Appendix 1:
Early writings, mainly “Ante-Nicene” (before the time of the trinitarian dogma), quoting accurately Matthew 28:19 and its immediate context (in bold the scripture and in italics its related meaning, as the writers understood it):
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“…the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all nations to preach the Gospel, relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them, "Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name."
Eusebius Pamphilus, “The Church History of Eusebius”, Book III, Chapter
V, “The Last Siege of the Jews after Christ”.
[Eusebius Pamphilus was a
disciple of Ammonius, Origen and of Pamphilus (see below in Jerome’s own
words), so we can track and see that neither Origen had in his Bible versions
those altered words in Matthew 28:19, and as we will see below,
not even in his Commentary on Matthew]
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“What king or prince in any age of the world, what philosopher, legislator, or prophet, in civilized or barbarous lands, has attained so great a height of excellence, I say not after death, but while living still, and full of mighty power, as to fill the ears and tongues of all mankind with the praises of his name? Surely none save our only Saviour has done this, when, after his victory over death, he spoke the word to his followers, and fulfilled it by the event, saying to them, "Go ye, and make disciples of all nations in my name.'' He it was who gave the distinct assurance, that his gospel must be preached in all the world for a testimony to all nations…”
Eusebius Pamphilus, “Oration in praise of the Emperor Constantine,”
Chapter XVI.
[The comment of Schaff and Wace here is: “There is an interesting
various reading here, where Eusebius, with B as against Aleph, adds something;
but where B and others have “oun”, and D, and others have “nun”, Eusebius has “goun” “ (at the
beginning, after the word Go, translated here by a comma (,). These first two
can be found in the full documents Online at: (Look inside that
site for the book:: NPNF2-01)]
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“With one word and voice He said to His disciples: "Go, and make disciples of all the nations in My Name, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," and He joined the effect to His Word”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Demonstratio
Evangelica, Book III, Chapter VI. “Against
Those who think that the Christ of God was a Sorcerer”.
[Online at: http://www.tertullian.org/eusebius_de_05_book3.htm]
“See how truly He speaks with the voice of God, saying in these very words to those disciples of His, the poorest of the poor: "Go forth, and make disciples of all the nations." "But how," the disciples might reasonably have answered the Master, "can we do it?… "By what power shall we ever survive our daring attempt?"… But while the disciples of Jesus were most likely either saying thus, or thinking thus, the Master solved their difficulties, by the addition of one phrase, saying they should triumph "In MY NAME." For He did not bid them simply and indefinitely make disciples of all nations, but with the necessary addition of "In my Name." And the power of His Name being so great, that the apostle says: "God has given him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," He shewed the virtue of the power in His Name concealed from the crowd when He said to His disciples: "Go, and make disciples of all nations in my Name." ”
“I am irresistibly forced to retrace my steps, and search for their cause, and to confess that they could only have succeeded in their daring venture, by a power more divine, and more strong than man's, and by the co-operation of Him Who said to them: "Make disciples of all the nations in my Name." And when He said this He appended a promise, that would ensure their courage and readiness to devote themselves to carrying out His commands. For He said to them: "And lo! I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world." ”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Demonstratio
Evangelica, Book III, Chapter VII. “Oracles
About Christ”. [Online at: http://www.tertullian.org/eusebius_de_05_book3.htm]
“And He bids His own disciples after their rejection,
"Go ye and make disciples of all nations in my name.'' So, then, we
that are the Gentiles know and receive the prophet that was foretold”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Demonstratio
Evangelica, Book IX, Chapter XI. “From Deuteronomy. Of the Lawgiving according
to the Gospel of Christ. [Passage quoted, Deut. 18:15-19.] ”. [Online
at: http://www.tertullian.org/eusebius_de_11_book9.htm]
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“Who, of those that ever existed, is the mortal man, King, Philosopher, Lawgiver, or Prophet, whether Greek or Barbarian, who bore all this pre-eminence,--not after his death, but while he was still alive, and drew breath;-- and could effect so much, that he should be preached throughout the whole earth? and, that his name should fill the hearing, and tongues of every people upon the face of the whole earth ? But this, no man has done excepting our Saviour alone, who said to his disciples by word, and fulfilled it by deed: " Go and teach all nations." He said (also) to them,--what He had foretold and previously revealed,--that it was necessary His Gospel should be preached throughout the whole creation, for a testimony to all nations. And, with the word, He brought the deed also to pass: for, immediately,--and not at a great distance of time,--the whole creation was filled with His words!”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Theophania, Book III, 4.
[Online at:
http://www.tertullian.org/eusebius_theophania_04book3.htm]
“He (the Saviour) said in one word and enouncement to His Disciples, "Go and make disciples of all nations in my name, and teach ye them every thing that I have commanded you." And the deed He made to follow the word. For thence, every race of the Greeks and Barbarians became at once, and in a short space of time, (His) Disciples: The laws too of our Saviour were not written in any Book of His; but, without book, were disseminated at His command among all nations”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Theophania, Book V, 17.
[The note on Mt 28:19-20 given by the Editor D. D. Samuel Lee in 1843 is that it was “Cited evidently from memory”. In his next note, regarding Eusebius’ expression “without book”, Lee says: “Let it not be imagined that this favours the modern doctrines about unwritten tradition. The Apostles were,--be it remembered,-- divinely inspired expressly for this work, and for inditing those Scriptures which are the main sources of divine truth to the Christian Church. And, although Irenaeus (Lib. ii. cap. ii. p. 200. Edit. Grabe) speaks of Tradition not written, but delivered viva voce; it is evident enough, that he intends to ascribe to this no independent authority: for in the very same context he informs us, that the Heretics, against whom he was writing, were found, when opposing this Tradition, resisting the declarations also of the Scriptures. Ancient Tradition, when found accordant with the Scriptures, may indeed be relied on; but, it is from an examination of it by the Scriptures alone, that we can know it to be good”.]
“What power have we upon which to trust, that we shall succeed
in this enterprise? These things therefore, the Disciples of our Saviour would
either have thought, or said. But He who was their Lord solved, by one
additional word, the aggregate of the things of which they doubted, (and)
pledged them by saying, '' Ye shall conquer in my name." For it
was not that He commanded them, simply and indiscriminately, to go and make
Disciples of all nations; but with this excellent addition which He delivered,
(viz): "In my name." Since it was by the power of His name
that all this came to pass; as the Apostle has said, "God has given
Him a name, which is superior to every name: that, at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow which is in heaven, and which is in earth, and which is beneath
the earth." It is likely therefore, that He would shew forth the
excellency of the unseen power, which was hidden from the many, by His name;
and, (accordingly) He made the addition, "In my name."
He thus accurately foretold moreover, something which should come to pass,
(when) He said, "It is expedient that
this my Gospel be preached in the whole world, for the testimony of all nations”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Theophania, Book V, 46.
