Contra Arianos Dialogus

THE DIALOGUE OF VIGILIUS OF THAPSUS AGAINST THE ARIANS. WITH ATHANASIUS, ARIUS, AND PROBUS THE JUDGE AS INTERLOCUTORS.

BOOK ONE.

84, 1. At the city of Nicaea in Bithynia, the faith of the Church was confirmed by three hundred and eighteen bishops out of the evangelical and apostolic teachings with spiritual vigor. There the wickedness of Arius is exposed, with the emperor Constantine present; and when he had been refuted by the sentence of those same bishops together with the dogma of his perfidy, he is separated from the Church, lest so impious a doctrine, lurking long within the Church, should insinuate itself into the minds of all. But when the emperor learned that the whole faith of the Church was being more holily confirmed by the Fathers, as it was handed down by the apostles, he ordered that same Arius, as a rebel against the sacred faith, to be relegated to exile. But just as the serpent ensnared Eve in paradise with deceitful persuasions, so too the perfidy of Arius entered Constantia, the sister of that same prince, through a certain attendant. And the devil's poison lay hidden in her, until it should find a time to burst forth with which he had filled her. Therefore, when on the last day of her death she was enjoying the visit of her brother, at once the apple of poison is offered to the innocent brother by her in word.

And immediately, by the example of the first man, he slips away unknowingly along the path of transgression: he who, lending his mind to viperous demands—Arius, who had long since been banished from him as a sacrilegious man—is recalled from exile for the destruction of faithful souls; and revealing his faith to the emperor through cunning disputations, he kept asserting in vain that he had been condemned by the bishops. For this reason the same emperor ordered a synod to be gathered at Alexandria, so that if his assertion were found true, he might, after the sentence that followed, be restored to the Church. And so that all, rejoicing over his correction, might proceed more peaceably from there to the dedication of the church of Jerusalem. Finally, while his case was being examined at length by the bishops, the same emperor Constantine, having settled the final judgment in a certain suburb named Nicomedia, closed the last day of his life in the thirty-first year of his reign.

II. This disposition of his testament he handed over to the aforementioned satellite of Arius, Constantius, to be kept. When Constantius, coming after the death of his father, had received the empire, as had been delegated by Constantine, he delivered the testament to Constantius. Indeed, for the sake of this matter, the same presbyter Evangelus was held in such great familiarity with him that he was called not merely presbyter but father of the empire; and he who had been raised up to rule as emperor seemed to be subject to the rule of this presbyter.

At whose request—or rather, at whose command—Arius was recalled into the Church; whose doctrine the untrained prince, deriding with impious senses, rejected the catholic faith, and departing from the paternal traditions in sacrilegious manner, he seems to have brought no light persecution upon the Church of God or its priests in his times. At which time also he made very many martyrs and many confessors. Others too, with eyes gouged out and knees amputated, he left half-alive; but some, seized by rabid fury into insanity, he condemned by relegating them from their own seats. In these things the saying of the Lord seems to have been fulfilled: If they have persecuted me, he says, they will also persecute you (John 15:20). This man, therefore, before he gathered the priests of the Lord from the whole world by deceit at Ariminum or Seleucia, desiring to make all one, ordered a certain judge, by name Probus, supported by his authority, to be present as arbiter between the same Arius and Athanasius. Him assuredly, whom he had approved as faithful in his kingdom and learned in all worldly arts beyond other men. He, with all public cares removed far off, preferred to fulfill what had been enjoined on him with all speed, so that he both obeyed the imperial commands and proved the most true faith by his examination. He therefore, when he had come to the city of Laodicea in Syria, in the second year of the reign of Constantius, sitting on the tribunal in the audience hall, with crowds standing on this side and that, addresses Arius and Athanasius with these words:

III. Having been informed by the sacred command of the glorious and most pious emperor Constantius, I have ordered the matter of the faith to be examined among you.

Arius and Athanasius said: And who is so senseless as to dare to refuse the emperor's commands?

Judge Probus said: Therefore let the sacred letter of the venerable Augustus be read.

And it was read as follows: Constantine Constantius, pious, perpetual, victor and ever triumphant Augustus, to Judge Probus, greeting. Having obtained the paternal empire by divine gift, we must first of all take care that, with heretical conduct erased from the minds of the faithless, the whole world joined to our sacred faith may rejoice. For whoever turns the impious from the path of error will save his soul and cover the multitude of his sins. And since we now find very many partners in this crime, honoring this perfidy with sacrilegious rite, asserting that they retain the unblemished rule of the faith—who not only deceive men by impious seduction, but also inflict injury upon the inborn majesty, joining the created substance of the Son to the divinity—we admonish that, having received by the authority of our mildness, you cause the examination of this matter to be conducted between Arius, the venerable presbyter, and Athanasius, bishop of the same error. Especially persuading that, with perversity of mind set aside, both may submit their necks to the true and approved faith; lest, despising the precepts of our piety and mildness with their accustomed boldness of rashness, they provoke us to grave anger.

And although you have not yet perceived the hand of this god, nevertheless by the wisdom in which you excel beyond others, we believe that you can faithfully determine all things without any surreptitious influence of any person, pleasing God more than man. And in another hand: We wish you to fare well. Given at Constantinople on the twelfth day before the Kalends of January.

IV. And when it was read out, Probus the judge said: Let the sacred letter of the venerable prince which has been read be entered into the records. He added: Perceiving that in the worship of idols there is no majesty of the true deity, I wish to submit myself to the Christian doctrines, by which it is established that there is one and true God who created all things visible and invisible by the power of his Word. And since, while many are reckoned under the title of the Christian name, they are said to wander far from the truth of that God—evidently by thinking differently and by following various institutions of doctrines—I now greatly desire to know what is the faith of right doctrine, to which, with all the windings of doubt removed, I may cling tenaciously; lest, desiring to be stripped of the blindness of error, I be entangled in greater darknesses of error, if indiscriminately and without any discernment of examination I become an imitator of whatever sect first meets me, while I do not know whether it is approved or not, or full of truth.

And therefore, if it pleases you—indeed, since it ought to please you—let each one of you set forth in our presence the judgment of his faith, so that, with the matter examined, whichever is found firmer and truer than all the rest, to this we may all rightly yield, and follow it without doubt, the error of falsehood being set aside.

Arius and Athanasius said: How can we entrust to you the secrets of so great a mystery, and place the judgment of an untried matter in your hands, when you have not yet washed away the stains of paganism by the perception of the true doctrine?

Probus the judge said: This is precisely what I desire with all my strength to know—which is the right and true doctrine, in which it behooves me to receive the sacraments of the hidden mystery. For I do not now desire that the deep secrets of the mysteries be laid bare to me; but I demand that those things be shown to me now which are held in your faith outwardly and are preached publicly. That is, that there is one and the same true God, the creator of things visible and invisible. And since I am not unaware that you profess this with one mouth, what cause has arisen that you are divided into such various sects, so that which is true and which is false cannot be understood by us at all, until from your contest, conducted with a moderation worthy of patience, we learn more carefully what is fitting.

