Contra Arianos Dialogus Probo Judice Interlocutoribus

Judge Probus said: Your prudence likewise recognizes with me that a half-full sentence ought not to be brought forward. For this reason it is fitting that you also set forth something about the Holy Spirit by disputing.

Arius said: I confess that the Holy Spirit is not only less than the Father and the Son, but also the minister and servant of their will, as being a creature rendering most reverent service of obedience to its creator. Yet he is both better than all creatures and first after the Son. For if he were distinguished by the privilege of equal honor with the Father, as Athanasius professes, the Son would not say, "because he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears, he will speak." For he who speaks nothing by the authority of his own free power serves by obedience of ministry at the command of one who orders.

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

Judge Probus said: As your profession holds, briefly prove what reason demands as documentation—not from the argument of speech, but from the testimonies of the divine Scriptures—that the Holy Spirit is coequal with the Father and the Son; or (as you yourself have confessed) show that he is God or the creator of the common work; so that when you have proved these things by truthful testimonies, Arius, convicted by the profession of the true faith, may depart from his intention.

Athanasius said: By this it appears much more clearly that the Holy Spirit is not alien from the substance of the Father and the Son, since he does not act and speak from himself as though he were alien and foreign, but as a sharer of one and the same nature, he does and speaks the things that are common to the Father and the Son. For if he spoke of his own things, he would without doubt be considered not only alien from the Father, but also deceitful and a deceiver; because (as the Son says) Everyone who speaks a lie speaks of his own (John 8:44). And therefore this one speaks the truth, because he does not speak of his own, that is, not from himself, but of the things of the Father and the Son that are to be spoken. He said, He will receive of mine, and will announce it to you (John 16:14). And to show that this receiving from himself is the same as having taken from the Father also, he said: Therefore I said, He will receive of mine, because all things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15). You see, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is not separated from the Father and the Son, since he speaks those things which are known to be proper to the Father and the Son.

But the Son also makes a similar claim when he says: For I do not speak of myself, but the things which I heard from my Father I have made known to you. This sentence shows the Son and the Holy Spirit to be equal to each other—even if he is less than the Father, as you falsely suppose—which you impiously reject. For if both presume to speak nothing by their own authority, they surpass each other in no honor of dignity.

XXXVI. But still, hear more plainly how they are held equal to the Father. Thus the Son says: The works which I do, these testify of me; and again: I do nothing of myself, but the Father abiding in me, he does the works. How is it that now he calls the works he does his own, and a little later not his own? But surely, wishing to demonstrate the power of one nature, he refers the efficacy of the works to be performed to the unity of the Father's dignity. So that while the work is of the Father and the Son, and the work of the Son is of the Father (because whatever the Father does, the same the Son also does likewise), from the common work of deeds the communion of nature may be recognized. Just as, therefore, he says his works are not his own, which nevertheless are proved to be his, so also he testifies that he speaks words not his own, which are certainly known to be his. And what is said of the Son, infer the same also concerning the Holy Spirit, who does not speak of himself—to demonstrate the deity of one nature—in such a way that nevertheless the things he speaks are believed to be his, and not another's.

And Luke says of the apostles: And they spoke with other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. And in the Gospel: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. He therefore has his own authority of speaking, who grants to others the free faculty of speaking.

Arius said: Can you teach from the authorities of Scripture that the Holy Spirit is God, whom I confess to be a creature?

Athanasius said: The Holy Spirit is declared to be God especially by this, that he is everywhere and is contained by no place, as the prophet says to the Father: Where shall I go from your Spirit? And he reminds us: The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world. For to be everywhere, and in one and the same moment to fill the heavens, the earth, the seas, and the underworld—as David says: If I ascend into heaven, you are there; and if I descend into hell, you are present—is proper not to a creature, but to the whole God.

XXXVII. Finally, because he is of an uncomposed, that is, simple nature. For every creature, insofar as it pertains to the order of nature, is composite. If therefore you can show that the Holy Spirit is composite from a diversity of forms, then at last it will follow that no one would dare to doubt that he is a creature. But then it will be necessary that, if he is a creature, you teach that he is common with the rest, either with angels, or archangels, or powers and principalities, and that he is one of them; and thus you would demonstrate that he is not unique and singular, which you will by no means be able to demonstrate, since the prophets and apostles hold to it and cry out against it on every side. Solomon indeed says so: The Holy Spirit is simple, unique, and the rest (Wisdom 7:22). And the Apostle testifies: One Spirit (Ephesians 4:4). And again: But all these things are worked by one and the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11). And again: Because through him, he says, we have access, certainly in one Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Do you see, therefore, that he who is of a unique and simple nature is God rather than a creature? Finally, if he is a creature and not God, by what benefit of utility is the regeneration of the life-giving washing celebrated in his name? Baptize, says the Lord, the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). For what can he bestow on us, if he is not God? What kind, I ask, is this creature that possesses one name with the Father?

If you have not named him in baptism, the whole mystery will appear in vain, and the sacrament will not be perfect. For you will have used the name of the Father and of the Son to no purpose, since he has not been named. That a creature therefore cannot be creative is altogether beyond doubt to anyone.