“I am again compelled to recur to the question of (its) cause,
and to confess, that they (the Disciples) could not otherwise have undertaken
this enterprise, than by a Divine power which exceeds that of man, and by
the assistance of Him who said to them, "Go, and make Disciples of
all nations in my name." And, when He had said this to them,
He attached to it the promise, by which they should be so encouraged, as
readily to give themselves up to the things commanded. For He said to them,
"Behold I am with you always, even to the
end of the world."”
Eusebius Pamphilus, Theophania, Book V, 49.
[Online at:
http://www.tertullian.org/eusebius_theophania_06book5.htm]
[Conybeare says, “Eusebius, the great Ecclesiastical historian, died in 340 A.D., and his work belonged, therefore, in part to the third century. Moreover, he lived in one of the greatest Christian Libraries of that day. If the Greek MSS there contained these words ["baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost"], it seems impossible that he could have quoted this verse eighteen times without including them” (Hibbert Journal, Frederick C. Conybeare, 1902)
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“...the words recorded in Matthew as spoken by Christ when risen from the dead to His disciples who were being sent out to teach all nations, "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." To those who are to know all that human nature can know while it still is here, is said with emphasis, "I am with you;" add as the rise of each new day upon the field of contemplation brings more days before the eyes of the blessed, therefore He says, "All the days till the end of the world."
Origen's Commentary On The Gospel Of John: Tenth Book, 7. Why His Brothers Are Not Called To The Wedding; And Why He Abides At Capernaum Not Many Days.
"…"Lo, I am with you"… justice yet be done to the "I." He who is with His disciples who are sent out to teach all the nations, until the consummation..."
Origen's Commentary On The Gospel Of John: Tenth Book, 8. How Christ Abides With Believers To The End Of The Age, And Whether He Abides With Them After That Consummation.
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“…And the Apostles on this account left Israel and did that which had been enjoined on them by the Saviour, "Make disciples of all the nations," and, "Ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and ill all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Origen’s Commentary On Matthew: Book X. 18. Prophets In Their Country.
"...So long, then, as we have Jesus with us fulfilling the promise which runs, "Lo, I am with you always unto the consummation of the age," we cannot fast nor be in want of food, so that, because of want of it we should desire to take and eat the forbidden leaven..."
Origen’s Commentary On Matthew: Book XII, 6. The Meaning Of Leaven. Jesus' Knowledge Of The Heart.
[According to Eusebius (H. E. vi. 36) the Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew were written about the same time as the Contra Celsum, when Origen was over sixty years of age, and may therefore be probably assigned to the period 246-248. Of the twenty-five books into which the work was divided, the first nine, with the exception of two fragments, are lost; books x.-xvii, covering the portion from Mt. 13:36 to 22:33, are extant in the Greek, and the greater part of the remaining books survives in a Latin version, which is co-extensive with the Greek from book xii. 9 to book xvii. 36, and contains further, the exposition from Mt. 22:34 to 27:66. In Eusebius days, earlier MSS and Origen’s volumes on Matthew were at his hands, as we will read. “The Hibbert Journal notes that Origen quotes Matt.28:19 three times---ending the quote abruptly at "nations" each time and "that in itself suggests that his text has been censored, and the words which followed, 'In my Name,' struck out." (Conybeare)”]
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"And Jesus Himself, in raising the minds of His disciples to higher thoughts of the Son of God, says: "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of you." And of the same nature is His promise to His disciples: "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." "
Origen against Celsus, Book II, Chap. IX
“…for the apostles of Jesus to accomplish the task enjoined upon them by their Master, when He said, "Go and teach all nations."
Origen against Celsus, Book II, Chap. XXX.
“Jesus, however, performed all that He promised to do, and by which He conferred benefits upon his adherents. And we, continually seeing fulfilled all that was predicted by Him before it happened, viz., that this Gospel of His should be preached throughout the whole world, and that His disciples should go among all nations and announce His doctrine; and, moreover, that they should be brought before governors and kings on no other account than because of His teaching; we are lost in wonder at Him, and have our faith in Him daily confirmed.”
Origen against Celsus, Book II, Chap. XLII.
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1… “that they might gather together out of every race and every nation a multitude of devout believers in Himself.”
Origen De Principiis -- Book II. Chap. VI.--On The Incarnation Of Christ.
[Origen was an “early trinitarian”. In Rufinus’ latin version of De Principiis, the only version that we have now, it is mentioned the word trinity at least 19 times, but not even once is there a mention of Mt. 28:19 as a proof for such trinity, nor in the section called “Summary (Of Doctrine) Regarding The Father, The Son, And The Holy Spirit, And The Other Topics Discussed In The Preceding Pages.” By the other side, all the times that he mentions “to teach every nation”, in relation to the last words of Christ before his ascension, he quotes them as in the need to be done in the name of Jesus Christ (“in Him”), but never in his writings mentions any trinitarian formula associated with Matthew. Origen’s work was harshly persecuted by the Theophilus popes, as you will see below (enough strange is to notice that only in “De Principiis” is the most notable “push” for the doctrines of the trinity within “Origen’s writings”. On reading Rufinus’ and Jerome’s letters, we can see that there was a later hand adding such trinitarian thoughts in the gospel of Matthew and in the book of Origen. That claim can also be substantiated by two of the main doctrinal points of rejection emphasized by the Alexander and the Theophilos popes against Origen, and by the anathemas against Origen’s writings in the Second Council of Constantinople (553 A. D.), as we will see below, tampered on by catholic censorship. Harnack acknowledges the participation of later hands on “retouching” older writings (see end of Appendix 3); but a faithful and a careful comparison of history and of documents, will help us to track back the truth, having the full Bible, not just the forged pieces, but rather, having the Biblical full contexts, its narrative on its historical developments, as described in the book of Acts, and all cumulative scriptures dealing with a similar subject, as our guide. It is the Bible our foremost foundation, together with the comparison of its ancient texts…)]
[Fred. C. Conybeare wrote: “If we could trust Rufinus’ versions of Origen’s homilies, we would have to admit that he used the textus receptus at Mt 28:19 and even set store by it. But we cannot trust them. At the conclusion of his version of the commentary on Romans Rufinus boasts that he had taken much “trouble to fill in what was lacking in Origen” (see below rest of Rufinus’ in Latin). The text Mt 28:19 comes thrice in Rufinus’ version of the “Commentar in Romanos”, in V, 2 and 8; and VIII, 4. The last two passages smack of Rufinus rather than of Origen. No sane critic would undertake to say where Origen ends and Rufinus begins... it is only in Rufinus’ work that the text Mt 28:19 occurs” (Zeitschrift f. d. Neutest. Wiss. Jahrg. II, 1901, p. 285). To see a detailed account on other forgery on the works of Origen, go to the end of our Quotations]
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“For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ” (Chap. XXXIX, Direct Predictions By The Spirit).
"...our Jesus Christ, being crucified and dead, rose again, and having ascended to heaven, reigned; and by those things which were published in His name among all nations by the apostles, there is joy afforded to those who expect the immortality promised by Him" (Chap. XLII.--Prophecy Using The Past Tense).
Justin Martyr: The First Apology Of Justin.
