A concise history of Western Christianity:
The early and medieval period
Primary source documents
chapter 6: Theological and ecclesial controversies in the fourth century
- The decision of the Synod of Arles regarding
Donatist ordination (314): Canon 13.
- Constantine, Imperial letter ordering a synod of bishops to be held at Rome for unity and concord of the churches
- Arius, Letter to Bishop Alexander (c.320)
- Athanasius, Against the Arians – about the
co-eternity of Father and Son
- Basil, Letters, CCXXXVI: 6 – the distinction of meaning between ousia and hypostasis
- Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three God
- Gregory of Nyssa, Life of St. Macrina – Macrina
converts Basil to the ascetic life
The decision of the Synod of Arles regarding Donatist ordination (314): Canon 13.
Source: Joseph Cullen Ayer, A Source Book for Ancient Church History. From the Apostolic age to the Close of the Conciliar Period, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons 1941, 291-2.
The Synod of Arles was the first synod to deal with the problems raised by the Donatist controversy. One of the decisions (called canons) rejected the teaching of Cyprian that a baptism conducted by heretical or schismatic priests is invalid. The thirteenth canon, shown below, applied the same principle to ordination: an ordination performed by a heretical or schismatic bishop is not invalid.
The canons were reproduced in a letter of the synod to Bishop Sylvester of Rome.
Marinus and the assembly of bishops, who have come together in
the town of Arles, to the most holy lord and brother Sylvester. What
we have decreed with general consent we signify to your charity that
all may know what ought to be observed in the future.
[…]
Constantine, Imperial letter ordering a synod of bishops to be held at Rome for unity and concord of the churches
Source: Eusebius. The Church History. Translation and commentary by
Paul L. Maier, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel 1999, 324-5.
Book 10 of Eusebius’ Church History contains various official documents of the Emperor Constantine. Among them is a letter of Constantine to Bishop Miltiades of Rome calling for a church council to resolve the Donatist controversy that had broken out in Northern Africa. The letter shows the emperor’s concern for the unity of the church.
Constantine Augustus to Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, and to Mark. In view of the numerous documents sent to me by Anulinus, the illustrious Proconsul of Africa, in which it appears that Caecilian, Bishop of Carthage, is accused on many accounts by some of his colleagues in Africa, I deem it a very serious matter that in those provinces that divine providence has entrusted to My Dedication and where there is a great number of people, the multitude should be found taking the wrong course in splitting up, as it were, and the bishops divided among themselves. It seemed good to me that Caecilian himself, with ten bishops who seem to be accusing him and ten others whom he thinks necessary for his case, should set sail for Rome, where, in the presence of yourselves and your colleagues Reticius, Maternus, and Marinus, whom I have directed to hasten to Rome for this purpose, he may be granted a hearing through such a procedure as you think accords with the most sacred law. So that you may have complete information on all these matters, I have attached to my letter copies of the reports Anulinus sent to me and have dispatched them to your colleagues above. When you have read them, Your Constancy will decide how the aforementioned case can most carefully be investigated to reach a just verdict, for, as Your Diligence is well aware, my respect for the lawful catholic church is so great that I want no schism or division of any kind anywhere. May the divinity of the great God keep you safe for many years, most honored sirs.
Arius, Letter to Bishop Alexander (c.320)
Source: Athanasius, Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (359), Chapter 16. Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II Volume 4, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995, 458.
The most important decision of the Nicene Council in 325 was the rejection of the Arian teaching. The subsequent decades brought on-going tension between those who supported the Nicene Creed and the excommunicated Arian Christians. Some groups, among them the homoiousians, tried to find a middle position that would reconcile both sides.
The most important representative of the orthodox party in the controversy against the Arians was Athanasius. His life, with several ups and downs, and several excommunications and readmissions to the church, mirrors the doctrinal tensions between the Nicene and Arian parties. The section below is an extract from a text written by Athanasius in 359 during his third exile.