XXXVIII. But that this Spirit is creator, the divine Scriptures everywhere declare; as we read in the book of Job: The divine Spirit is he who made me (Job 33:4). For here the Holy Spirit is designated as generally working all creation; as David declares more clearly, saying: For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers (Ps. 8:4), namely of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. For that the Holy Spirit is the finger, and that the fabric of the heavens is his work, the Lord plainly demonstrated in the Gospel, speaking through the sacred prophet's mouth: If I cast out demons by the finger of God, the kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20). By which finger the law of God is recorded to have been written on two tablets of stone, as we read in Exodus: Moses, it says, took the two tablets written by the finger of God (Exod. 31:18). Whence it is shown that this Holy Spirit is the lawgiver, whose law frees men from sins, according to the testimony of Paul's proclamation: The law of the Spirit of life has freed me from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). The power of whose virtue even Pharaoh's magicians wonderfully confess, saying: This is the finger of God (Exod. 7:19).

Moreover, the prophet David declares more plainly that the Holy Spirit is the Creator, saying: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power. And again: Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created. But no one doubts that the powers of the heavens are angels. These also, according to the testimony of the Apostle, desire most reverently to look upon this Spirit as upon the author of their own origin; for he says thus: The things that have been sent to you from heaven by the Holy Spirit, into which the angels desire to look.

XXXIX. If he were not God, he would not have his own free will to do what he wills. But since in the dispensation of the sacrament he uses the freedom of his will, and does not await the command of one who orders, it is evident that he is not a creature, but God. For the Apostle, when speaking of the diversities of heavenly gifts, added at the end: But all these things are worked by one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one as he wills. And again: The Holy Spirit, he says, distributes to all according to his own will. And the Lord says in the Gospel: The Spirit breathes where he wills. If he is not God, how does he give life? As the Apostle says: The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. And again concerning God: He will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. And the Lord in the Gospel: It is the Spirit who gives life.

Hence in Ezekiel too he is called the Spirit of life: The Spirit of life, he says, was in the wheels. Concerning him the Lord says in the same prophet to the bodies of mortals: Behold, I will send my Spirit into you, and you shall live. Therefore he who gives life is God. For if he were not God, how is he proclaimed as coming to judge the world? The Lord says in the Gospel: When the Spirit, the Paraclete, has come, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

XL. Hear another argument by which it is made clear that the Holy Spirit is God. The Father calls the faithful into his grace, the Son calls, the Holy Spirit calls. If he were a creature, he would not have an authority of calling equal and like to theirs. For of the Father the Apostle says: But when it pleased God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me into his grace. And of Christ he writes to the Romans: Among whom you also are, he says, called of Jesus Christ. Of the Holy Spirit Luke says in the Acts of the Apostles: While they were fasting and ministering—that is, the apostles—the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them. That the Holy Spirit is also the revealer of mysteries, the same Scripture testifies: Rising up, it says, Agabus signified through the Spirit that a great famine would come.

And again: When Peter was thinking about the vision, the Holy Spirit said: Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise, go down, and go with them without doubting, because I have sent them. But lest, by gathering many testimonies into one, the speech of our proceeding be drawn out at length, I briefly sum up all things. What then does it seem to you, best of judges? Is the Holy Spirit not God, who is not composed, who is unique and singular, who is creator and life-giver, who possesses one name together with the Father and the Son, who forgives sins, who sanctifies, who dispenses the charisms of graces according to his own will, who reveals mysteries, who gives the law, who by his authority calls to grace, who judges the world, who condemns those who tempt him, in whom the impious blaspheme irremissibly? If such a one is not God, let him show what more he who is God could have.

XLI. Arius said: Although every speech is liable to contradiction, and, as if by a certain shield of response, the darts of objections are repelled and frustrated, yet this question which we now intend, however great the subtlety of Athanasius' intellect may attempt to elude it, he will never be able—I do not say to dissolve the whole of it, but not even any part of it—by reasonable arguments. He says that the Holy Spirit is God, which indeed he has never been able to demonstrate more clearly.

Be it so, however, that I concede to him against the truth of the matter that the Holy Spirit can seem to be God, or can be God, on the ground that he works such things as it belongs to God alone to work. Therefore he confesses the Holy Spirit to be God, God the Father, God the Son; and by this very fact he seems to introduce three Gods, even if not with open impiety, yet by the very condition of his profession; and by this he begins in some manner to recall us to the error of many Gods, from which we had departed. I would wish, excellent judge (if indeed it be possible), to catch this new and distinguished master of his art, with the frauds of his tricks dissolved, mocking the eyes of those who agree with him. For in order to escape the danger of confessing three Gods, he suddenly fuses them, so that the three appear as one, by an incomprehensible phantom, saying: But these three are one God. Again, those whom by some coagulation, I know not what, he had mixed together and united into one God, he again separates into three forms, saying: And this one God is a Trinity. See, if you can (I entreat you), these unheard-of and unseen portents of a most wicked imagination. For I cannot comprehend how God is now one, now divided into three parts; now confounded from three into one, now distinguished from one into three; now formed by some composition out of parts, now by some derivation, I know not what, again divided from one into parts.