Athanasius said: Since you are imbued with every kind of literature and thoroughly learned in philosophical disciplines, you ought not by any means to wonder that very many and various dogmas of novelties have arisen among us, since among you too so many novelties of opinions have emerged as are contained in the names of nearly all their authors. For since there are three religions in the world—of the Jews, of the pagans, and of the Christians—each one of them, with many and far-scattered diversities of opinions, falling away from itself, has been divided into various sects of its own peculiar teaching; while each one, enticed by the sweetness of a newer opinion that offers not the truth but a likeness of the truth, abandons the line handed down from of old by the Fathers: wandering irremediably through trackless ways to the extent that he uses novelty in place of antiquity, as though walking in the path of the ancient boundary and of what was handed down by the Fathers. For either he thinks too much, or he believes too little, and therefore he does not know how to walk the middle and right way. I have said these things beforehand so that I might show you the clearest indications for examining the truth, so that you may most easily recognize that he is entangled in the error of depravity who, abandoning the ancient institutions of the apostolic faith, dreams up for himself, by the judgment of his own will, the faith he ought to follow.

Arius said: Athanasius most excellently acknowledges that the error of perfidy consists in things cast aside and in newly invented novelties of things, the apostolic testimony agreeing with this very point, where it says: But shun profane novelties of words (1 Tim 6:20). Hence I beg that you not withdraw from this path of inquiry, investigating more diligently and attentively who uses the new and who the ancient sacrament of faith?

Probus the judge said: So that these things which you assert may easily become known, and may come to the light of truth with all darkness of ambiguity removed, lay open the rule of the ancient faith, and make it known to our ears just as it was handed down by the apostles.

Arius and Athanasius said: We believe in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ his Son our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. This is the rule of our faith, which the Lord handed down to the apostles by heavenly teaching, saying: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

VI. Probus the judge said: I am held fast, struck with great amazement, seeing that three gods are preached by you, when I had believed that one must take refuge in the majesty of the one God's singular power. Therefore, what is the reason for this faith of yours, or what do these names of three things and three terms indicate? I ask that you deign to inform us briefly.

Arius and Athanasius said: We do not confess three gods in the professions of our faith, but we faithfully profess that we believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Probus the judge said: Rather, then, set forth your faith, and declare what your belief in that same faith is, or of what sort it is.

Arius said: For I confess that the unbegotten Father begot the Son before all ages, ineffably, through whom and in whom he made visible and invisible creatures; who in the last times, for the salvation of the human race, sent by the Father, bore true man in the world, whom he received inviolably from Mary the Virgin without the mingling of human shame. Although he is God and Lord of his own creation, he can nevertheless neither be compared to his Begetter in all things nor equated to him in anything, whom he also confesses as his God and the author of his origin. Nor yet are there two gods for this reason, because this one also is God; nor is he not God for this reason, because the Father alone is God. Just as he is not not good because the Father alone is good, since the Son also is not only good, but also the creator of good things.

And just as it is not taken from him that he is good, since the Father alone is confessed as good by his own Son's declaration, so it is not taken from him that he is God, since the Father alone is God. And just as the goodness of the Son does not prejudice the singularity of the Father's goodness, so his deity does not stand in the way of the Father, so that God be unique and singular. And in this way we profess one God, not by denying, as I said, that the Son is God, but by establishing with the Father alone the authority of the one divinity.

Athanasius said: Arius by his own profession has well defined that the Father ineffably begot the Son from himself before all times; but whether he wishes to assert that the Son is from the very essence or nature of the Father, or begotten from elsewhere, he has for the present passed over in silence in this exposition of his. For I confess that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one substance and one nature. So that I believe the Son was begotten not from nothing, nor from anything, but from the Father, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. And although I profess that there are three persons subsisting in their own property, yet their nature is one, and one divinity is proved.

VII. Probus the judge said: Although this varied and far dissimilar diversity of your opinions casts a great fog of confusion upon our minds, nevertheless, so that we may quickly be stripped of these ambiguities and come to know what is the profession of the true faith, deign to fortify the opinions of your assertions with clearer testimonies of divine Scripture. And lest you wander far off through the long circuit of speech amid the confusion of this mixed dispute, state your faith one by one, as I have said. But now let Arius proceed, and let him not be reluctant to build up his faith with the testimonies of the true Word.

Arius said: Since you ordered me to engage first, let Athanasius answer whether God is of a simple nature.

Athanasius said: What impious man would deny this?

Arius said: Let him answer whether all things that are said of God are also to be understood according to essence.

Athanasius said: He would not rashly pronounce that all things which are said of God ought to be understood according to essence, except for certain relative cases of names, brought forth according to the customary eloquence of human speech, which are fitted not properly to God but to persons and times, or to whatever kinds of things. That is, when he says that he does not know, or confesses that he has again come to know. Or when he bears repentance for things done by him, and now shows himself angry, now placated.

If we wish to take all these things according to essence, we will without doubt be declaring the divine nature to be passible and improvident, so that either ignorance or a knowledge born in time falls upon it, and grief wastes it away through repentance, and joy sustains it by quickening. What else will this be but to suffer mutable things and to flow hither and thither in instability? From this it is most manifestly proved that not all things ought to be understood as said of God according to essence, but we profess most certainly that some things correspond to dispensation and are not suited to his nature.

Probus the judge said: Although you have answered sufficiently and quite learnedly, with praiseworthy brevity, that not all things are said of God according to essence, nevertheless I desire to hear these things from you more fully when the time for the discussion of your position arrives. Now, then (as I already stated beforehand), let Arius continue as he had begun.

VIII. Arius said: If you carefully attend to the things I set forth in the beginning, you will find there the whole belief of our faith.

Athanasius said: That the Son subsisted before the ages, Arius truly professes. But that he was born of the Father, he concedes only by the sound of the voice and a feigned confession of words, not by the propriety of truth, since he separates him too far from the substance of the paternal nature, and affirms him to be subject to the Father by condition of nature, not by the reason of dispensation.

Probus the judge said: Give the clearest indication of your faith, and mark out by the prosecution of your reply how you believe, so that the material of the dispute as well may be fitted to the norm of the confession set forth.

Athanasius said: Lest I burden your senses with a very long speech, I conclude my faith in a brief discourse. I confess that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in deity, power, greatness, and nature. Nor do I assert anything in this Trinity to be new or foreign, as if it had not existed before but was afterward added; but, as I said, I believe it to be of one nature and one substance.

Arius said: I confess three substances—of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—just as I confess three persons remaining in their own propriety. For one is the substance of the Father, another that of the Son, another that of the Holy Spirit. Nor can the nature of the unbegotten substance of the Father, or of the begotten Son, or of the created Spirit, be conferred in any way. Hence they are believed by our faithful confession to be neither equal in power, nor similar in greatness, nor sharers in nature.

Judge Probus said: If this is the whole of the matter in which you appear to disagree with one another—namely, that one of you says the substances are diverse, while the other says the substance of the Trinity is one—then the logic of the present disputation now demands that you support your assertions more robustly not by the subtlety of arguments deliberately drawn from the art of dialectic, but by the simple and pure proofs of divine Scripture.

IX. Arius said: I believe that the memory of your prudence has by no means let slip the persecution of Athanasius, in which he argued this more elegantly: that he ought to be marked with the error of depravity who follows new and unusual inventions of words, adding to the apostolic doctrines what is established not to have been handed down by them.

Probus the judge said: So I remember.

Arius said: Therefore let the decrees of the Council of Nicaea be disclosed by reading; and you will recognize that Athanasius, or his authorities, have corrupted the apostolic faith by the addition of new words to such an extent that they, using royal ambition, have decreed that those who adhered to the ancient doctrines of the Fathers are to be relegated by imperial edicts.

Probus the judge said: If the nature of the present case requires that the decree of the Council of Nicaea be brought forward into the open, let Athanasius also designate this by his own prosecution, so that by the agreement of the will of both parties, if there is anything that is referred to from outside, it may be read out.