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“God hath not yet afflicted nor inflicts the judgment, as knowing of some that still even today are being made disciples in the name of his Christ, and are abandoning the path of error, who also do receive gifts each as they be worthy, being illuminated by the name of this Christ.”
The same quotation
in another version:
“God did not inflict His anger on account of
those seven thousand men ['I have still seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to
Baal', God answered to Elijah], even so He has now neither yet inflicted
judgment, nor does inflict it, knowing that daily some [of you] are
becoming disciples in the name of Christ, and quitting the path of error; who are also
receiving gifts, each as he is worthy, illumined through the name of
this Christ.” (Chap. 39, p 258. (first paragraph) [Justin Describes His
Studies In Philosophy (Chap. II) And Other Articles])
Other quotations:
“We, who through the name of Jesus have
believed as one man in God the Maker of all, have been stripped,
through the name of His first-begotten Son, of the filthy garments, i.e., of our sins;
and being vehemently inflamed by the word of His calling, we are
the true high priestly race of God, as even God Himself bears witness, saying
that in every place among the Gentiles sacrifices are presented to Him well-pleasing
and pure” (Chapter CXVI. It Is Shown How This Prophecy Suits The Christians).
“And that expression, 'binding his foal to the vine, and the ass's foal to the vine tendril,' (Gen. 49:11) was a declaring beforehand both of the works wrought by Him at His first advent, and also of that belief in Him which the nations would repose. For they were like an unharnessed foal, which was not bearing a yoke on its neck, until this Christ came, and sent His disciples to instruct them… For after His crucifixion, the disciples that accompanied Him were dispersed, until He rose from the dead, and persuaded them that so it had been prophesied concerning Him, that He would suffer; and being thus persuaded, they went into all the world, and taught these truths. Hence also we are strong in His faith and doctrine, since we have [this our] persuasion both from the prophets, and from those who throughout the world are seen to be worshippers of God in the name of that crucified one” (Chap. LIII - Jacob Predicted That Christ Would Ride On An Ass, And Zechariah Confirms It (p. 272))
“Every demon, when exorcised in the name of this very Son of God--who is the First-born of every creature, who became man by the Virgin, who suffered, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate by your nation, who died, who rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven--is overcome and subdued” (Chap. LXXXV - He Proves That Christ Is The Lord Of Hosts From Ps. XXIV, And From His Authority Over Demons)
Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho (Dialogue of Justin Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew)
[The last two taken from the book “Justin: It Is Proved That This Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled And Other Articles”. Nowhere is to be found the word trinity or its formula in these writings, even within the growing tide of the imaginations of men surrounding the pure biblical scriptures. “This certainly suggests that Justin did not know the traditional [trinitarian] text of Matthew 28:19” (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics). These are only some examples, but we most notice that neither Clement of Alexandria quotes Mt. 28:19 in his own works “as preserved to us”]
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“…Thus also the true Stone, our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of all faith. And on Him, on (this) Stone faith is based. And resting on faith all the structure rises until it is completed. For it is the foundation that is the beginning of all the building. For when anyone is brought nigh unto faith, it is laid for him upon the Stone, that is our Lord Jesus Christ…And in that I have called Christ the Stone, I have not spoken my own thought, but the Prophets beforehand called Him the Stone…And again Daniel also spoke concerning this stone which is Christ. For he said: 'The stone was cut out from the mountain, not by hands, and it smote the image, and the whole earth was filled with it.' This he showed beforehand with regard to Christ that the whole earth shall be filled with Him. For lo! by the faith of Christ are all the ends of the earth filled, as David said: 'The sound of the Gospel of Christ has gone forth into all the earth.' And again when He sent forth His apostles He spake thus to them: 'Go forth, make disciples of all nations and they will believe on Me.' And again the Prophet Zechariah also prophesied about the stone which is Christ. For he said: 'I saw a chief stone of equality and of love.'…And again the Apostle has commented for us upon this building and upon the foundation; for he said thus: 'No man can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.'...”
Aphraates, Aphrahat The Persian Sage, Demonstrations, Demonstration I.--Of Faith (8)
[In: Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Vol XIII, Aphrahat, Select Demonstrations (Demonstration I.2-6, 8 ,13,19). Aphraates... wrote between 337 and 345. The words 'Make disciples of all nations, and they shall believe in me' appear to be a gloss of the Eusebian reading 'in my name.' But in any case, they preclude the textus receptus with its injunction to baptize in the triune name. Were the writing of Aphraates an isolated fact, we might regard it as a loose citation, but in the presence of the Eusebian and Justinian texts, this is impossible" (Conybeare)]
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"The anonymous author of De Rebaptismate in the third century...dwells at length on 'the power in the name of Jesus invoked upon a man in baptism' "
[Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. i, p 352, quoting De Rebaptismate 6.7]
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Chap. XVII.
“Because, he [Hermas’ interlocutor] said, "all the nations that dwell under heaven were called by hearing and believing upon the name of the Son of God" ”
Chap. XIV.
“The name of the Son of God is great, and cannot be contained, and supports the whole world. If, then, the whole creation is supported by the Son of God, what think ye of those who are called by Him, and bear the name of the Son of God, and walk in His commandments? do you see what kind of persons He supports? Those who bear His name with their whole heart. He Himself, accordingly, became a foundation to them, and supports them with joy, because they are not ashamed to bear His name”
Chap. XVI.
“Before a man bears the name of the Son of God he is dead; but when he receives the seal he lays aside his deadness, and obtains life… these apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God”.
The Pastor: Book Third – Similitudes, Similitude Ninth. The Great Mysteries In The Building Of The Militant And Triumphant Church
[There is another translation of the same book called The Shepherd Of Hermas, Translated by J.B. Lightfoot. Nowhere in the context of the book III is to be found the word trinity or the Trinitarian formula, even within all other doctrinal deviations and imaginations of Hermas]
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“…the apostles and teachers, who had preached the name of the Son of God…”
THE STROMATA, OR MISCELLANIES: Book II, Chap. IX.--The Connection Of The Christian Virtues.
[notice the high similarity of this “Stromata” quotation with the last quote of Hermas]
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Matthew 28:19 is still quoted accurately even immediately after the Council of Nicaea (Nicoea, Nicea, (now Iznik, Turkey), a city of ancient Bithynia, in Asia Minor), and even if quoted by trinitarians. In the next writings it is still not quoted in its “trinitarian formula”, even within such trinitarian disputations. Matthew 28:19 is not used as a “trinitarian proof” because it was not there at that time! So, historical evidence shows that the trinitarian adulteration was:
NOT YET IN ALL THE MANSUCRIPTS AT THAT TIME:
Four Discourses Against The Arians (Written Between 356 And 360 by Athanasius, see in Appendix 3 details of his character), Discourse IV: 26 - 36.
That the Son is the Co-existing Word, argued from the New Testament. Texts from the Old Testament continued; especially Ps. cx. 3. Besides, the Word in Old Testament may be Son in New, as Spirit in Old Testament is Paraclete in New. Objection from Acts x. 36; answered by parallels, such as 1 Cor. i. 5. Lev. ix. 7. &c. Necessity of the Word's taking flesh, viz. to sanctify, yet without destroying, the flesh.