For he says, "There are three persons subsisting in their own substance, and they ought not to be confounded, lest they lose their proper state." According to my judgment—or rather according to the judgment of truth—he says: If there is one person, let this be stated plainly, and let him pass freely over into the dogma of Sabellius. For what need is there, in order to set forth the truth, to be varied with diverse forms and images, and thus to flee Sabellius as to run into me; thus to flee from me as for Sabellius to catch him? For in order to strip himself of Sabellian impiety, he affirms that the one whom he calls one is three. But lest I hold him guilty in three, by some device or other he melts three into one. Now if this faith has any plausible rationale, it is for your equity to judge, excellent Probus.

XLII. Probus the judge said: The one whom you have called one, you again call three; and those whom you have believed to be three, you again confess to be one God. As far as pertains to the reasoning of human sense, this seems very inconsistent—unless perhaps we are commanded by divine authority to believe it. Therefore let Athanasius not delay to respond to these objections so strong and so invincible which Arius raises.

Athanasius said: You have seemed to weave nets of words with knots (as it appears to you) that cannot be untied, in vain; not understanding, nor foreseeing, that you too can be entangled in these snares of objections. For because you press me concerning three, I bring back to you this question concerning two. If you worship one God, and there is no other besides the one, how do you bring in two for the worship of veneration? For by professing the Father to be God and the Son to be God, you are convicted of professing either a bipartite God or two distinct gods, and by this you offer an impious service to a twin divinity; since the Lord says: "You cannot serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24). But neither should I myself incur the mark of rashness, if I constrain you with an equal question concerning the divine profession; whose chief veneration requires silence rather than clever questions. I see that I must necessarily hasten to that point, so that I may teach that three are one, and one is three, even if not by reason, as I am a man, yet by authority. So then let us hear the Trinity itself saying: "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Genesis 1:26). Those who decree that man is to be made are three: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but these three are one. Finally he added: "And God made man in the image and likeness of God" (ibid., 27). Therefore, so that you may acknowledge the Trinity, it was said in the plural, "Let us make"; and so that you may not be ignorant that this Trinity is one God, he added in the singular, "And God made man.

And again, It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself (Gen. 2:18). Behold, here too it is said in the plural, let us make. But in what follows it is brought in in the singular, and God made man in the image of God: male and female he created them (Gen. 5:1–2). In the deliberation three are referred to, in the work one; so that not a diversity of will, but a unity of power may appear.

XLIII. And again: God was seen by Abraham; he looked toward the oak of Mamre; and behold, three men stood before him, and falling down he worshiped, saying: If I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant (Gen. 18:1–3). Behold, both one is said to have appeared, and yet there were three; and although there were three, nevertheless he was one. For when he says, If I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant, he shows that he is one. Again, when it is said: Let water be brought, and let your feet be washed, he shows that there are three. Again, when he says, He set a table before them and they ate, while he himself stood before them under the tree (Gen. 18:4), he shows that there are three. And when he adds, And he said to him, Where is Sarah your wife (ibid., 8)? he shows that he is one. Likewise, when he says, Rising up from there the men went toward the face of Sodom, but Abraham was accompanying them (ibid., 9), he shows that there are three. And when he repeats, And the Lord said, Shall I hide from my servant Abraham what I am about to do to Sodom (ibid., 16)? he shows that he is one.

But those sacred songs of the heavenly powers also demonstrate that the three are one and that the three are one. For they resound with this measure: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts (Isa. 6:3): while they repeat "holy" a third time, they imply the Trinity; while they say "Lord" once, they designate that same Trinity to be one God. To this mystery the gospel sacrament also agrees, which the Lord commanded the nations to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Behold, you have three subsisting in one name of deity. For the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is God. Concerning which name the Lord speaks to Moses in the book of Numbers, saying: As I live, and my name lives (Num. 14:21).

XLIV. For let not that seem idle to you either, which the same Son speaks under the great mystery of the Trinity, saying: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Acts 7:32). For in that he says, I am, he shows one God: and in that he repeats a third time, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, he more openly declares the mystery of the Trinity. Hear still further and behold more clearly the mystery of this hidden secret. Isaiah says, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, and below, And he said, Whom shall I send, who will go from us? — doubtless for preaching to the people of the Jews: And I said, Behold I, send me. And he said, Go, and you shall say to this people (Isa. 6:1, 8, 9).

When therefore he says in the singular, "Whom shall I send," he indicates one God; and when he brings in in the plural, "Who will go from us," he openly implies the Trinity. Hear now a still clearer truth of this faith, if you keep the ears of your mind open. That the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the Creator of heaven and earth is declared more evidently from those things which we have already brought forward above; since we have taught that it was said in the plural, "Let us make man" (Gen. 1:26), where that whole Trinity is understood to have made man; just as this same Trinity is again believed in baptism to remake man. Or also that which the prophet says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power" (Ps. 32:6). And Solomon, in the person of Wisdom, declares, saying: "When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him; when he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him arranging all things" (Prov. 8:27, 29). It is established therefore, as I said, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, the whole Trinity, is the creatress of the world. Let us hear therefore through the prophet Isaiah, that the three are one God. For it is said there: "I am God, who alone established the heavens and made the earth firm; and no one is with me" (Isa. 44:24). Whose voice do you wish this to be, the Father's or the Son's? If you do not believe the whole Trinity to be one God, this sentence will not stand. For he says, "who made the earth firm, and no one is with me." And surely the Son was with the Father, who says: "When he prepared the heavens, I was present, and when he was making strong the foundations.

the foundations of the earth, I was present with him (Prov. 8:27, 29, 30). Since therefore it is clear that in the founding of the world the Father was not alone (seeing that the Holy Spirit and the Son were present with him, as consorts of one divinity and power), what is the meaning of his testifying that he was alone and that no other was with him, except that you may understand that he himself, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit have spoken of one God; with whom no other God, foreign and alien to his nature, was present? And rightly did Moses speak concerning the children of Israel, saying: He alone led them, and no alien God was with him (Deut. 32:12); since undoubtedly both the Son and the Holy Spirit were with the people, and this Arius cannot deny. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are not alien, who together with the Father are one God.