Athanasius said: It is fitting for the case that an abundant reading of the records of what was done not be denied.

Probus the judge said: Therefore, as he desires, let the reading of the aforesaid decree be brought to light.

And it was read as follows: We believe in one God the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father: God from God, light from light, true God from true God, born not made: of one substance with the Father (which the Greeks call homoousion): through whom all things were made, whether in heaven or on earth. Who for our salvation descended, and was incarnate, was made man, suffered, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say, "There was when he was not," and "Before he was begotten he was not," and who say he is "from things that do not exist," or "from another substance or essence," and who call God mutable or changeable—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

X. Arius said: You see clearly, Probus, best of men, that the decrees of that council were written with reckless daring, to the disparagement of the apostolic faith. For what need was there to insert this new term "homoousion" into the ancient rules of doctrine? For shall we say that the apostles, or their disciples, and all the successors in order who lived in the confession of Christ down to that time, being ignorant of the term "homoousion," followed the sacrilege of impiety in the truth of the faith—namely, because, being deprived of the notion of this name, they went to Christ without the assertion of that preaching? For if, as these men utterly lie, a new doctrine were being introduced by us against the statutes of the apostles, then surely it would have been fitting for the new doctrine brought in by us to oppose the ancient doctrines of the apostles, and for novelty to prescribe limits to antiquity, not for antiquity to be overturned by novelty. Why does he impose this name upon me to be followed? Why does he drag me more violently to a novelty of this kind? Why does he add this word to the apostolic faith, of which neither the prophets nor the apostles make mention anywhere?

What, I ask, is this name, without which the faith cannot be whole, without which Christians are deprived of the honor of the Christian religion? For one of two things must follow in this matter. If the assertion of *homoousios* is true, the preaching of the apostles will be false, which flourished through long ages without this name. But if the apostolic faith is true without this name (as indeed it is), then this [assertion] will without doubt be false, which has added the novelty of a name to the ancient faith. Roll through all the volumes of the New and Old Testament, [to see] whether you can find *homoousios* inscribed anywhere in the sacred pages.

XI. Probus the judge said: What is being said in reply to these things?

Athanasius said: Are you offended only by the novelty of the name, or do you also shrink from the substance of the thing itself, which has obtained this designation?

Arius said: What you mean, I do not fully understand.

Athanasius said: Since the thing is ancient but has received a new name, and no new power of a new thing has accrued by the new word, this at any rate I ask: whether the thing that is ancient is at the same time condemned by you together with the novelty of the name.

Arius said: You are speaking twisted things, and worthy of every marvel of folly. For if "homoousion" is a new name, there is no doubt that the thing it is seen to signify is also new.

Athanasius said: So then you condemn the thing and the name alike?

Arius said: Yes, plainly.

Athanasius said: Therefore, if I demonstrate that a new name was applied to a thing ancient and handed down from the apostles, will you at last be defeated and deceived? Or do you even so condemn the ancient thing together with the newness of the name?

Arius said: You will not show this.

Probus the judge said: And what reason in the case demanded that an ancient thing receive a new name? For surely, before it obtained the term of this name, did it remain without the property of a name? This seems to me to have no logical consistency.

Arius said: Very well.

Athanasius said: It is always the custom of ecclesiastical discipline, whenever a new doctrine of heretics arises, against the insolent novelties of questions, while things remain unchangeably permanent, to change the terms of names, and to express the natures of things more significantly; terms which nevertheless accord with the powers of the causes that exist, and which demonstrate more that these same things existed of old, rather than suggest the newness of an origin. And, so that what I say may be plainer, I use an example. At the very beginning of the preaching of the Christian religion, all who believed in our Lord Jesus Christ were named not Christians, but only disciples.

And because many authors of new doctrines had arisen, opposing the apostolic teaching, and were threatening all their followers as disciples, there was no distinction of name between true and false disciples; since both those who followed Christ and those who followed Dositheus, or Cephas, or Theudas, or a certain Judas, or even John, who claimed to believe as in Christ, were reckoned under the one name of disciples. Then the apostles, gathering at Antioch, as their Acts (with Luke narrating) indicate, called all the disciples by a new name, that is, Christians, distinguishing them from the common designation of false disciples; so that the word of the divine oracle through Isaiah might also be fulfilled, where it says: "They shall be called by a new name" (Isa. 65:15, according to the LXX).

XII. The Church, therefore, retaining this form instituted by the apostles by using new names, against various heretics, as the principle of sound faith required, brought forth various new names. Finally, the Church imposed on the Father a new name of innascibility. For when the Sabellian heresy wished to assert the Father as begotten of the Virgin, the Church, by confessing against it, handed down the Father as unbegotten. And yet we nowhere read in the divine Scriptures that the Father is unbegotten.

Sabellius can therefore turn the audacity of his own accusation to this question, and use a line of argument like yours, saying: Why do you do violence to the divine Scriptures with no regard for shame, by professing that the Father is unbegotten—something you are unable to show to be written? Likewise, because the same Sabellius, by an impious doctrine, professes that he is not only begotten but also has suffered, you, coming together as one, among the other sanctions of faith you have promulgated, have said that the Father is impassible—which we approve you to have established religiously and holily. But he proclaims this very thing. How far do you stretch the audacity of your license, by professing that the Father is impassible—something neither the prophets handed down, nor the authority of the authentic creed handed down, but which has been presumed by your rashness. Again you proceed, and you have established this faith of religious confession concerning the Son, calling him God from God, light from light. Now here, I ask you yourself, measure how great an occasion for slander lies open to Photinus, who assigns a beginning to the Son from the nature of human generation. For why does he not bring similar grounds of complaint? Why does he not himself rage with a similar outcry, saying: What do you say, what do you establish, what do you hand down to posterity by your judgment to be followed, by confessing the Son to be God from God, light from light? Show me whether in that form of faith, that is, in the authentic creed which the apostles handed down, you have read this written?

But I am content that, even if it was not written there, it should at least be read to me from the prophets, shown to me from the letters of the apostles. Who could tolerate these novelties of words? Who would allow his senses to admit what neither the prophets nor the apostles handed down?

XIII. Likewise, by many and most celebrated decrees of your councils, you have established the Son as like the Father. Let Eunomius now rise up, who confesses him to be unlike, and say: Where did you read this? Where do you find it written? Did the Father or the Son use this word about himself? Therefore you, Arius, who today press me with such an article, so that I must show that homoousion was properly placed, either confess that against the insolent and stealthy depravities of heretical understanding, certain names of confession were not rashly presumed but gathered by consequent reasoning and inserted into the authorities of the faith: so that there arose as many absolutions of new words by religious understanding as there were occasions of perfidy sought or supplied. Or if you are unwilling to confess this, I will contend with you using your own objections. Show me—not from conjectures, not from probabilities, not from what is akin to reason, not from things that provoke understanding, not from what piety of faith persuades one to profess—but by the pure and naked propriety of the words, show me this written: that the Father is unbegotten, or impassible, and that the Son is God from God, light from light, or that he is like the Father.

Do not say to me: "The rationale of the faith demands this; piety teaches this; the sequence of the Scriptures summons me to this confession of the term." Do not, I say, put such things before me, since I too reject you when you bring forward similar arguments concerning the proof of homoousion. But carry in your hands the codices of the divine volumes, and read in the same sound and the same syllables the names of the foretold words written therein. Either show that the Son is written to be like the Father, or confess that he is unlike. There is no place for you to break out here or to escape again. No ability is supplied to you to untangle yourself from the knots of your own proposition. Either grant me to prove homoousion, that is, the faith of one substance, from what follows, or, if you are unwilling to grant it, all the things you yourself say must be denied to you, because you will nowhere be able to find the grounds on which they were laid down.