“32. For in the same way that John here preaches that incomprehensible union. 'the mortal being swallowed up of life,' nay, of Him who is Very Life (as the Lord said to Martha, 'I am the Life'), so when the blessed Peter says that through Jesus Christ the Word was sent, he implies the divine union also. For as when a man heard 'The Word became flesh,' he would not think that the Word ceased to be, which is absurd, as has been said before, so also hearing of the Word which has been united to the flesh, let him understand the divine mystery one and simple. More clearly however and indisputably than all reasoning does what was said by the Archangel to the Bearer of God herself, shew the oneness of the Divine Word and Man. For he says, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.' Irrationally then do the followers of the Samosatene separate the Word who is clearly declared to be made one with the Man from Mary. He is not therefore sent through that Man; but He rather in Him sent, saying, 'Go ye, teach all nations.' ”
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“…whoever of us preach the name of the Lord in divers lands in their stead, for he said to them, "Go, teach all nations." You, dear brethren, should observe that we have received a general command: for he wills that all of us should perform that office, which he Titus entrusted in common to all the Apostles. We must needs follow our predecessors. Let us all, then, undertake their labours, since we are the successors in their honour. And we shew forth our diligence in preaching the same doctrines that they taught, beside which, according to the admonition of the Apostle, we are forbidden to add aught. For the office of keeping what is committed to our trust is no less dignified than that of handing it down.”
The Letter Of Pope Celestine To The Synod Of Ephesus. The Third Ecumenical Council--The Council Of Ephesus, A.D. 431, Emperors.--Theodosius II. And Valentinian III. Pope.--Celestine I.
[Extracts From The Acts. Session II.], (Labbe And Cossart, Concilia, Tom. III., Col. 613. Also Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. L, Col. 505.(1))
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Some “tracks” for the original truth can also be followed on reading early history:
“We believe in one almighty God and Father… and his Son Jesus Christ the Lord, our Saviour… there is no uncertainty about the Father being greater: it cannot be doubted by anyone that the Father is greater in honor, in dignity, in glory, in majesty, in the very name of “Father,” for he [Jesus Christ] himself witnesses… [that “He who sent me is greater than I”]” We outlaw the use of the terms homoousios (identity of essence, the same essence or substance, consubstantial, a doctrine formulated by Athanasius; in the Spanish catholic creed this lie appears as “consustancial” or “consubstancial” al Padre) and homoiousios (similarity of essence) to describe the Father’s relationship to the Son, because the concept of “essence” “is not included in the Divine Scriptures, and it is beyond man’s knowledge… and holy spirit “is through the Son” rather than being coequal with God”.
The Second Sirmian Creed, approved in Sirmium (357 A.D.)
[The Second Sirmian Creed was a trumpet which was heard from one end of the empire to the other”. However, “the Latin bishops were clearly resentful of their Greek colleagues’ tendency to treat them like uncultured” [as the Latin bishops really were]. References: Hanson, R.P.C., The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381 A.D., 1988, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, pp. 344-345. Rubenstein have replaced Hanson’s “declare” with the clearer term, “explain”. Note that the issue of the Father’s and Son’s birth-relationship is “genetic” (from the Greek gennetos) but not [necessarily] in the materialistic sense (see Bible references in Appendix 4); H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, 2nd ed., 1900, Cambridge University Press, p. 162; and R. E. Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, 1999, Harcourt, pp. 186-191, 253]
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“Since the term essence (ousia) was adopted by the fathers [at Nicaea] without proper reflection [or “naively”] and, not being known by the people, causes offense because the Scriptures do not contain it; it has been resolved that it should be removed and that in future there should be no mention whatever of essence in regard to God, since the Divine Scriptures nowhere refer to essence [when speaking] about Father and Son…”
The Dated Creed, confirmed at Rimini-Seleucia, 359 A.D.
[at Seleucia (in Asia Minor) and at Rimini (on Italy’s Adriatic coast)], and at Constantinople, 360 A.D. The “Dated Creed” is so called because the committee of bishops took the unusual step of dating it: May 22, 359. The translation is found in Barnes T.D., Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire, 1993, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 144. “Naively” is Hanson’s version (Search, 364) of Barnes’s “without proper reflection”; R. E. Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, 1999, Harcourt, pp. 75, 189, 253.]
[This was a more representative Council of the entire church than the Council of Nicaea, as was attended by more than 500 bishops from both East and West. If any meeting deserves the title “ecumenical,” that one seems to qualify; but its result – the adoption of an Arian creed – was later repudiated by the catholic church. Councils whose products were later deemed unorthodox not only lost the “ecumenical” label but virtually disappeared from official church history, as also did the Second Sirmian Council (Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, 1999)]
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Book: “Testimonies Of The Ancients In Favor Of Eusebius”, from the book “On the Lights of the Church”.
"Eusebius of Caesarea, the key of the Scriptures and custodian of the New Testament, is proved by the Greeks to be greater than many in his treatises. There are three celebrated works of his which truly testify to this: the Canons of the Four Gospels, which set forth and defend the New Testament, ten books of Ecclesiastical History, and the Chronicon, that is, a chronological summary. We have never found any one who has been able to follow in all his foot-prints."
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Book “llustrious Men”, written by Jerome:
Chapter III.
MATTHEW, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist "Out of Egypt have I called my son," and "for he shall be called a Nazarene."
[Matthew wrote chiefly for Christians of Jewish origin. Much of the material peculiar to this Gospel is concerned with representing Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The time of composition frequently suggested is sometime after AD 70, perhaps about AD 80 ("Matthew, Gospel According to," 1994, Microsoft Encarta)].
Chapter LV.
AMMONIUS, a talented man of great philosophical learning, was distinguished at Alexandria, at the same time. Among many and distinguished monuments of his genius, is the elaborate work which he composed On the harmony of Moses and Jesus, and the Gospel canons, which he worked out, and which Eusebius of Caesarea, afterwards followed. Porphyry falsely accused him of having become a heathen again, after being a Christian, but it is certain that he continued a Christian until the very end of his life.
[The first notable Harmony of the Gospels was integrated by Ammonius of Alexandria, the teacher of Origen, his work bears this title for the first time (Gk. Armonia). It appeared about A.D. 220, but has been lost. Until recently, it was supposed that the sections into which some early MSS divide the Gospels were those of Ammonius himself; but, while he did make such divisions, those bearing his name are to be attributed to Eusebius (see below). Ammonius made Matthew the basis of his work, and by his arrangement destroyed the continuity of the separate narratives. Corruptions in the received text of the Gospel of Mark are probably due to the confusion of the separate narratives occasioned by Tatian's Diatessaron (“the discovery of an Armenian translation of a commentary upon the Diatessaron, by Ephraem the Syrian, has enabled Zahn to reconstruct a large part of the text. The commentary was translated into Latin in 1841, but little attention was paid to it until an edition by Moesinger appeared in 1876”). Tregelles (in the new edition of Horne's Introduction, vol. iv. p. 40) says that Tatian’s work “had more effect apparently in the text of the Gospels in use throughout the Church than all the designed falsifications of Marcion…” The Harmony of the Gospels, Introductory Essay, by Riddle M. B., on “Augustine’s Harmony Of The Gospels”]
Chapter LIV.