XLV. Let us hear also the most blessed Paul, discoursing more openly on this same mystery, and confirming that the three are one God; as is most fully set forth in the book which we have published against Maribadus, deacon of your abominable heresy; of which we now insert a very few points in this place. When therefore he objected that union excludes the equality of the Trinity, and equality repels union, among many other things I replied this. Hear, I say, the Apostle, proclaiming this union of the Trinity more clearly. He says in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: There are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who works all things in all (1 Cor. 12:4, 5, 6). Because it is a Trinity, he named three. And because that same Trinity is one God, when he had counted three persons, he did not say in the plural "who work," but in the singular "who works." And lest, I say, by a perverse sense of understanding you should think that he said this of the Father alone, who works all things, and not also at the same time of the Son and the Holy Spirit, listen carefully to what he says in the following words. For when he had enumerated many works of divine grace, he says: But all these things are worked by one and the same Spirit (Ibid., 11). You see the Father working, the Son working, the Holy Spirit working; and when the three work together, it is not said of them "who work," but "who works," so that one God may be shown in the Trinity. Likewise the same Apostle, naming the Son and the Father, says: Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God the Father who loved us (2 Thess. 2:15). And when he had named two, and shown that they are one, he did not say "who loved," but "who loved." Nor did he say "may they comfort," but "may he comfort your hearts" (Ibid., 16). Likewise: Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you (1 Thess. 3:11). Nor here did he say "may they direct," but "may he direct." Thus far I have taught, with apostolic understanding, from that work most abundantly, that the Trinity is one God; let us hasten to the rest.

XLVI. The Acts of the Apostles also teach that this sacrament of faith can be most strongly commended by natural examples as well, when Luke relates concerning the believers: But the multitude of those who believed had one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32). If grace conferred this on the faithful through the regeneration of baptism, that the souls of many should be one soul, why is it not much more fittingly believed concerning the Trinity that God is one, so that what we have through grace, that Trinity has through nature? For even if we look more carefully, we find even in ourselves something of nature that may be likened to that most blessed and ineffable Trinity, though in a far different way. For it was not written in vain that God made man in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:27 and 5:1). Therefore the Apostle is a witness that man consists of three things, that is, of body, and soul, and spirit, saying: That your body, and soul, and spirit may be preserved whole unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23). If in a corruptible and composite nature the mystery of so great a unity is found, so that one is three, and three are one man, how much more beautifully and honorably is it received concerning the Trinity that God is one, not by a mingling of confusion, but by unity of nature? Instructed, therefore, by these and very many other testimonies of the Scriptures and examples of things, we neither fall into Sabellius by confessing three to be one God, nor are we ensnared by the snares of the light of perfidy, while we openly profess that this God is a Trinity.

XLVII. Probus the judge said: Against these things which Athanasius has set forth, if anything remains for you to reply in turn, take care to bring it forward.

Arius said: There are indeed very many things which teach that the Son is both of another nature and of inferior power, and that he is the Son of power. But since these things have been more fully objected by our people elsewhere against the errors of these men, what need is there to repeat these same things again and to provide a patchwork material for altercation? If it pleases you, therefore, deign to give a sentence concerning the disputations held among us.

Probus the judge said: I have already admonished above that a half-complete sentence ought not to be brought forth. It remains that, if anything is left to you, you deign to carry it through. Arius said: Concerning these things which have been made clear to your knowledge, deign to pronounce.

Athanasius said: Of the remaining questions by which Arius supposes that the Son can be shown to be less than the Father, that principal one is what the same Son says: The Father is greater than I; which, it is already known, he has aimed at, and to this, as to a head, all the members of the questions cling. For what he says, I have not come to do my own will; and The Son cannot do anything of himself; and As the Father taught me, so I do; and My doctrine is not mine; and I must work the works of him who sent me; and I have not come of myself: he sent me; and I am the vine and my Father is the husbandman; and I live because of the Father.

Or that he confesses that he does not know the day, and that he calls his Father God, and prays concerning the passing of the cup, and complains that he was forsaken on the cross, and that he commends his spirit to the Father. And if there can be any other things of this kind, they look to that which, by us, with all fear and reverence, according to the dispensation of the flesh, by which he is made less not only than the Father but also than the angels and men, are understood as said or done.

XLVIII. And we believe ourselves indebted to his benefit in proportion as we know that these things are even unworthy of him; who loved us with so great a love that he willed to incline himself to these things so vile, so injurious. For because he was made a little less than the angels, we have already, as I remember, taught more fully above, where we set forth the words of the Apostle saying: But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. But that he was also made less than men, hear Isaiah saying: We saw him, and there was no form in him, nor comeliness; but his form was despised, and failing above the sons of men. But also Luke the evangelist says of him: And he was subject to his parents. All these things, if they are received according to the form of humanity, his divinity is found to be inferior not only to the Father, but also to the angels and men.