XIV. Probus the judge said: If it is the custom of ecclesiastical usage that certain terms of words, for the purpose of restraining the disturbances of heretics, be placed bare in the authority of the faith, yet are clothed by the reasoning of existing things, while the truth of them, from which they take their origin, is found to be contained in the divine writings, what do you say, Arius? Do you grant that homoousion (as Athanasius says) is proved from the divine Scriptures through the fitting qualities of confessions, or not?

Arius said: This man is trying to close off my objection by some trick of syllogistic art, I know not what. For I desire to have this shown to me: whether "homoousion" is written by the authority of the Lord's reading. And therefore let him either read it as properly set down, or withdraw from his confession of it.

Probus the judge said: But do you see how he turns the question back upon you, and binds you with the same joints with which you are armed, by the manifestation of your own profession, as you yourself demand, as a proof, so that you may show him from the canonical writings, plainly set down, either that the Father is unbegotten, or impassible, or God from God, or light from light, or that the Son is like the Father? All of which, if you are unable to demonstrate as properly set down, the necessity of denying them will hang over you. To this danger, as it seems to him, that reasoning alone can come to the rescue, that you concede that those things which are plainly set down in your councils flowed from the fountains of the Scriptures. For he will employ this fault of contention against you, that you demand a proof of the bare word, when you know that the sense of that faith abounds more copiously in the Scriptures. Seek therefore the sense from which the nature of this word drew its origin; and when you have found the sense, do not doubt that you have likewise found the name.

XV. Athanasius said: By whatever arguments he pleads, he can in no way be removed from this undertaking. For he knows most certainly that if it were granted to descend to this point, that from the consequence of the Scriptures it be taught that the substance of the Father and the Son is one (which is "homoousion"), he could most easily be overcome; and therefore, driven by the peril of distrust and fear, he demands the proof of the bare word. But he must again be constrained by his own professions. You demand of me that I show written that the substance of the Father and the Son is one (that is, "homoousion"). But you confess three ousiai, that is, three substances. Show me, therefore, where you have read three ousiai. For if I ought to deny the one (that is, "homoousion") for this reason, that I do not find it written anywhere, how do you dare to confess three ousiai, when you will nowhere be able to demonstrate that this is written?

Judge Probus said: If there exists any proof from the divine authorities, set down properly and specifically, by which it is approved that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three ousiai, and, as you admit, three natures, let it be brought forward; by which Athanasius might be able to withdraw from the confession of one substance (which is "homoousion"). For when you have shown that "three ousiai" is properly set down in the Scriptures, it will appear that Athanasius has to this point persisted in the confession of "homoousion" by the rashness of a most stubborn obstinacy, because he could not demonstrate that it was properly set down.

If, however, you yourself cannot demonstrate three essences, you will appear to be bound by the same necessity of condition as I am.

Athanasius said: Let him teach that three essences are properly posited, and I will make the concession of one substance, which is homoousion.

Arius said: If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three, then necessarily there are also three substances, in which each person separately and more distinctly may be recognized to subsist properly.

Athanasius said: Here arguments are of no avail; here the truth is gathered from consequent reasoning: the propriety of testimonies is demanded. Read specifically where "three essences" is posited. Do not say by conjecture: If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three, necessarily there are also three substances. For I too by similar conjecture can more truly opine: If the Father and the Son are one (since he himself said, "I and the Father are one"), how is there not one substance? But you have been entirely unwilling to enter this path of disputation, while you demand from me a testimony specifically posited, demonstrating homoousion. By a similar reasoning, therefore, do you also read that three essences are specifically and properly posited. For if I ought to deny homoousion because I cannot show it plainly written, then I must necessarily confess "three essences" at that time when I have recognized it to be properly posited by your demonstration.

XVI. Arius said: Does the Father subsist properly, or not?

Athanasius said: Unless you have read that three essences are properly posited, I will give no answer to your questions. For who does not see where your objection tends? You wish by the argument of a crafty interrogation to prove the substances of the Father and the Son to be diverse; but here there is no need of arguments, where a more manifest testimony of propriety demands the proof of three substances. But if you desire to pass from the propriety of testimonies to the consequence of things, let this very thing be made known to the public conscience, that you could not demonstrate three essences properly posited. And when we have both settled this article, I must needs satisfy your objections or interrogations.

The judge Probus said: As the intent of your disputation shows, neither you can show the homoousion, nor this man the triusion, to be properly and specially posited. Lest you linger too long in childish wrangling over superfluous matters, cease at last, both of you, from this demand for a pure proof; and by consequent reasoning gather either the homoousion or the triusion from the authority of the Scriptures. For it will not be lawful to doubt concerning the appellation of a name, which the copious accumulation of testimonies will be able more firmly to strengthen.

Arius said: Since this decree has determined that we ought to gather the powers of the aforesaid names from the persuasive force of arguments, from the causes of the things that follow, lest it seem to Athanasius that I have sought proofs of the propriety of a difficult word out of the difficulty of demonstrating the truth, I will do so, as the sentence of your decree has been promulgated. For I wished to use a compendium rather, lest the intent of my reasoning wander too far and obscure the truth with ambiguous senses.

Athanasius said: Faith cannot come into doubt, which, supported by the protection of truth, disperses the thicker clouds of lies by the light of shining clarity. For it cannot lack its own strength, which does not need to be aided by external supports of testimonies.

BOOK TWO.

I. Likewise on the following day, Probus the judge said: Since I do not doubt that you observe the agreements of the entered covenant with an unswerving sentence, by which you seem to have granted to one another that you would prove, by a clear examination of disputation, from the consequence of the divine writings, the profession of one substance or of three substances; with the question, namely, omitted, of the proof of a pure and properly posited word, which it demands—the reason of this very decision now requires that, with all cavillation of human argument set aside, from the sacred volumes of the divine authorities you teach that the substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is either one or diverse.

To prove this matter, not so much my own mind (as I think) as the mind of almost all mortals is so suspended in dangling expectation that, if the merits of so great a business allowed it, they would desire to reach the summit of truth and the very heel of most manifest understanding without any postponement of a single day or interval of any moment. Hence, lest the so religious intention of the faithful and of those desirous of truth be frustrated, with all the allurement of luxuriant speech cast aside, treat of the matter, of the cause, of the relevant things, of necessary things; avoiding, as I said, all the circuit of words and the trappings of phrases wandering far from the cause, and the charm of speeches, more cautiously, so that the narrative of your disputation may be adorned with truth rather than with the buskin of swelling eloquence.

Athanasius said: Although I have already long and often disputed about the unity of substance without written records, and have committed my disputations to writing, to which in this disputation scarcely anything more can be added by me, nevertheless, because these things were said outside without any adversary pressing from afar, I must needs repeat these same things again and send them into the examination of this public proceeding, so that they may be able to be strengthened by the sentence of your judgment.

II. The judge Probus said: If they have not been weakened by the Arians' replies, then our sentence can be confirmed.

Arius said: Why are these snares of fraud set before us? Why, in defense of an assertion to be concealed, is the judge's sentence preferred beforehand? Let us first do what the necessity of demonstrating the truth imposes on us to do. Let the profession of our faith be impressed upon human hearing. Let them perceive by what judgments, by what reasonings, and finally by what documents our assertion is supported; and then at last we shall ask of the judge the promulgation of the sentence, which certainly by no means depends on our own will.