In
his report about the two synods that attempted to resolve the
on-going conflict, published under the title Councils of Ariminum
and Seleucia (in Latin De Synodis), Athanasius preserved some of
the theological arguments of his opponents, the Arians.
Our faith from our forefathers, which also we have learned from thee, Blessed Pope, is this: — We acknowledge One God, alone In-generate, alone Everlasting, alone Unbegun, alone True, alone having Immortality, alone Wise, alone Good, alone Sovereign; Judge, Governor, and Providence of all, unalterable and unchangeable, just and good, God of Law and Prophets and New Testament; who begat an Only-begotten Son before eternal times, through whom He has made both the ages and the universe; and begat Him, not in semblance, but in truth; and that He made Him subsist at His own will, unalterable and unchangeable; perfect creature of God, but not as one of things begotten; nor as Valentinus pronounced that the offspring of the Father was an issue; nor as Manichaeus taught that the offspring was a portion of the Father, one in essence; or as Sabellius, dividing the Monad, speaks of a Son-and-father; nor as Hieracas, of one torch from another, or as a lamp divided into two; nor that He who was before, was afterwards generated or new-created into a Son, as thou too thyself, Blessed Pope, in the midst of the Church and in session hast often condemned; but, as we say, at the will of God, created before times and before ages, and gaining life and being from the Father, who gave subsistence to His glories together with Him. For the Father did not, in giving to Him the inheritance of all things, deprive Himself of what He has ingenerately in Himself; for He is the Fountain of all things. Thus there are Three Subsistences. And God, being the cause of all things, is Unbegun and altogether Sole, but the Son being begotten apart from time by the Father, and being created and founded before ages, was not before His generation, but being begotten apart from time before all things, alone was made to subsist by the Father. For He is not eternal or co-eternal or co-unoriginate with the Father, nor has He His being together with the Father, as some speak of relations, introducing two ingenerate beginnings, but God is before all things as being Monad and Beginning of all. Wherefore also He is before the Son; as we have learned also from thy preaching in the midst of the Church. So far then as from God He has being, and glories, and life, and all things are delivered unto Him, in such sense is God His origin. For He is above Him, as being His God and before Him. But if the terms ‘from Him,’ and ‘from the womb,’ and ‘I came forth from the Father, and I am come’ (Rom. xi:36; Ps. ex. 3; John xvi:28), be understood by some to mean as if a part of Him, one in essence or as an issue, then the Father is according to them compounded and divisible and alterable and material, and, as far as their belief goes, has the circumstances of a body, Who is the Incorporeal God.
Athanasius, Against the Arians – about the co-eternity of Father and Son
Source: Athanasius, Against the Arians. Discourse I, Chapter VII, Paragraph 25 and Discourse III, Chapter XXIII, Paragraph 3. In Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Volume 4. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters. Series II, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers 1995, 321 and 395.
Athanasius had become the most important opponent of the Arian Christians. In the following two sections of his book Against the Arians, he refers to the image of the sun and the radiation of the sun to argue for the co-eternity of the Father and the Son: although the two are distinguished, they are of the same being.
The Father’s eternity implies the eternity of that radiance which is His Word
. . . — whereas God is, He was eternally; since then the Father is ever, His Radiance ever is, which is His Word. And again, God who is, hath from Himself His Word who also is; and neither hath the Word been added, whereas He was not before, nor was the Father once without Reason. For this assault upon the Son makes the blasphemy recoil upon the Father; as if He desired for Himself a Wisdom, and Word, and Son from without; for whichever of these titles you use, you denote the offspring from the Father, as has been said. So that this their objection does not hold; and naturally; for denying the Logos they in consequence ask questions which are illogical. As then if a person saw the sun, and then inquired concerning its radiance, and said, ‘Did that which is make that which was, or that which was not,’ he would be held not to reason sensibly, but to be utterly mazed, because he fancied what is from the Light to be external to it, and was raising questions, when and where and whether it were made; in like manner, thus to speculate concerning the Son and the Father and thus to inquire, is far greater madness, for it is to conceive of the Word of the Father as external to Him, and to idly call the natural offspring a work, with the avowal, ‘He was not before His generation.’