ORIGEN, surnamed Adamantius, a persecution having been raised against the Christians in the tenth year of Severus Pertinax, and his father Leonidas having received the crown of martyrdom for Christ, was left at the age of about seventeen, with his six brothers and widowed mother, in poverty, for their property had been confiscated because of confessing Christ. When only eighteen years old, he undertook the work of instructing the Catechetes in the scattered churches of Alexandria. Afterwards appointed by Demetrius, bishop of this city, successor to the presbyter Clement, he flourished many years. When he had already reached middle life, on account of the churches of Achaia, which were torn with many heresies, he was journeying to Athens, by way of Palestine, under the authority of an ecclesiastical letter, and having been ordained presbyter by Theoctistus and Alexander, bishops of Caesarea and Jerusalem, he offended Demetrius, who was so wildly enraged at him that he wrote everywhere to injure his reputation. It is known that before he [Demetrius] went to Caesarea, he [Demetrius] had been at Rome, [with the] trader bishop Zephyrinus. Immediately on his [Demetrius] return to Alexandria he [Demetrius] made Heraclas the presbyter, who continued to wear his [Demetrius] philosopher's garb, [being] his [Demetrius] assistant in the school for catechetes. [So,] Heraclas became bishop of the church of Alexandria, after Demetrius. How great the glory of Origen was, appears from the fact that Firmilianus, bishop of Caesarea, with all the Cappadocian bishops, sought a visit from him, and entertained him for a long while. Sometime afterwards, going to Palestine to visit the holy places, he [Firmilianus] came to Caesarea and was instructed at length by Origen in the Holy Scriptures. It appears also from the fact that he [Origen] went to Antioch, on the request of Mammaea, mother of the Emperor Alexander, and a woman religiously disposed, and was there held in great honour, and sent letters to the Emperor Philip, who was the first among the Roman rulers, to become a christian, and to his mother, letters which are still extant [at the time in which Jerome wrote this]. Who is there, who does not also know that he was so assiduous in the study of Holy Scriptures, that contrary to the spirit of his time, and of his people, he learned the Hebrew language, and taking the Septuagint translation, he gathered the other translations also in a single work, namely, that of Aquila, of Ponticus the Proselyte, and Theodotian the Ebonite, and Symmachus an adherent of the same sect who wrote commentaries also on the gospel according to Matthew, from which he tried to establish his doctrine. And besides these, a fifth, sixth, and seventh translation, which we also have from his library [in Jerome’s days, now lost], he sought out with great diligence, and compared with other editions. And since I have given a list of his works, in the volumes of letters which I have written to Paula, in a letter which I wrote against the works of Varro, I pass this by now, not failing however, to make mention of his immortal genius, how that he understood dialectics, as well as geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, and rhetoric, and taught all the schools of philosophers, in such wise that he had also diligent students in secular literature, and lectured to them daily, and the crowds which flocked to him were marvellous. These, he received in the hope that through the instrumentality of this secular literature, he might establish them in the faith of Christ.
It is unnecessary to
speak of the cruelty of that persecution which was raised against the
Christians and under Decius, who was mad against the
religion of Philip, whom he had slain,--the persecution in which Fabianus, bishop of the Roman church, perished at Rome,
and Alexander and Babylas, Pontifs of the churches
of Jerusalem and Antioch, were imprisoned for
their confession of Christ. If any one wishes to know what was done in
regard to the position of Origen, he can
clearly learn, first indeed from his own epistles,
which after the persecution, were sent to different ones, and secondly, from
the sixth book of the church history of Eusebius of Caesarea, and from his six
volumes in behalf of the same Origen.
He lived
until the time of Gallus and Volusianus, that is, until his sixty-ninth year, and died at Tyre, in
which city he also was buried.
[“Visiting in Palestine in 216, Origen, a layperson, was invited by
the bishop of Jerusalem and the bishop of Caesarea to lecture in the churches
on the Scriptures. About 230, the same bishops ordained him a presbyter without
consulting Origen's own bishop, Demetrius of Alexandria. Demetrius objected,
and two synods were held at Alexandria, the first forbidding Origen to teach
there and the second depriving him of his priesthood. Origen He taught the
principle of the threefold sense, corresponding to the threefold division of
the person into body, spirit, and soul, which was then a common concept, he
taught also that the Son is subordinate to the Father in power and dignity”
("Origen," 1994, Microsoft Encarta)].
Chapter LXXV.
PAMPHILUS the presbyter, patron of Eusebius bishop of Caesarea, was so inflamed with love of sacred literature, that he transcribed him greater part of the works of Origen with his own hand and these are still preserved in the library at Caesarea. I have twenty-five volumes of Commentaries of Origen, written in his hand, On the twelve prophets which I hug and guard with such joy, that I deem myself to have the wealth of Croesus. And if it is such joy to have one epistle of a martyr how much more to have so many thousand lines which seem to me to be traced in his blood. He wrote an Apology for Origen before Eusebius had written his and was put to death at Caesarea in Palestine in the persecution of Maximinus. [Pamphilus had an extensive library, 1994, Microsoft Encarta].
Chapter LXXXI.
EUSEBIUS bishop of Caesarea in Palestine was diligent in the study of Divine Scriptures and with Pamphilus the martyr a most diligent investigator of the Holy Bible. He published a great number of volumes among which are the following: Demonstrations of the Gospel twenty books, Preparations for the Gospel fifteen books, Theophany five books, Church history ten books, Chronicle of Universal history, and an Epitome of this last. Also On discrepancies between the Gospels, On Isaiah, ten books, also Against Porphyry, who was writing at that same time in Sicily as some think, twenty-five books, also one book of Topics, six books of Apology for Origen, three books On the life of Pamphilus, other brief works On the martyrs, exceedingly learned Commentaries on one hundred and fifty Psalms, and many others. He flourished chiefly in the reigns of Constantine the Great and Constantius. His surname Pamphilus arose from his friendship for Pamphilus the martyr.
[Eusebius of Caesarea (died A.D. 340) adopted a similar set of divisions for the gospels [like Ammonius’], adding to them numbers from 1 to 10, called "Canons," which indicate the parallelisms of the sections. These sections and canons are printed in Tischendorf's critical editions of the Greek Testament, and in some other editions [“they appear as an appendix in the critical text of Nestle, clearly indicating that Matthew’s original manuscript of his gospel did not contained any trinitarian end”, Dr. Cruz]. The influence of this system seems to have been great, but Eusebius often accepts a parallelism where there is really none whatever. Some of the sections are very brief, containing only part of a verse [but this last observation also can be the original briefness and integrity of older texts from which Eusebius was quoting, as it is in the case of Mt. 28:19]… The work of Augustin comes next in order; it deals little with chronological questions, and shows no trace of such complete textual labour as that of Eusebius. The Reformation gave a new impulse to this department of Biblical study... But the undisputed reign of the Textus Receptus impeded investigation; the supernaturalism of the dominant theology was not favourable to historical investigation... The Harmony of the Gospels, Introductory Essay, by Riddle M. B., on “Augustine’s Harmony Of The Gospels”]
Chapter XCIV.