The judge Probus said: It is fitting to remember my preface recently delivered at the beginning of this proceeding, and your promise inserted some time ago into the past records; by which it was concluded that, with superfluous matters omitted, one must descend to the citadel of the business; which you ought at last to do at some point.

Arius said: Let him teach that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one substance, of one power, of one dignity, of one glory, of one majesty, of one strength and honor, which with a sufficiently improvident and excessively reckless profession he is accustomed to vaunt among the peoples.

Athanasius said: Do you profess that the Son was truly born of the Father, or not?

Arius said: Do you yourself profess that the Father cannot be subject to the fault of any division or partition of a god, or not?

Athanasius said: I profess it strongly.

Arius said: I also profess that the Son was born of the Father.

Athanasius said: Do you judge that to be the same thing, to be born of the Father, as also to be born from the Father?

Arius said: It is enough for you that I have said he was born of the Father; which I also show most easily. Why do you use crafty arguments? Moreover, born of the Father, I could not for the present anywhere come upon. But that it is written from the Father, I recall, the apostle John saying: Whoever loves the Father loves him who was born of him.

Athanasius said: Do you therefore think it makes no difference whether he is said to be born "from him" or "of him"?

Arius said: If you can demonstrate that the Son is properly said to be born "of the Father," I will judge that I ought to think accordingly. But since I am not unaware that in very many manuscripts it is variously rendered, so that in the same passages where "of him" is read, in other codices "from him" is read, still, whether this has been done by the deceit of those who interpolate or by the signification of one and the same thing (that is, so that "from him" means the same as "of him"), this cannot bring any prejudice to our faith.

III. Athanasius said: In this your prosecution I have noticed with careful attention that you have reasoned from a very certain premise. But I have wondered greatly that you said this only concerning our faith, and did not indicate that no prejudice can be brought to the faith of both parties by these words; and I think that, hastening to fortify your own faith, you put it this way, hoping that I might thereafter pass over it lightly without any proof. In the Gospel also the Son said of the Father: God is a Spirit (John 4:24). And to show that he was born of the Father, he said: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). And, I came forth from God the Father (John 16:27). Behold, I have shown the Son born of the Father, by the Son himself saying it.

Arius said: You employ clever and suspicious arguments, by which you claim that I said this to defend my faith. But to remove all ambiguity of suspicion from your mind, as I said above, for the faith of both parties, whether he is said to be born from him or of him, it can bring no prejudice at all in any respect.

Athanasius said: Does the Father, begetting the Son from himself, that is, from himself, beget this which he himself is, or something else?

Arius said: He begot certainly this which he himself is, because God begot God, light begot light, the perfect begot the perfect, the almighty begot the almighty.

Athanasius said: Therefore not from outside, nor from nothing, nor from any preceding or subsequent matter, but from himself he begot. And he begot nothing other than that which he himself is.

Arius said: One begot another.

Athanasius said: And we confess that one begot another, that is, the Father begot the Son: but if from himself, that is, from that which he himself is, and he begot this which he himself is: because the Son cannot be of another substance, or of a different kind; and thus he will be of one and the same substance with the Father.

Arius said: If you knew into how many errors of the faith the profession of one substance descends, you would certainly never make mention of this name between the Father and the Son. Nor would you have cut short your disputation, divided as it is by certain steps of questioning, with such a conclusion, so as to bring it to this end of an impious profession.

Athanasius said: That it is impious and sacrilegious to profess different substances of the Father and the Son, and that it is pious and religious to believe them to be of one substance, you should know, O Arius, that I cannot be wholly ignorant of. And this I will demonstrate to be gathered not from human opinion, nor devised by conjectures and arguments, but handed down by the teaching of heavenly doctrine.

IV. Probus the judge said: First assign to me the force and quality of the term, and then at last you will be able to demonstrate whether it is fitting to the Father and the Son.

Athanasius said: Substance is indeed distinguished by two kinds of appellation. And there is indeed one kind of quality, which indicates the essence of an existing nature; but there is another kind of substance, by which he who has it is separated from the things which he has. So that this may be made plainer, I set forth what I say in a clear exposition. For example: man is a substance of his own kind and nature. Again, if there is anything which he possesses externally, that is, in the matter of gold, or silver, and other kinds, it is called his substance. And although the appellation of the same word seems to be one, it nevertheless appears to signify two things.

But we are disputing about that kind of substance by which each nature, for the very reason that it is or subsists, is called a substance. And whatever it has begotten from itself, that is, from itself, cannot be anything other than what it itself is. Finally, a human father begetting a son begets a human being of his own kind, that is, of his own substance, because a human being begets a human being. And rightly are they said to be of one substance, because the truth of nativity does not admit a diversity of substances. But there is a diversity of substance, so to speak, for example, if a human being should beget a beast, or if a beast of any kind should beget a beast of another kind, that is, if an ox should beget a donkey, or if a sheep should beget a goat; since these proceed into a diversity of kind, the generation will be monstrous, preserving the property of its nature to the least degree. Again, in the qualities of the elements, it is worthwhile to observe what the diversity or property of substances is. For example: the nature of each fire or light seems to minister from itself that which it itself is; as light, brightness, as fire, burning: and subsisting in this kind of its function, it seems to preserve the inviolate nature of its substance. But if light should beget darkness from itself, it will be subject to change, supplying matter of a kind other than itself; because in this it will be able to preserve the unblemished substance of its immutability, if it should minister from itself that which it itself is.

But if, as you say, that which he bestows from himself will be something other than the very thing he bestows, then it could be called the substance of another, which the quality, or order, or reason of all natures altogether does not admit. Come now, if it seems good, let us lift the eye of the mind from earthly and visible things to things above, and from the things that have been made let us recognize the substance of untainted virtue, taught by the instruction of apostolic authority, where it says that the invisible power of the divinity ought to be understood from the things that have been made (Rom 1:20). Arius therefore said that the Son was born from the Father, and that God begot God, light light. In this profession, one of two things must without doubt be held. For either, generating from himself, he begot that which he himself is, and on this account the Son will be of one substance with the Father; or if he begot a God of another kind than himself, true nativity cannot be spoken of, since it could not preserve the property of the substance of the one generating. And the reasoning of the dispute is brought to this point, that either he is not born at all, or he is degenerate; either of which to confess will be seen to be utterly absurd and impious.

V. The judge Probus said: If Arius knows of anything that supports his case against these points, let him not delay to state it.

Arius said: I do not think Athanasius is unaware that God is of a simple and immutable nature; and if, as he himself asserted, he begot from his own substance, he will undoubtedly be mutable. For it is necessary that, by begetting from himself what he himself is, he either lost a part of his substance through the generation of derivation, or was able to suffer the defect of division. For I confess that the substance of God the Father neither brought forth anything from itself, nor was derived into the qualities of parts, nor has felt, nor could feel, any cutting or drawing off, or anything of this kind that is subject to passion.

Athanasius said: But neither do we believe that the divine nature is subject to these conditions of passions; rather we faithfully confess that the impassible Father impassibly begot the Son from himself, that is, from what he himself is. Nor do divisions, or derivations, or the kinds of parts and all things or passions, which you, driven by the fear of empty anxiety, wished to object, turn us aside from the truth of our profession, so that we should deny that God could beget from himself for this reason—lest he seem to be subject to these passions. What, then, is more religious, what more holy, and what is more in accord with the divine laws—weigh it, I beseech you, O hearers, on the scale of a fair judgment.