But because he had both natures in himself, namely of God and of man, he speaks and acts according to the things of each nature. For it is not of the same nature to say, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28), and to say, I and the Father are one (John 10:30). To say, The Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19); and to say, Whatever things the Father does, these the Son also does likewise. To say, I did not come to do my own will (John 6:38); and to say, As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills (John 5:21). Whence also with the authority of free will he says to the leper: I will; be made clean (Mark 1:41).

XLIX. Therefore, I say, it is not of one nature to be held in the bosom of a manger, and to be made known by the signs of the stars; to be subject to men, and to be ministered to by angels; to flee from place to place, and to exhibit his presence everywhere; to dwell in earthly places, and not to forsake heavenly ones; to be tempted by the devil, and to send his legions into the abyss; to endure hunger, and to satisfy many thousands of men; to thirst for water, and to change flowing streams of water into the nature of wine; to ask for a cup from a well to quench thirst for a single moment, and to bestow the everlasting courses of a surging river; to cross the seas by boat, and to tread the same with a wondrous step, with dry foot; to be ignorant of the day, and to know the Father; not to grant the two seats to those who ask, and of his own will to grant two.

to promise ten thrones at once; to dread death, and to mock death; to fear being captured, and to lead captives back, and to plunder utterly all the laws of hell; to complain that he is desolate, and presently to take the thief into the fellowship of the patriarchs; to have created all things out of nothing, and, death being triumphed over, to receive power over them. You see, then, most excellent Probus, that in this dispensation of the assumed flesh nothing at all was derogated from the divinity, since where the office of the humble body is fulfilled, there the miracles of the divine powers shine forth. Therefore he is equal to the Father according to that which he is God, and greater is the Father than he according to that which he became man.

L. For this reason I have briefly gathered all these things together into one heap of a response, because our blessed Ambrose has disputed more at length and more fully concerning all these chapters of questions. Against whom Palladius, bishop of the Arian perfidy, when that holy man had, I believe, already been taken from human affairs, thought certain things should be written in refutation of his sayings. If therefore anything could now be objected by you, he has already occupied it with his own objections. And since I have already answered him in one book, I think it better, if anything here perhaps seems to have been omitted by us, to explain it more fully there, with the help of divine grace, so that in that place Arius too may recognize that he has been overcome. Wherefore deign, most excellent Probus, to give your final judgment concerning the matters examined.

Probus the judge said: If after countless testimonies promulgated by heavenly teaching anything seems to remain to Arius, let him not hesitate to set it forth. Although, as I think, nothing of a reply remains to him—namely, replies by which he could refute Athanasius concerning the principle of one substance, that is, of the homoousion. But lest he later complain of some oppression from us, let no opportunity of responding be denied him.

Arius said: It is doubtful to no one that Athanasius does not cease to pervert the minds of judges by magical arts, so that they cannot hold the path of right faith toward those who more religiously follow and cultivate it. And therefore 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 where it must 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 by any deceitful arguments or cavillations, as your greatness now more fully perceives Arius to do. But for me, vindicating the true faith, it is enough to have responded to all the things that have been set forth by him in the presence of your eminence.

BOOK THREE.

THE SENTENCE OF PROBUS THE JUDGE.

Probus the judge said: Out of love for the truth and the faith, I have judged it fitting to examine the followers of the Christian religion—that is, Athanasius, Sabellius, Arius, and Photinus. Since they are separated from one another by a long interval of dispute, owing to the diversity of their doctrines and the variety of their opinions, I have taken care to investigate more diligently whose faith is marked out by true assertions. So that I might be able to know this more easily, I caused each of them individually to set forth the opinions of his own faith, and I demanded by my questioning that they confirm the same with credible proofs—namely, with them opposing and refuting one another, so that, while some defended and others resisted, the recognition of the most lucid truth might be laid open. That they have done so is shown by the reading of the proceedings themselves.

II.

Since, therefore, I had granted Sabellius first the freedom of disputing by way of consultation rather than by authority, he brought forth such a judgment concerning God as to say that the Father subsists so solitary and singular, without any person of an existing Son or Holy Spirit, that He Himself is rather reckoned under the name of Son and Spirit: asserting God to be three-named, that is, as if one species or person were called by the names of three words, not by distinction of kind but by interchange of office, so that He is held to be Father not because He begot but because He created; and that the same one, falling away from the dignity of paternal honor through certain increases, or rather losses, of nature, passed over into the name of Son by the birth of a virgin origin. But that these things are foolish and impious, and devoid of all the truth of faith, became most manifestly clear from the prosecutions of those who opposed them. For it was shown by many and copious proofs of the divine readings that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist in their own special and proper persons: that one is the begetter, another the begotten, another the Holy Spirit of the begotten and the unbegotten; although according to the probable truth of the faith of Athanasius, they cannot be other than one, since they can be believed to be one and another, and indeed are.

For it is indeed a kind of extreme and profound folly to name as Father one who did not beget, and to believe as Son one who was not begotten; or through empty and vain fictions of false names to lead astray the senses of human minds, and to mock the Christian faith with ludicrous objections of opinions.