ASTERIUS, a philosopher of the Arian party, wrote, during the reign of Constantius, commentaries On the Epistle to the Romans, On the Gospels and On the Psalms, also many other works which are diligently read by those of his party.
Chapter XCVII
FORTUNATIANUS, an African by birth, bishop of Aquilia during the reign of Constantius, composed brief Commentaries on the gospels arranged by chapters, written in a rustic style, and is held in detestation because, when Liberius bishop of Rome was driven into exile for the faith, he was induced by the urgency of Fortunatianus to subscribe to heresy.
Chapter XXXVI.
PANTAENUS, a philosopher of the stoic school, according
to some old Alexandrian custom, where, from the time of Mark the evangelist
the ecclesiastics were always doctors, was of so
great prudence and erudition both in scripture and secular literature that, on
the request of the legates of that nation, he was sent to India by Demetrius
bishop of Alexandria, where he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve
apostles, had preached the advent of the Lord Jesus according to the gospel of
Matthew, and on his return to Alexandria he brought this with him written in
Hebrew characters. Many of his commentaries on Holy Scripture are indeed
extant, but his living voice was of still greater benefit to the churches. He
taught in the reigns of the emperor Severus and Antoninus surnamed Caracalla.
Chapter XC.
THEODORUS, bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, published in the reign of the emperor Constantius commentaries On Matthew and John, On the Epistles and On the Psalter. These are written in a polished and clear style and show an excellent historical sense.
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APHRAHAT
In citing the Old Testament, Aphrahat [Aphraates (Pharhad, Aphraatis) the Persian Sage, who is Jacob or “James the Wise”, Bishop of Mar Mathai] follows the Peshitto rather than the Greek, but not seldom departs from both; and he shows a knowledge of the Chaldee Paraphrase. In citing the Gospels, he seems sometimes to follow the Diatessaron, which was in the hands of his contemporary Ephraim, and which is known to have circulated largely in the East until far on in the following century. Sometimes, however, his references seem to be to the separate Gospels as commodity read. It cannot be claimed for the Peshitto that he always or even usually follows its text; nor yet does he uniformly agree with the Curetonian, or with the probably earlier form of the Syriac Gospel recently discovered by Mr. Lewis. With each of these last, however, his text has many points of coincidence. In the rest of the New Testament, we can only say that he must have had before him a text which diverged not seldom from the Peshitto. Aphrahat “Demonstrations” are 22 in number, after the number of the letters of the Syriac alphabet, each of them beginning with the letter to which it corresponds in order. The first ten form a group by themselves, and are somewhat earlier in date than those which follow: they deal with Christian graces, hopes, and duties, as appears from their titles… At the end of section 5 of his Demonstration V (Concerning Wars), Aphrahat reckons the years from the era of Alexander (B.C. 311) to the time of his writing as 648. He wrote therefore in A.D. 337-the year of the death of Constantine the Great. Demonstration XIV is formally dated in its last section, "in the month Shebat, in the year 655 (that is, A.D. 344). More fully, in closing the alphabetic series (XXII. 25) he informs us that the above dates apply to the two groups-the first ten being written in 337; the twelve that follow, in 344. Finally, the supplementary discourse "Concerning the Grape" was written (as stated in XXIII. 69) in July, 345. As a Persian, he dates his writings by the years of the reign of the Persian King: the twenty-two were completed (he says) in the thirty-fifth, the twenty-third in the thirty-sixth of the reign of Sapor. Thus, Aphrahat’s entire work was completed within nine years,-five years before the middle of the fourth century,-before the composition of the earliest work of Ephraim of which the date can be determined with certainty. It is clear also that, at whatever age or under whatever circumstances he embraced Christianity, Aphrahat must have taken the Christian Scriptures and Christian theology into his inmost heart and understanding as every page of his writings attests. The Bishop of Mar Mathai was Metropolitan of Nineveh, and ranked among the Bishops of “the East” only second to the Catholicus; and his province bordered on that which the Catholicus (as Metropolitan of Seleucia) held in his immediate jurisdiction. Aphrahat directed his 14th dissertation to “the Bishops, Priests and Deacons ... and all the people of God who are in Seleucia and Ctesiphon.” The monastery of Mar Mathai was on the eastern, that is, the Persian, side of the Tigris, not far from what once was Nineveh and is now Mosul, on the precipitous mountain Elpheph (now Maklob) where it still stands, though ruinous, and is known by the name of Sheikh Matta, and is occupied by the Metram (or Metropolitan) and a few monks. To the remoteness of Aphrahat see, and probably of the place of his obvious origin and abode, from the centres of religious thought and controversy, is probably due the notable absence from these discourses of all reference to the theological questions that had employed, and in his time were “engrossing”, the leading minds of Christendom. In an age of excited controversy, these quiet hortatory discourses, marked by no striking eloquence of style or subtlety of reasoning, dealing with no burning question of the time, nor with any disputes more recent than those of the two previous centuries. Among Syriac authors, the first to show an acquaintance with Aphrahat’s work, is Isaac of Antioch, known as “the Great” (disciple of Zenobius of Edessa) whose literary activity belongs to the first half of the fifth century. This Isaac knew and imitated the works of Aphrahat,as in Isaac’s works, passages have been pointed out which are evidently borrowed with slight change from Aphrahat’s Demonstrations. The imitation, however, is tacit, and Isaac nowhere names the work (or its author) whence he derived the illustrations and even the expressions he uses in treating of these topics. Oblivion so long covered the name of Aphrahat. [Aphrahat’s work], and provoked some prejudice which led to its practical suppression. It would be difficult, however, to point out anything in it to which exception could be so seriously taken as to be a bar to its acceptance. None of the errors which so keen a critic as Georgius detected in its theology—even if we admit the justice of his censure—is such as to shock the orthodoxy of the fourth or fifth century. Yet it is possible that theological prepossession may indirectly have brought about the disfavour or at least disuse into which the Demonstrations fell. In Edessa there was an institution known as the “School of the Persians”… the Persian and others were expelled from Edessa by Nonnus, an orthodox opponent and successor; and the school was finally closed by the next Bishop, Cyrus, in the reign of Zeno (who died 491). These facts may well be supposed to have raised a prejudice against all writings coming from a Persian source… It is probable that his [Aphrahat] writings were read in that “School of the Persians”, and that he himself may have studied them in early life. Prescribed in Edessa, the centre of Syriac theology, these discourses would be effectually checked in their circulation in all churches of Syriac-speaking Christendom that were anti-Nestorian. From and after the close of the fourth century “greater (i.e. Eastern) Armenia was ruled as a dependency of Persia, by Persian Kings.” Of these the earlier at least were Christians, and their policy led them to promote the Syriac language and literature, as against the Greek, among their people; until, under the Catholicus Isaac (d. 441), the Armenian tongue was reduced to writing (in the characters then invested by Mesrob), and a beginning made of an Armenian sacred literature by the translation of the Scriptures into Armenian from the Syriac. Aphrahat Syriac text, so long forgotten, was first discovered among the mss of the great Nitrian collection in the British Museum, by Dr. Cureton, whose name is so honourably known as a great Syriac scholar, and editor of Syriac documents. He did not live, however, to accomplish his desire of publishing it, but bequeathed that task to his still more eminent successor, in the leadership of Syriac studies in England, the late Dr. William Wright, then assistant keeper of mss in the British Museum, and afterwards Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. To him is due the admirable “editio princeps” of the Syriac text of all the twenty-three Demonstrations (from the mss 14617 and 17182), issued in London, 1869.