Lift up the eyes of your mind, and fearing the terrible day of the future examination, perceive with the devout intent of your mind what is more in accord with catholic and apostolic truth: whether to confess that almighty God impassibly begot the Son from himself, or rather to hold that, lest he be subject to the defect of passion, he could not beget the Son from himself, that is, from his own substance. For I assert this, I affirm it with the clearest profession of my voice, that just as God is impassible, so also is he almighty. I believe, therefore, that he was able to beget from his own substance, and yet was not subject to the defect of any passion, since division and derivation, contraction, addition, flux, or whatever other kinds of passions there can be of this sort, belong to bodily and tangible things and to things composed of diversity. But God, who is circumscribed by no marks of bodily shape, nor distinguished by any lineaments of members, cannot be subject to the defect of passion. And rightly do I profess generation in the same one, because he begot; and rightly do I nonetheless confess impassibly, because he was never passible.

Arius said: Since omnipotence cannot be denied in God, must it therefore be admitted that he cannot endure those things which the substance of his divinity, being wholly incorrupt, does not receive? Hence it will seem very dishonorable and full of the impiety of salt, that through the confession of one substance we should believe that neither the Father properly subsists nor the Son exists in his own property. For the intent of this wicked perfidy tends to this, that with the persons of the Father and the Son mixed together and, as it were, coagulated into one thing, gathered from diverse sources and confounded, they cannot subsist in their own singularity of property, as I have said. This also is contained in the perfidy of your profession, too horrible and to be removed far from the minds of the faithful: that the inviolable Father, by generating from his own substance, could not at all avoid the vice of corruption and division.

Athanasius said: Bound more tightly by the truth of the divine generation, as if by insoluble knots, through I know not what machinations of wicked intent—which the divine nature certainly lacks—you gape to seek a refuge for escape, and you object corruption to the incorrupt, passion to the impassible, and impotence to the omnipotent. But repeating these things frequently and often, no reverence for the divine majesty can keep you back from such wicked objections; but as far as I see, without any regard for shame, you hasten to rush into injury against the venerable nativity of the Son, which is to be worshiped.

But the testimonies of divine authority will restrain you as you wander more unbridled and drift, as it were, on the surge of a swelling sea by a kind of natural license, and, confined within the fixed limits of the divine confession, they will not allow you to step beyond the bounds of the legal decrees. The divine majesty is therefore impressed upon human senses by that sacred oracle of his confession, by which he testifies that he begot the Son ineffably from the secret recesses of his own substance, and says: From the womb before the morning star I begot you (Ps. 109). One thing, then, must be held in this testimony of the divine confession. For either he begot the Son incorruptibly from his own ineffable substance, or he did not beget him at all, lest he be corrupted. But I choose this part of the whole faith, which more religiously persuades that God is to be served by the testimony concerning himself; nor shall any obstacles of human passion, descending from the sacrilege of unbelief, be able in any way to call me back, so that I should rightly not believe that God could beget, lest he should have been subject to corruption after the manner of human custom; since I do not doubt that it is enough for me to profess that he was born of the substance of God, who is established to have proceeded from the womb of the Father.

VII. Arius said: As the intent of your prosecution shows, you are introducing to us a God who is composite and subject to corruption; you do not even fear to accept for him the name of a bodily womb. It will therefore necessarily follow that he is either composite with members, if he has a womb, or, as I said, subject to corruption, if he generated from his own substance.

Athanasius said: You would rightly charge me with having understood this correctly, if I had affirmed by the presumption of my own rashness, without any testimony of the divine law, that God has a womb. But since God himself, to refute the madness of those unwilling to believe, deigned to pronounce this concerning himself, so that more evidently through the naming of a womb he might teach that not from outside, not from elsewhere, but from himself, that is, from his own substance, he generated the Son, why do you brand me with the mark of a faulty credulity? when you could rather say this to God: If you have a womb, you will be composite; if you have begotten from yourself, you will be subject to corruption. For a womb is understood in God without any composition of members, just as eyes, and ears, and hands, and feet are said to be in him without any distinct lineaments. Therefore, just as you ought to understand eyes, because he sees all things; ears, because he hears all things; hands, because he works all things; feet, because he is everywhere; so also a womb, because he ineffably begot from himself.

Nor should you faithlessly suppose that, if he begot from himself, he could in any way be corrupted; rather, it befits you faithfully to profess that he is omnipotent and incorruptible, and that he was able both to beget and not to be corrupted by that very generation. For if he is believed to have been born wondrously from the Virgin, contrary to the nature of things, without corruption, how much more must he be believed to have been begotten incorruptibly from the Father? For if the substantial nature of the Virgin, which from the very condition of corruptible nature could be subject to suffering and corruption, generated a son with unnumbered integrity of chastity and with the virginal enclosures unbroken, by a wondrous integrity of incorruption, why should we not rather believe, as I said, that the incorruptible God, having begotten from himself an incorruptible Son, could not be corrupted? It is a new and unspeakable, damnable evil of monstrous opinion to confess that the Virgin could not be corrupted by childbirth, and to fear that God, lest he be subject to the defect of corruption, could not generate from his own substance! Therefore, with God willing, the Virgin of corruptible nature generated a son without any loss of chastity; and could he who remains incomparably more incorruptible than all natures not grant this to himself, that he could generate a Son from his own substance incorruptibly?

Therefore, since both the utterances of the divine Scriptures testify that God begot the Son from himself, and Arius in his earlier argument confessed it, judge, best of men, Probus, which view agrees more with the divine Scriptures: whether it is I, who confess that the Son is of one substance with the Father for this reason, namely that he is known to have been born from him and not from elsewhere; and for this reason again I profess that he begot incorruptibly, because the most excellent substance of the divine majesty could in no way have been subject to corruption through its own ineffable power; or whether it is he who has fallen into such a perilous crisis of ambiguous understanding that he does not know where to set the foot of his faith. For unwilling to confess that God begot incorruptibly from his own substance, he is dragged into the necessity of confessing that God did not beget at all. But this very denial he will without doubt never be able to maintain, since on every side the prophetic and apostolic voices oppose him and cry out with clear proclamation.

VIII. The judge Probus said: Whatever I have been able to recognize in this assertion of your pleadings, the final sentence of our examination will retain. But now, if you think that anything further from the divine Scriptures, consonant with your faith, remains to you, deign to bring it forward, so that by what course of disputation we may most easily investigate what the truth's reasoning contains.

Athanasius said: Since I perceive that your Excellency is most earnestly and faithfully intent upon this matter, that we should prove from the divine volumes that the Son was born from the substance of the Father; although the sense of all my pleadings is shown to stand thus, that just as the race of men, or of any animals whatsoever, begets offspring similar to its own substance—so that neither does a man beget an ox, nor an ox a man, but each thing procreates according to its own likeness, that is, of its own substance—I ought not in any way to wonder that God could beget a Son from his own substance, to whom all power is subject. But lest my discourse wander about without the testimony of the Scriptures, I undertake, fortified by his assistance, to prove from the divine oracles that the Son was ineffably born from the substance of the Father; so that when I have demonstrated it by the clear path of disputation, not coming from the argument of philosophical art, but, as I said, from divine documents, then at last Arius may fall silent, when he has learned, with me as his teacher, by the legal utterances that the Son was begotten from the substance of the Father.