III. After therefore the illusions of this error had been exposed and lay open, I ordered by my interlocution that Photinus be present for his faith, if he were able. He, at the very beginning of his prosecution, asserted that our Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man and devoid of the divinity of the Word; and that he had advanced so far, raised up more illustriously by certain merits of a blessed life, that he passed by right into the appellation of God and Lord; not by a natural privilege of dignity, but by the accidental [privilege] of a worthy and most deserving action; saying that it is impious to accept the nature of divinity in him who was both carried by the bearing of a maternal womb, and passed through the solemn conditions of feminine modesty; and who experienced a cradle and wailings, and also obtained the increments of age; and did not escape the commonalities of our frailty to such an extent that he both hungered and thirsted, was ignorant, was tempted, feared to die, and died. But those things which are narrated full of miracles in his deeds, he asserted had been obtained divinely, not as God (which he was not) did them, but by the gift of patronizing merits.

But this doctrine of shameful unbelief has also been shown, by numerous and manifold proofs, to be both impious and empty; and that he was also God—for he alone was not merely despising a man—became especially clear from that testimony which John the evangelist attested, saying: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing; by which it was declared that he was not only God with God before the ages, but also the author of the whole creation. Many other testimonies similar to these were also brought forward, as is contained in the body of the foregoing arguments; by which it clearly appeared that this Word, God, begotten from the womb of the Father before the ages, also at the end of times, for love of men, took up the nature of our race; in which, while his own nature remained intact, he nevertheless underwent all the passions of human frailty in one and the same person.

IV. And so, with Photinus also excluded and his error, at my insistence, driven out, the whole weight of the matter and the safe workshop, as it were, of the faith hung upon the clash and conflict of the dispute between Arius and Athanasius. When I had granted them the opportunity of entering into debate, Athanasius laid open the path of his faith, saying that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one essence and of one united nature. Arius, on the contrary, replied that they are so far from being of one substance that the Father greatly excels the Son in dignity, power, and honor; and he said that the Son subsists within these things and far below them. He also kept saying that the term homoousios, as foreign and alien to the divine Scriptures, and recently found at Nicaea by argument rather than by authority, must be wholly repudiated; or at any rate he demanded that it be demonstrated to him that it is contained in the divine writings. Otherwise, he argued most insistently, the very name must be cast aside along with it. But Athanasius, inquiring whether Arius was offended by the novelty of the name or by the power of the word, received the answer that both displeased him. From this it appeared that he was unwilling to accept homoousios not because it was new, but because it destroyed the efforts of his faith.

But when he demanded again and more often the proper meaning of the term as it is used purely and specifically in the Scriptures, Athanasius alleged that it was a matter of ecclesiastical custom that, when the insolent and rash audacity of heretical fraud had overstepped the boundaries of the apostolic faith, it should be bound inextricably by those chains of propositions by which he thought the very liberty of catholic understanding was kept entangled within the snares of his own perfidy.

V. And so that Athanasius might fortify himself with the authority of the ancients, he brought forward such examples of ancient custom, which Arius could not only not deny, but could even defend with a reasoning of faith equal to his own. He proposed, therefore, to demonstrate regarding innovations in names the rule of ancient practice: that against Sabellius, who asserted that the Father was begotten, catholics ought to profess that he is unbegotten and unbegotten-from-any-source, and that this had been established by the decree of past councils, although this very point, more evidently stated, could not be shown by the authority of the divine Scriptures; but both the truth of the matter itself and the necessity of heretical profession demanded that this be professed.

Likewise, he said that the bishops of the religion whose followers Arius handed down had delivered at the Synod of Sirmium that the Son must be confessed as God from God, light from light; and that this very thing cannot be found set down simply and specifically in the divine Scriptures. And he brought forward very many similar proofs, which are contained expressed in the series of the acts, by which it is shown that, to display the insolence of the heretics, the terms of new names were presumptuously adopted; and yet it is not to be believed that they acted against the prohibition of the apostolic sentence, which commanded that profane novelties of words be avoided. But profane, he says, not religious. For it is taught that it is a religious thing to call the Father unbegotten, and the Son God from God, light from light; and that true Christians are called catholic is a term of a new name. In a similar way, Athanasius said, it also happened at the Council of Nicaea. And just as Arius was introducing against the same thing the triousion, that is, three substances, so the bishops judged that the homousion, that is, that the Son is to be confessed of one substance with the Father, should be held. And it was altogether consequent that, if the profession of the homousion is reckoned as a foreign law, the invention of the triousion would likewise be refuted by equal reasoning. Or at any rate Arius should show that the triousion is specifically written in the law, just as he was compelling Athanasius concerning the propriety of the homousion. But since he had been wholly unable to show this, it became clear that he had superfluously demanded of Athanasius what he himself was least able to demonstrate.