[Schaff And Wace, Vol. XIII, A Select Library Of Nicene And Post-Nicene Fathers Of The Christian Church, Second Series, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids]
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ARIUS. A native of Libya who studied at the theological school of Lucian of Antioch. After he was ordained a priest in Alexandria, Arius became involved (319) in a controversy with his bishop Alexander concerning the divinity of Christ. Arius was finally exiled (325) to Illyria because of his beliefs, but debate over his doctrine soon engulfed the whole church and agitated it for more than half a century. Although his doctrine was eventually outlawed (379) throughout the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius I, it survived for two centuries longer among the barbarian tribes that had been converted to Christianity by Arian bishops. Arius taught that God is unbegotten and without beginning. The Son, because he is begotten, cannot be God in the same sense that the Father is, Jesus did not exist from all eternity, he is a creature, tough much more perfect that any other creature, and exists by the will of the Father. The teaching of Arius was condemned in 325 at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea. The bishops assembled there drafted a creed which stated that the Son of God was “begotten not made,” and consubstantial (Greek homoousios, “of the same substance”, formulated by Athanasius) with the Father. Previously, no creed had been universally accepted by all churches. The status of the new creed as dogma was confirmed by bans against the teaching of Arius. Despite its condemnation, the teaching of Arius did not die. Under the influence of the Greek church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, whose orthodoxy had also been questioned, Emperor Constantine I recalled Arius from exile about 334. Soon after, two influential people came to the support of Arianism: The next emperor, Constantius II, was attracted to the Arian doctrine; the bishop and theologian Eusebius of Nicomedia, later patriarch of Constantinople, become an Arian leader. By 359 Arianism had prevailed and was the official faith of the empire. The semi-Arians consisted mostly of conservative eastern bishops, who basically agreed with the Nicene Creed but were hesitant about the unscriptural term homoousios (consubstantial) used in the creed. The neo-Arians said that the Son was of a different essence (Greek heteroousios) from, or unlike (Greek anomoios), the Father. With the death of Constantius II, in 361; and the reign of Valens who persecuted the semi-Arians, the way was opened for the final victory of Nicene orthodoxy, recognized by Emperor Theodosius in 379 and reaffirmed at the second ecumenical council (Constantinople) held in 381 ("Arianism," and ‘Athanasius,’1994, Microsoft Encarta).
“Arius, a priest of about sixty, had been born in Libya, in the area of the Five Cities. In 314, shortly after becoming bishop, Alexander had licensed him to preach at a church in the Baucalis district near the Great Harbor and to look after the district’s residents. The tall, slender, gray-haired man was a famous speaker, or perhaps, one should say, singer, since he was in the habit of putting his theology into poetry and chanting it to his enraptured congregants. According to the bishop, his talent for vivid imagery and music had become part of the problem. Arius had recently written a long poem called Thalia – The Banquet – in a rhythmic meter ordinarily used for popular ballads. It was already chanted in port cities all around the eastern Mediterranean. Popular songs, like grain and news, traveled quickly by sea. In his youth, Arius had studied Christian theology with the famous teacher and martyr, Lucian of Antioch. Before the Great Persecution, he had come to Alexandria to pursue a religious vocation, and he had reportedly behaved bravely, during the terror, offering priestly services to parishioners and to Christians held in prison at considerable risk of himself. When Bishop Peter fled the city, he remained behind…Arius had been a successful minister. He was greatly admired for his personal purity as well as for his preaching and was a particular favorite of the sailors, dockworkers, and young women who flocked his church. The church’s sodality of virgins…protested in public when he was ordered to leave the city by Bishop Alexander. And since his departure, the priest’s partisans among the young men had clashed incessantly with Alexander’s supporters” (Rubenstein, R. E., When Jesus Became God, 1999, Harcourt, pp. 52-53).
Next is our version of an excerpt on Arius’ poem,
…The Father made the Son,
A beginning of things He made on earth.
The Father was,
The Son was not before he came to pass.
The Father and His Son,
Both have a different glory.
One equal to the Son
The Father yes, can make,
One equal to Himself
The Father is not able.
And at his Father’s will, the Son is what he is.
The Father is the higher,
As He is which He is: The Father!
The Father knows the Son,
All that the Father knows…
[We include next other fragments of the Thalia, as quoted by Athanasius, Sozomen and by Socrates Scolasticus, no doubt biased. An Athanasus’ excerpt appeared in his Oration Against the Arians, published by Quasten, Patrology, 12. In Rubenstein’s quotation of the Thalia he replaced several antique Athanasian words with modern synonyms, and changed the order of the quotations for clarity. “Since Arius’ writings were lost or destroyed, the accounts of his teachings are based on reports by others – most of them his theological enemies”, When Jesus Became God, pp. 55, 245 (notes 53 and 57)]
Four Discourses Against The Arians, written by Athanasius between 356 And 360 A. D.:
Chapter II. Extracts From The Thalia Of Arius.
Arius maintains that God became a Father, and the Son was not always; the Son out of nothing; once He was not; He was not before his generation; He was created; named Wisdom and Word after God's attributes; made that He might make us; one out of many powers of God; alterable; exalted on God's foreknowledge of what He was to be; not very God; but called so as others by participation; foreign in essence from the Father...
5. Now the commencement of Arius's Thalia… runs thus:--
'According to faith of God's elect, God's prudent ones,
Holy children, rightly dividing, God's Holy Spirit receiving,
Have I learned this from the partakers of wisdom,
Accomplished, divinely taught, and wise in all things.
Along their track, have I been walking, with like opinions.
I the very famous, the much suffering for God's glory;
And taught of God, I have acquired wisdom and knowledge.'