The apostle Piatus, writing to the Hebrews concerning the Son, says: "Since he is," he says, "the image of the invisible God, and bearing the figure of his substance" (Hebr. 1:3; Col 1:15). Jeremiah also, the most prudent of the prophets, preaching concerning the person of God the Father, says: "If they had stood in my substance, and had heard my word, they would have turned them away from their most wicked pursuits" (Jerem. 23:22). And so that he might prove he had spoken concerning the Son, the same prophet adds and says: "Who has stood in my substance and seen my word" (Jerem. 33:18)? For that the Son is the Word, the prophet David testifies concerning the person of the Father, saying: "My heart has brought forth a good word" (Psal. 44:2). John also the evangelist, knowing that the Word, that is the Son, was with the Father from the beginning, and that the Word was never separated from the Father, placed at the beginning of his Gospel, that is of his annunciation, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word" (Joan. 1:1). And again in another place Scripture has handed down, saying: "The beginning of the work is the word" (Eccli. 37:20). Not that in the creation of the Word, that is from the creation of the Son, he began to make the other creatures; but because through the Word of God, that is through the Son, all things are known to have been created. Whence the prophet David sets down and says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established" (Psal. 32:6). And so that he might show the Holy Spirit to be the partner of this work, he says: "And by the spirit of his mouth all their power.

For there are many testimonies of the divine Scriptures concerning the Son, showing that he is begotten of the substance of the Father—that is, of that which the Father himself is—and from this substance the Son is proved not merely similar but coequal with the Father. This is the faith that Christ handed down to the apostles, and it has come down from the apostles even to us. Nor can we alter it in any respect, since it is clear that we ought faithfully to preserve from the beginning what was given.

IX. Arius said: From my foregoing argument I began in such a way as to show that Athanasius is hurled into the depths by the blindness of his perfidy. For while he wishes to display the eloquence of his speech, he unwittingly involves himself in a charge against the divine Scripture, saying that the Son is made coequal with the Begetter in the substance of God, although the Son himself testifies concerning himself and says: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and He who sent me, he himself gave me a commandment (John 12:49); and I did not come of myself, but he sent me (John 8:42); and I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me (John 6:38); and As the Father said to me, so I speak (John 12:50); and What he gave me, I have kept (John 17:12); and All that he gave me, no one takes from me (John 6:39); and I will ask him, and he will furnish me more than twelve legions of angels (Matt 26:53); and If this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done (Matt 26:42); and Let this cup pass from me. Not as I will, but as you will (Matt

(XXVI, 39); and What things are pleasing to him I do always (John VIII, 29); and To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give you (Matt. XX, 23); and He gave him a name which is above every name, and exalted his servant (Phil. II, 9); and Therefore God, your God, has anointed you (Ps. XLIV, 9); and He raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand (Eph. I, 20), and many things similar to these, which for the sake of brevity I omit. If therefore he has a greater, if he was sent, if he did not come by his own spontaneous will, if he did not do his own will, if he speaks what is said to him, if he keeps what is given to him, if he asks, if he prays concerning the cup, if he received a name from another, if he is exalted by another, if he did not grant the seats to his disciples when they asked, by his own power, if he does the things that are pleasing to the Father, and is raised from the dead by him, does it seem right that he who says such great and such things concerning his subjection should be made equal to the Father?

Probus the judge said: If, against testimonies of divine authority so abundant, which have been brought forward by Arius concerning the Son's subjection, anything seems to belong to Athanasius, let him not delay to declare it; so that, with the superstructure of speech removed, the Son may be shown from the divine volumes to be either like or unlike or coequal with the Father; so that, truth being known, the things that accord with sound faith and reason may be strengthened.

X. Athanasius said: Let the cunning of Arius run through as much as it wishes in the loftiness of his speech, let it applaud itself for the testimonies brought forward from the authority of the divine law; by which, namely, it strives to separate the Son from equality with the Father. All things that are known to have been inserted by him at greater length are likewise frustrated by us through the same testimonies without any difficulty. Therefore Christ, the Son of God, in the form of a servant, which he took from the Virgin, is said to be subject to the Father, the apostle Paul affirming it thus: When, he says, the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal. IV, 4). Therefore he is said to be subject who is known to have been begotten of a woman under the law, and in that form he shows the Father to be greater than himself, which form he voluntarily took from the Virgin. In the form of God the Father, the angelic chorus is proved to have rendered him service. For thus it is written in the Gospel: And the devil departed from him, and angels came and ministered to him (Matt. IV, 11). He objects that he did the will of the Father, and not his own.

In this, the saying of this word ought to be recognized as all the more praiseworthy: because he who did the Father's will with equanimity showed equality, as the Apostle confirms. This is, he says, the will of God in Christ Jesus. For because he added: As the Father said to me, so I speak; why should the human race, understanding what is right, be disturbed when it hears this word? For if Christ spoke otherwise than as God the Father, then he would rather be called unequal or unlike the Father. But if the Son speaks the things that the Father speaks, he is never found unequal or unlike the Father. What he gave me, he says, I have kept, and, all that he gave me, no one takes from me. For the divine gifts attributed to the Son are to be understood in this way. For the Father gave power to the omnipotent Son, he bestowed majesty on majesty, he gave virtue to virtue, prudence to the prudent, foreknowledge to the foreknowing, eternity to eternity, divinity to divinity, equality to the coequal, immortality to the immortal, invisibility to the invisible, a kingdom to the King, life to life: and he gave nothing other than what he himself has; and as much as he has, so much he gave, or whatever other things the Father is shown to have conferred on the Son indivisibly and inseparably. But he is proved to have given all these things to one who has them rather than to one who lacks them, to whom it is said by the Son: All my things are yours, and all your things are mine.

XI. If the Father is said to have conferred all things on the Son, and yet some things appear to be in the Father and others in the Son, we without doubt make the Son a liar, since he says that what belongs to the Father is his own. But if the Son is found to be a liar in these things he has said, then the evangelist likewise, who said, "making himself equal to God" (John 5:18), will be deceived in every virtue; and so it will come about that neither will the Father be shown to have conferred anything on the Son wholly or truthfully, nor will the Son be recognized as true God. But if these things are true (as they are)—that the Father conferred them on the Son inseparably and without distinction—let the tongues of demented men fall silent, which attempt to separate the Son from the substance of the Father. The Son asks the Father, to show that he bears a true man. For to make known the power of his divinity, he commanded the sea and the winds, and satisfied five thousand men from five loaves. As a man he accepted the cup of suffering in sadness; as God, however, he gave drink to believers from the fountain of living water springing up to eternal life. He received a name, so that in this name things in heaven and on earth and under the earth might bow. He was exalted from the lowest to the higher places, that is, ascending from the flesh of human frailty to God; he sits at the right hand of majesty, so that human weakness may not doubt to follow where it has seen its head glorified. He was anointed, so that by the anointing of his chrism we might be cleansed from the stain of the first man's sin. He was raised from the dead, so that by the example of his resurrection we might be freed from the sting of death.

He testifies to his disciples who are asking that he cannot give it, lest a division be born among them. For the one who says, It is not mine to give to you, said, I will that where I am, they also may be with me. He has done the things that are pleasing to the Father, because he does not know how to do contrary things. For the one who says, I have come, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, said, I delight to do your will: O my God, I have desired it; and, I will freely sacrifice to you. The one who says, The Father is greater than I, said, I and the Father are one; and, Let them be one in us, as you and I are one; and, All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine; and, Do you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?; and, My Father works, and I work; and, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will; and, He who sees me sees also the Father; and, He who hates me hates my Father also; and, Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you; and, I have glorified you on the earth, and I have manifested your name to men. And so that every human cavil may be quieted, and its intent, I will bring forward as a witness John the Evangelist, whose testimony I used above, who says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

1)? If these things, so consonant with divinity, by which we have taught that the Father and the Son are one, do not suffice for the faithless, we add others (if it seems good).