The Father Is in the Son as the Sun Is in Its Radiance
For the Son is in the Father, as it is allowed us to know, because the whole Being of the Son is proper to the Father’s essence, as radiance from light, and stream from fountain; so that whoso sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father, and knows that the Son’s Being, because from the Father, is therefore in the Father. For the Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and proper to Him, as in the radiance the sun, and in the word the thought, and in the stream the fountain: for whoso thus contemplates the Son, contemplates what is proper to the Father’s Essence, and knows that the Father is in the Son.
Basil, Letters, CCXXXVI: 6 – the distinction of meaning between ousia and hypostasis
Source: J. Stevenson (ed.), Creeds, Councils and Controversies.
Documents Illustrating the History of the Church AD 337-461. Revised
with additional documents by W.H.C. Frend. London: SPCK, 1989, 105.
Basil the Great c.330-379) was a monk and later a bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (present-day Turkey). He was – with his sister Macrina, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their lifelong friend Gregory of Nazianzus – one of the most important theologians of his time. These “Cappadocian theologians”, contributed significantly to the dogmatic development of the early church by providing terminology that balanced the threeness and the oneness of God. Basil said that the one ousia consists of three equal hypostases.
The text below is an extract from a letter that Basil wrote to Bishop Amphilocius of Iconium.
The distinction between
οὐσία
and ὑπόστασις
is the same as that between the general and the particular; as, for
instance, between the animal and the particular man. Wherefore, in
the case of the Godhead, we confess one essence (or substance (οὐσία)
so as not to give a variant definition of existence, but we confess
a particular hypostasis, in order that our conception of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit may be without confusion and clear. If we have no
distinct perception of the separate characteristics, namely,
fatherhood, sonship, and sanctification, but form our conception of
God from the general idea of existence, we cannot possibly give a
sound account of our faith. We must, therefore, confess the faith by
adding the particular to the common. The Godhead is common; the
fatherhood particular. We must therefore combine the two and say, 'I
believe in God the Father.' The like course must be pursued in the
confession of the Son; we must combine the particular with the
common and say, 'I believe in God the Son.' So in the case of the
Holy Ghost we must make our utterance conform to the appellation and
say, 'I believe also in the divine Holy Spirit.' Hence it results
that there is a satisfactory preservation of the unity by the
confession of the one Godhead, while in the distinction of the
individual properties regarded in each other there is the confession
of the peculiar properties of the Persons. On the other hand those
who identify essence or substance and hypostasis are compelled to
confess only three Persons (???????), and, in their hesitation to
speak of three hypostases, are convicted of failure to avoid the
error of Sabellius, for even Sabellius himself, who in many places
confuses the conception, yet, by asserting that the same hypostasis
changed its form to meet the needs of the moment, does endeavour to
distinguish persons.
Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three God
Source: In Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Volume 5. Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, etc. Second Series. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers 1995, 331-6 (passage below 336).
Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-c.394) was one of the great Cappadocians. He was primarily a scholar and contributed to the church mainly through his writings, which balanced Platonic and Christian traditions. The text below is an extract from On Not Three Gods, which relates Trinitarian teaching to Plato’s teaching.
