letters of Cyril of Alexandria, and had conceded to the opinion of Jerome, who disapproved of the use of three hypostases.

Although it is uncertain whether Faustinus was at Eleutheropolis when he published this Creed, as Quesnellus thinks, or in another city, certainly in the East, where the contention still raged concerning the use and meaning of the three hypostases, we are led by conjecture to believe that the entire cause for his writing this Creed was that, by affirming that the Trinity is one, that is, one essence or substance, he might defend himself from the calumnies of those who confessed three hypostases in the sense approved by the Synod of Alexandria, and who, interpreting the force of this word according to their own opinion, accused the rest of Sabellianism, who interpreted it otherwise. Therefore Faustinus presents his Creed to the Emperor in such a way that, while it entirely agrees with the Catholic doctrine of the Synod, he wishes the words essence and substance to be explained only by his own interpretation: which the very beginning of the Formula signifies: "We sign the first confession of faith against Sabellius and against those who, under the name of the Catholic Faith, defend impious words, saying that there are three substances.

And this is enough concerning the Formula of Faustinus; whether it agrees with Lucifer, anyone may easily discern, simply by considering the words of the Creed itself and the purpose for which it was published. But someone might say that the Creed was indeed written by Lucifer, but was taken up by Faustinus into his own Formula, with a beginning and a conclusion added, so that it might be more approved on the authority of the author himself. However, Faustinus would not have kept silent about Lucifer's name, whom he adorns with so many praises again and again in the Libellus Precum; and finally, from what has been said thus far, it can be rightly established that the Formula of the Creed, which we here present from the Ambrosian Codex, is not to be attributed to Lucifer—who followed solely the Formula of the Nicene Creed, who never wrote anything ambiguous or obscure concerning the Trinity, who confirmed the decrees of the Synod of Alexandria with his assent, who publicly execrated the errors of Sabellius in his book De non conveniendo cum haereticis, and who was never brought under suspicion of any heretical error—but rather that it was either taken by some ignorant person or by a Luciferian sect from the Faustinian Formula, corrupted by the ambiguous words which we have noted, and either ignorantly or fraudulently ascribed to Lucifer, and inserted into the Ambrosian Codex with his name prefixed, around the fifth century. It is pleasing to add this from the Preface of the first volume of the Works of Sirmond, Venetian Edition, number: That with that Libellus Precum of Marcellinus and Faustinus, a Confession of Faith was handed over to the Emperors, which in the Codex of Canons and Constitutions...

The Faith of Faustinus the Presbyter, sent to the Emperor Theodosius, is inscribed in the Appendix to the Works of St. Leo, edition of 1675, page 138, published twenty years ago by the Roman Church; some think this: but since in the Preface of that same little book, which is the work of a schismatic man, the Emperors are called Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, the Libellus Precum must be referred to the year in which Arcadius was proclaimed Augustus, and cannot be placed after the year in which Valentinian died: this, however, cannot agree with the year in which the Faith was published: others judge the little book to be some years later than the Confession of Faith: which seems more likely. Let us now set down the example of each Faith under one view. From a Membranaceous Codex Ms. of the Ambrosian Library marked I, 101, in the upper part. From the Codex of Canons and Constitutions of the Holy Apostolic See, in the volume of the Works of the Lord Leo, Venetian Edition of 1757, column 278.

Here begins the Faith of Saint Lucifer the Bishop. We believe that the Father is not the Son, but has a Son from himself without beginning, not made unto himself. And we believe that the Son is not the Father, but has a Father from whom he was begotten, not made. And we believe that the Holy Spirit is truly the Spirit of God: whence we confess one substance of the Divine Trinity, because as the Father is according to substance, so he begot the Son. And the Holy Spirit, not being a creature but the Spirit of God, is not alien from the substance of the Father and the Son, but is himself of the same substance with the Father and the Son, as he is of the same Deity. Here ends. The Faith of Faustinus the Presbyter, sent to the Emperor Theodosius. The faith written against the Arian heresy was sufficient. But because certain men with perverse ingenuity, under that confession of faith, change the impious words, making us odious, as if we were defending the heresy of Sabellius; with few words we also sign against Sabellius the first confession of faith; and against those who, under the name of the catholic faith, defend impious words, saying there are three substances; whereas the catholic faith has always confessed one substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

We believe in the Father, who is not the Son, but has a Son begotten from himself without beginning, not made; and we believe in the Son, who is not the Father, but has a Father, from whom he was begotten, not made; and we believe in the Holy Spirit, who is truly the Spirit of God. Hence we confess one substance of the divine Trinity: because as the Father is in substance, so he begot the Son; and the Holy Spirit, existing not as a creature but as the Spirit of God, is not alien from the substance of the Father and the Son; but he himself is of the same substance with the Father and the Son, as of the same divinity. For those who think we are Apollinarists, let them know that we execrate the heresy of Apollinaris no less than the Arian. We marvel, however, that those who confess three substances of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be considered catholics. But even if they say they do not believe the Son of God or the Holy Spirit to be a creature; yet they think contrary to the impious faith, when they say there are three substances: for it follows that those who confess three substances confess three Gods. Which utterance catholics have always execrated.