VI. And when he realized that he was bound by an equal knot of the question, at last he turned his assent to that opinion of the sentence, that, setting aside the proof of bare words, they should be taught by facts and reasons whether the natures of the Father and the Son are one or diverse. But from this Athanasius gave a clearer and more open indication of one substance, by which he showed that the Father begot the Son from himself and not from outside; and that he could not have brought forth anything other than what he himself is, since both the truth of the divine generation, out of reverence for its own honor, demanded that this be believed, and the authority of the custom of natural things invited it, namely that parents cannot procreate children of a dissimilar nature. And therefore, according to the opinion of Arius, who asserted that the Son is of a different substance than the Father, he left this to be understood by human sense, that if the Son is truly in a diversity of nature, he seems to be not so much begotten as made; and the appellation of Son and Father would be empty and vain, while in appearance only, rather than truly, either the one is preached as having begotten, or the other as having been born. But if he is truly asserted to be born of the Father, and yet is not believed to be of one and the same substance with him, it follows that he must be professed to be degenerate and like some monster, brought forth otherwise than the Father's nature dictated.

Since this is inconsistent with that holy, most blessed, and ineffable majesty—especially since by this very fact he has set living creatures free from the most wretched condition of nature, so that they generate nothing other than what they themselves are—it is clearly proved that the Son is of the same nature as his Father.

VII. But against these things Arius especially objected this: that the Father could not have generated the Son from himself, lest by this he seem to be subject to the defect of some division or corruption. For if, as he claimed, he is believed to have begotten the Son from himself—that is, from that which he himself is—then he will surely be thought to have separated some portion of his own substance from himself; and by this, departing greatly, no doubt, from the fullness of his own perfection, he will plainly appear both divided and diminished. This head of objection Athanasius removed by the following reasoning of truth, saying that it is impossible for God—who is incorporeal, invisible, and intangible—to receive or have in himself that which is subject to the defect of division or corruption, since, of course, to be divided or diminished is wont to belong to things that can be touched and are corporeal materials. But God, who is in none of these, can by no means suffer any such thing; and for this reason it must be believed that he has begotten, because he testifies that he has begotten. But it must not at all be admitted that he was corrupted by this very generation, because he is always incorrupt.

Especially since many things are found in corporeal and corruption-subject things to be administered or born in such a way that they bring no detriment to their own materials from which they are generated—as light taken from light, or supplied by its approach and, as it were, by a kind of birth of progress, can bring the loss of diminution to the original material—so also the divine offspring of the most sacred Virgin demonstrates that something of this sort was in it by a wondrous and inexplicable mystery of sacraments: while the womb, full of God, is emptied without loss of chastity. And if virginal integrity, if a nature liable to corruption, is not corrupted by giving birth to God, how could the incorruptible nature of the Father be believed to have been corrupted by generating the same God?

VIII. But again Arius strove to show from this that the nature of the Father and the Son is far unequal and dissimilar, because the Son said that he was less than the Father, and that he does not do his own will but the Father's in all things. And he asserted that he had confessed many other things consonant with this view about himself, which seem to me quite weak and very incongruous for demonstrating a dissimilar nature. As if, indeed, any son of a human father who does the will of a human father, and confesses him to be superior and greater than himself, could be of a different nature from him—although the father may be preferred in honor, yet he cannot be distinguished in nature. This, indeed, I would state by the law and condition of human nature.

Moreover, Athanasius opened for us the way of this understanding by a clearer statement, in which, with every fog of hesitation dispelled, he brought forth the bright light of truth. For what could more clearly be said or believed for driving away the mists of all error than that, just as we believe there are two natures in the one Christ—namely, of God and of man—so too we recognize that a twofold power of things is present in his words and deeds? So that those things which he speaks more sublimely—that is, I and the Father are one (John 10:30), and other things like these—are referred to the nature of the Godhead; but those things which he spoke more humbly, he spoke according to the man. Concerning the Holy Spirit too, a fitting discussion was held: whom Arius, by confessing him to be a creature, thought to be far removed and alien from communion with the nature of the Father and the Son. But that he is of one and the same substance, Athanasius demonstrated especially from this: while he taught thoroughly that he speaks and does those things which it is possible for God alone to do or speak, and that such things are reported of him as befit no creature. And therefore he cannot be seen or thought to be foreign to the unity of the Godhead of the Father and the Son, whom a like and the same power of works has shown to be equal. Indeed, by the detestable error of depravity, he is thought to be alien from the fellowship of the Father and the Son, because he is shown to obtain with them an equal honor of name and power.

IX. Athanasius also dissolved by the authority of divine Scripture that difficult and—as Arius supposed—insoluble question, which he had raised: that three could be called one God, and that the same cannot be distinguished in three persons; so that the truth, once untangled, may stand in a greater absolution than it had been entangled by the syllogisms of cunning subtleties. For he showed more manifestly that in the Trinity there is one God, according to the union of nature, not according to the distinction of persons. And therefore the three are one God, because the nature of the three is one. For just as, when many souls are called one soul, and when all men are called one man, this is asserted according to the condition of nature, which is one for all, not according to the diversity of persons. Therefore those who are one God by nature are the same three in persons: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If, then, you seek the common name of these three, it is God; in which one and singular name the mystery of baptism is celebrated. Baptize, he says, the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). According to this communion of name, both the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. And although each one of them is God singularly, the unity of nature does not permit them to be called gods in the plural. Since the name of nature, which is God, is not private to each one and peculiar, but common. And what is common and one cannot be many.