XII. Probus the judge said: If Arius has striven to oppose so strong and so certain a prosecution, it is clear that he does not know how to reason, but wanders abroad through the field of irrational words more unrestrainedly, who even until now, going about through I know not what cloudy darkness, has been unable to demonstrate his assertion of three substances, as he confessed above (just as Athanasius has shown a very great proof of one substance).

Arius said: Is it the case that because Athanasius, from the divine oracles, by I know not what articles, has seemed with rash daring to affirm that the Son is of one substance and coequal with the Father, he must also confer the same by equal confession upon the Spirit who is the minister of the Father and the Son? Since the Son himself says: He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine (John 16:14); and I will send you the Spirit of truth (John 15:26); and the Spirit will proceed from me (John 16:15); and Whom the Father will send in my name (John 14:26); and the Father says to the bones of the dead: I will give my Spirit in you, and you shall live (Ezekiel 37:5). Is he who is sent or proceeds from the Father bound to be equal to him from whom he proceeds? For the prophet testifies concerning him, and says: Behold the Lord establishing thunder and creating the Spirit (Amos 4:13).

Assuredly it will never seem to me that a creature is made equal to its creator, or that it can possess power together with him.

Athanasius said: If the judge's clemency grants and bestows permission, I shall briefly demonstrate from divine authorities that the Holy Spirit also is not a creature, but God and creator with the Father and the Son.

Probus the judge said: As your profession holds, briefly prove what the case requires as documentation. Not from the argument of speech, but from the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, show that the Holy Spirit is coequal with the Father or the Son, or, as you yourself have confessed, that he is God or the creator of the common work. So that when you have proved these things by truthful testimonies, Arius may depart from his intention, convicted by the profession of the true faith.

XIII. Athanasius said: Before I teach thoroughly that the Holy Spirit is God, I shall prove by legal words that the same is the creator of all things. For it is written: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power (Ps. 32:6). And in Solomon: And he himself, it says, created her through his Spirit (Eccli. 1:9). And in the psalm: You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth (Ps. 103:30). And in the book of Job: The divine Spirit, it says, who made me (Job 33:4). And in Judith: To you, it says, all your creation serves, because you spoke, and they were made; you sent your Spirit, and it built.

For the Holy Spirit is shown to be of such great power, or creation, that with him cooperating the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, which has been given to us in the sacrament of faith, was formed in the womb of the Virgin, the evangelist saying: Do not fear to take Mary your wife; for what has been born in her is of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20). And again: Before, he says, they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit (ibid., 18)—not that the Holy Spirit is to be called the Father of our Savior, so that two Fathers might be believed; but that the same Holy Spirit is found to be a co-worker with the Father and the Son, and a sharer of one power with them, the Lord affirming: Go, he says to his disciples, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Therefore, if he is a servant (as your sacrilegious profession contains), how is it that without him nothing is conferred on believers in the sacrament of faith? For just as the Lord sent the apostles to preach, so also the Holy Spirit is declared to do. For thus we find it written in the Acts of the Apostles: But while Peter was thinking about the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are seeking you; rise and go with them, doubting nothing, because I have sent them to you (Acts 10:19–20). And again: Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have taken them (Acts 13:2). And again: Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has appointed you bishops (Acts 20:28).

If he appointed apostles and established bishops, and created all things together with the Father and the Son, as was shown above—in whom is the role of the lesser or the servant, as you yourself do not fear—so great a majesty...

XIV. But that he is also God, as I remember I promised, I will prove by two testimonies, with the prophet David saying: I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me (Ps. 84:9). It is therefore beyond doubt to anyone that all the prophets announce or speak only through the Holy Spirit, as it is written in the Gospel: When that Holy Spirit comes, he says, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you and announce to you things to come (John 14:26; John 16:13). And likewise the Lord says through the prophet: They were unwilling to hear my words, which I commanded in my Spirit through the mouth of the former prophets, says the Lord (Zech. 7:12). But lest, running through the flowering meadows of the divine law, we be carried too far from our proposition by testimonies, let us return to what we promised. Paul also, the preacher of the Gentiles, writing to the Hebrews, says: But the Holy Spirit testifies to us, and this is the covenant which I establish for them after those days, says the Lord (Heb. 8:10). In the Acts of the Apostles, we remember that Peter said to Ananias: Why has Satan filled your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:5)?

And showing that he is the same God, he says in what follows: You have not lied to men (Acts 5:4); and Paul to the Corinthians: Now there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are visions of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all (1 Cor 12:4-6). Behold, the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle proclaims, is declared to be the same God, the same Lord. In the Gospel, as has already been said, the Lord himself says: God is Spirit (John 4:24). Likewise Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: Now the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17). And to the Ephesians: Do not, he says, grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed (Eph 4:30). Likewise to the Corinthians: Do you not know, he says, that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God? And showing that he is God, he adds and says: Glorify and bear God in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). For that the Holy Spirit is most manifestly shown to be God and Lord, the angel says to Mary: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

XV. Behold, by how many proofs of divine testimonies we have taught that the Holy Spirit is God, and of one power and fellowship with the Father and the Son. What response still remains for the faithless, I do not know. The apostle Paul certainly demonstrated most openly that the Holy Spirit has one fellowship with the Father and the Son, saying: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Cor 13:13).

Judge Probus said: If after countless testimonies promulgated by heavenly teaching anything seems to Arius to remain, let him not hesitate to set it forth. Although (as I think) nothing of a response has remained for him, by which, namely, he could drive Athanasius from the reasoning of one substance, that is, of homoousios. But lest afterward he complain of some oppression, no opportunity of responding is taken from him by us.

Arius said: No one doubts that Athanasius does not cease by magical arts to pervert the senses of the judge, so that he cannot hold the path of right faith toward those who religiously follow and cultivate it. And for this reason, what I cannot unfold in the examination of your eminence, I will reserve for the judgment of the prince; where the investigation of truth prevails, and it is to be believed that magical arts cannot prevail against the observance of the true faith.

Athanasius said: Those who cannot stand by their own assertions never cease to find an excuse for themselves through any fallacious arguments or cavillations whatsoever, as Arius is now doing more fully, as your Magnitude perceives. But for my part, in defending the true faith, it is enough to have responded to all the points he has set forth in the presence of your Eminence.

XVI. Probus the judge said: It is the mark of the unskilled and of those who presume too little on their own knowledge or learning to devote their effort to depravity rather than to lend patience to the truth—since it befits the assertors of the faith to be hindered by the bond of truth rather than of error or falsehood. This, then, is the custom of those who, when they have seen the cause of their perfidy brought to its end, fearing lest their perfidy become known to all men, betake themselves to the presence of a more powerful person; unaware that even there victory is granted to the truth, where the sentence of a generous power is pronounced. In vain, therefore, does Arius seem to appeal from our judgment to the person of the prince, since in the conflict of the contest he has felt nothing of depravity against himself, whom it is established that Athanasius could by no means be torn away from the defense of the homoousion (that is, of one substance). But (as his superfluous intention has decreed) I will in no way restrain him from doing so, lest, unable to bear the role of the defeated, he boast of the span of time having been taken from him.

It will be my task, however, to bring to the attention of the glorious prince all that has been set forth by both sides in our hearing, so that, with the deceitful ambiguities removed far away, Athanasius, the champion of the pure faith, may be able to attain the palm of victory.