The Father is God: the Son is God: and yet by the same proclamation God is One, because no difference either of nature or of operation is contemplated in the Godhead. For if (according to the idea of those who have been led astray) the nature of the Holy Trinity were diverse, the number would by consequence be extended to a plurality of Gods, being divided according to the diversity of essence in the subjects. But since the Divine, single, and unchanging nature, that it may be one, rejects all diversity in essence, it does not admit in its own case the signification of multitude; but as it is called one nature, so it is called in the singular by all its other names, "God," "Good," "Holy," "Saviour," "Just," "Judge," and every other Divine name conceivable: whether one says that the names refer to nature or to operation, we shall not dispute the point.If, however, any one cavils at our argument, on the ground that by not admitting the difference of nature it leads to a mixture and confusion of the Persons, we shall make to such a charge this answer;—that while we confess the invariable character of the nature, we do not deny the difference in respect of cause, and that which is caused, by which alone we apprehend that one Person is distinguished from another;—by our belief, that is, that one is the Cause, and another is of the Cause; and again in that which is of the Cause we recognize another distinction. For one is directly from the first Cause, and another by that which is directly from the first Cause; so that the attribute of being Only-begotten abides without doubt in the Son, and the interposition of the Son, while it guards His attribute of being Only-begotten, does not shut out the Spirit from His relation by way of nature to the Father.
But in speaking of "cause," and "of the cause," we do not by these words denote nature (for no one would give the same definition of "cause" and of "nature"), but we indicate the difference in manner of existence. For when we say that one is "caused," and that the other is "without cause," we do not divide the nature by the word "cause", but only indicate the fact that the Son does not exist without generation, nor the Father by generation: but we must needs in the first place believe that something exists, and then scrutinize the manner of existence of the object of our belief: thus the question of existence is one, and that of the mode of existence is another. To say that anything exists without generation sets forth the mode of its existence, but what exists is not indicated by this phrase. If one were to ask a husbandman about a tree, whether it were planted or had grown of itself, and he were to answer either that the tree had not been planted or that it was the result of planting, would he by that answer declare the nature of the tree? Surely not; but while saying how it exists he would leave the question of its nature obscure and unexplained. So, in the other case, when we learn that He is unbegotten, we are taught in what mode He exists, and how it is fit that we should conceive Him as existing, but what He is we do not hear in that phrase. When, therefore, we acknowledge such a distinction in the case of the Holy Trinity, as to believe that one Person is the Cause, and another is of the Cause, we can no longer be accused of confounding the definition of the Persons by the community of nature.
Thus, since on the one hand the idea of cause differentiates the Persons of the Holy Trinity, declaring that one exists without a Cause, and another is of the Cause; and since on the one hand the Divine nature is apprehended by every conception as unchangeable and undivided, for these reasons we properly declare the Godhead to be one, and God to be one, and employ in the singular all other names which express Divine attributes.
Gregory of Nyssa, Life of St. Macrina – Macrina converts Basil to the ascetic life
Source: J. Stevenson (ed.), Creeds, Councils and Controversies. Documents Illustrating the History of the Church AD 337-461. Revised with additional documents by W.H.C. Frend. London: SPCK, 1989, 96.
Macrina (c.320-379) was the older sister of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. Although we have no knowledge of her writings, she had a deep influence on her brothers, particularly on Basil, whom she led to the monastic life. The story of Macrina’s life is preserved in a biography written by her brother Gregory, which combines biography with instruction in the monastic life. Macrina was engaged at a young age when her fiancé suddenly died; subsequently, Macrina committed herself to a life of contemplation and celibacy.
The text below tells how Macrina led Basil to the monastic life. It sheds light on the dynamics of the siblings and raises the question of whether Basil would have agreed with his brother Gregory’s description of his pride.
When the mother had arranged excellent marriages for the other sisters, such as was best in each case, Macrina’s brother, the great Basil, returned after his long period of education, already a practiced rhetorician. He was puffed up beyond measure with the pride of oratory and looked down on the local dignitaries, excelling in his own estimation all the men of leading and position. Nevertheless Macrina took him in hand, and with such speed did she draw him also toward the mark of philosophy that he forsook the glories of this world and despised fame gained by speaking, and deserted it for this busy life where one toils with one’s hands. His renunciation of property was complete, lest anything should impede the life of virtue.