And therefore the Trinity is not called gods in the plural, but one God. But where something peculiar and that does not reciprocate into another is present, there both plurality and distinction can be had. Therefore, since the Father is properly called, and the Son is properly named, and the Holy Spirit is distinguished by His own appellation, and the Father cannot be the Son, nor the Son the Father, nor can the Holy Spirit be understood as either the Son or the Father, most rightly according to the distinction of persons are they named three, who nevertheless according to the union of nature cannot be numbered. And therefore there are three names in the persons—Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit; one name in nature—God; and from this, the three are one God. Therefore neither confusion in the three nor diversity in the one name is admitted: and so the Trinity is one God according to the union of nature; and the one God is the Trinity according to the distinction of persons. These things, according to the understanding of Athanasius, anyone can discuss even more truly and more fully; the assertion of whose faith is supported by such great authority of truth and such great attestation of probable things, that, by a new and unusual kind of proceeding, it is proved rather by the testimony of its own adversaries, and it stands and subsists by those very other reasonings by which it is thought it could be destroyed.

For the same Athanasius said that there are three persons and that they have one nature. This sentence is confirmed also by the testimony of Sabellius and Arius. For the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are to such a degree of one power and one nature, that Sabellius, seeing such great force of truth, thought that there was one and a single person. But to such a degree is it not one person, but three distinct persons, that Arius says they are unequal and diverse in nature. Therefore the inequality of Arius indicates the distinction of persons. The confusion of Sabellius more openly shows the union of nature. Again, while Photinus, to confirm his own opinion, by which he thinks Christ is a pure man, repeats those testimonies which the same Christ, conscious of his human nature, either spoke or performed—that is, while he says that the Father is greater than himself, and that he does not seek his own will, but his, and other things similar to these, which are more fully expressed in the body of the disputation—he most evidently confirms the faith of Athanasius, by which he asserted that Christ spoke all these things not according to the nature of divinity, but according to the human nature which he himself bore.

But also, since Arius, from the weakness of his words or deeds, wishes him to be understood as a creature (evidently judging it unworthy to accept in him the nature of God the Almighty, whom he sees to have been subjected to so many conditions of need), not only by these things does he more robustly confirm the sentence of Athanasius, by which he defined that whatever things he either spoke or did in a manly way in Christ are to be understood according to the dispensation of the flesh; but he is also held bound with Photinus by a similar bond of perversity, since he too dared to define the Son of God as a creature by an equal sentence. But although they are dissimilar in this, that Arius thought the Son of God a heavenly creature and better than the rest, while Photinus thought him earthly, yet both of them are joined under the name of creature, since whether they called him heavenly or earthly, they nevertheless by no means depart from the confession of a creature, both taking away from the Son that which was born of the Father; and by this very kind of assertion alone both are suitable witnesses for Athanasius. But also, while they confess Christ to be a creature, they are found equal by a like error.

XI. Therefore the faith of Athanasius has appeared as commendable and supported by every assertion of truth, as being fortified by apostolic traditions, coming from their rules. For more evidently, according to the norm of the catholic faith, it shows to us one God, not tripartite, not singular, not confused, not divided, not composed of diversity, not united by some composition: but that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist and are distinguished by their own properties, yet according to the union of the common nature there is one God. Those also, the figments of old wives' fables, by which Arius and Photinus, and equally Sabellius, attributed doubtful names of words to the Father and the Son, while the one claimed that the Son was made for himself, and the others most vainly boasted that he had not so much begotten as created him—these, destroyed by the assertion of truth, have yielded. For although they advanced through various paths of their own, yet they arrived at one pit. For they all said that the Father did not beget. Indeed Sabellius and Photinus attempted to establish this with open impiety. But Arius, on the first front of the dispute, thought it should be more subtly evaded, but in the progress of the contest he defended this very thing with stubborn shamelessness, asserting that the Father did not beget from himself, but created the Son from outside. And by this, according to their nefarious errors, the Father is called in vain, if he did not beget; in vain is the Son called, whom heretical impiety has defined as not having been begotten.

But that these were fabrications of the emptiest superstition, Athanasius demonstrated with the most manifest truth, showing that the Father truly begot, and that the Son was truly begotten by the very truth of the paternal name.

XII. Therefore falsehood yielded to truth, and every disguise of adulterous doctrine, once the integrity of the faith was made manifest, at last at some time vanished away; and the whole darkness of misty assertion, which had covered human minds with the thick veil of perfidy, was so thoroughly dispelled even to purity by the splendor of the shining faith, that error could not leave behind even a trace of itself. Whence I exhort and at the same time advise in common, that all who know themselves to be entangled in the errors of Sabellius, Arius, and Photinus, or of any other fabricated doctrine whatsoever—if they consult their own salvation, if they do not prefer blindness to the light, if they do not wish that to harm them which is that they have wandered so long from the light of truth through the palpable shadows of empty opinions, if they desire that to profit them which is that they are called Christians—having set aside all shame of modesty, abandoning the harmful enticements of human error, by which they were deceived into thinking they had found the truth, and by which, under the pretext of the Christian name, they were held far estranged from the confession of Christ, let them strive to hasten with all their strength and with all the efforts of faith to the true and right path of the apostolic faith, to hold fast to it, of which Athanasius was a fit and faithful defender, so that they may obtain the reward of a true and whole confession by an undoubted lot. Amen.