And…:--'God was not always a Father; but 'once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterwards He became a Father.' 'The Son was not always;' for, whereas all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was 'made out of nothing,' and 'once He was not,' and 'He was not before His origination,' but He as others 'had an origin of creation.' 'For God,' he says, was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named Him Word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of Him.' Accordingly, he says that there are two wisdoms, first, the attribute co-existent with God, and next, that in this wisdom the Son was originated, and was only named Wisdom and Word as partaking of it. 'For Wisdom,' saith he, 'by the will of the wise God, had its existence in Wisdom.' In like manner, he says, that there is another Word in God besides the Son, and that the Son again, as partaking of it, is named Word and Son according to grace… there are many powers; one of which is God's own by nature and eternal; but that Christ, on the other hand, is not the true power of God; but, as others, one of the so-called powers… is called in Scripture, not merely the power, but the 'great power.' The others are many and are like the Son, and of them David speaks in the Psalms, when he says, 'The Lord of hosts' or 'powers.' And by nature, as all others, so the Word Himself is alterable, and remains good by His own free will, while He chooseth; when, however, He wills, He can alter as we can, as being of an alterable nature. For 'therefore,' saith he, 'as foreknowing that He would be good, did God by anticipation bestow on Him this glory, which afterwards, as man, He attained from virtue. Thus in consequence of His works fore-known, did God bring it to pass that He being such, should come to be.'
6. Moreover he [Arius] has dared to say, that 'the Word is not the very God'… He is not very God,' but 'by participation of grace...' And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is 'the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and propriety,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these…
Chapter III. The Importance Of The Subject. Arianism...[affirms that Jesus] is a creature with a beginning... The Arians rely on state patronage, and dare not avow their tenets.
8. …The use of certain phrases of divine Scripture changes, in their [Arius’ et al] opinion, the blasphemy of the Thalia into reverent language…
9. …what have these persons to shew us from the infamous Thalia ?...
10. …if He [Jesus] be… God from God… is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out… that Arian Thalia ?…
De Synodis -- Councils Of Ariminum And Seleucia Written by Athanasius, 359 A. D., added to after 361 A. D.:
Part II. History Of Arian Opinions.
Arius's own sentiments; his Thalia and Letter to S. Alexander; corrections by Eusebius and others; extracts from the works of Asterius; letter of the Council of Jerusalem; first Creed of Arians at the Dedication of Antioch; second, Lucian's on the same occasion; third, by Theophronius; fourth, sent to Constans in Gaul; fifth, the Macrostich sent into Italy; sixth, at Sirmium; seventh, at the same place; and eighth also, as given above in 8 (“the term 'essence,' has been adopted by the Fathers in simplicity, and gives offence as being misconceived by the people, and is not contained in the Scriptures, it has seemed good to remove it, that it be never in any case used of God again, because the divine Scriptures nowhere use it of Father and Son”); ninth, at Seleucia; tenth, at Constantinople; eleventh, at Antioch.
15. Arius and those with him thought and professed thus: 'God made the Son out of nothing, and called Him His Son; Word of God is one of the creatures;' and 'Once He was not;' and 'He is alterable; capable, when it is His Will, of altering.' Accordingly they were expelled from the Church by the blessed Alexander. However, after his expulsion, when he was with Eusebius and his fellows, he drew up his heresy upon paper, and imitating in the Thalia no grave writer, but the Egyptian Sotades [Sotadus], in the dissolute tone of his metre, he writes at great length, for instance as follows:--
Blasphemies of Arius.
God Himself then, in His own nature, is ineffable by all men. Equal or like Himself He alone has none, or one in glory. And Ingenerate we call Him, because of Him who is generate by nature. We praise Him as without beginning because of Him who has a beginning. And adore Him as everlasting, because of Him who in time has come to be. The Unbegun made the Son a beginning of things originated; and advanced Him as a Son to Himself by adoption. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence. For He is not equal, no, nor one in essence with Him. Wise is God, for He is the teacher of Wisdom. There is full proof that God is invisible to all beings; both to things which are through the Son, and to the Son He is invisible. I will say it expressly, how by the Son is seen the Invisible; by that power by which God sees, and in His own measure, the Son endures to see the Father, as is lawful… One more glorious than the other in their glories unto immensity. Foreign from the Son in essence is the Father, for He is without beginning. Understand that the Monad was; but the Dyad was not, before it was in existence. It follows at once that, though the Sire [Son] was not, the Father was God. Hence the Son, not being (for He existed at the will of the Father), is God Only-begotten... Wisdom existed as Wisdom by the will of the Wise God… Understand that He is conceived to be Radiance and Light. One equal to the Son, the Superior is able to beget; but one more excellent, or superior, or greater, He is not able. At God's will the Son is what and whatsoever He is. And when and since He was, from that time He has subsisted from God… To speak in brief, God is ineffable to His Son. For He is to Himself what He is, that is, unspeakable... being Son, he really existed, at the will of the Father…
De Decretis Or Defence Of The Nicene Definition, Chapter IV, written by Athanasius between 346 and his flight in 356:
… when they are beaten hence, and like Eusebius and his fellows, are in these great straits, then they have this remaining plea, which Arius too in ballads, and in his own Thalia, fabled…
Ad Episcopos Aegypti Et Libyae, Epistola Encyclica, written by Athanasius (A.D. 356), addressed to the bishops of his Province after his expulsion by Syrianus (Feb. 8, 356), Chapter II. 20. While they are friends of Arius, in vain their moderate words:
…Had the opinions they have put in writing been orthodox, they would have expunged from their list of books the Thalia of Arius…
The Ecclesiastical History Of Salaminius Hermias Sozomenus [Sozomen], Book I:
[The work before us seems to have been commenced about the year 443. It embraces a period of 117 years; namely, from A.D. 323 to A.D. 439. It is generally admitted to have suffered many alterations and mutilations]
Chapter XXI. -- What The Council Determined About Arius [The Council Convened At Nicaea On Account Of Arius, according to Chap. XVII]; The Condemnation Of His Followers; His Writings Are To Be Burnt; Certain Of The High Priests Differ From The Council...
…The council excommunicated Arius and his adherents, and prohibited his entering Alexandria. The words in which his opinions were couched were likewise condemned, as also a work entitled "Thalia," which he had written on the subject. I have not read this book, but I understand that it is of a loose character, resembling in license Sotadus.
The Ecclesiastical History, By Socrates Scholasticus, Book I:
Chapter IX. The Letter of the Synod, relative to its Decisions: and the Condemnation of Arius and those who agreed with him.
…It should be observed moreover that Arius had written a treatise on his own opinion which he entitled Thalia: but the character of the book is loose and dissolute, similar in its style and metres to the songs of Sotades. This production also the Synod condemned at the same time…
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JUSTIN MARTYR (circa 100-circa 165), philosopher, theologian, and one of the earliest apologists of the Christian church, who sought to reconcile Christian doctrine and pagan culture. He was born in Flavia Neapolis (now Nabulus, West Bank), a Roman city built on the site of the ancient Shechem, in Samaria. His parents were pagans. As a young man Justin devoted himself to the study of Greek philosophy, notably the writings of Plato and the Stoic philosophers. His study of the Old and New Testaments caused him to convert to Christianity, and thereafter he strove by his teachings and writings to bring others to the truths he had discovered. Justin was beheaded during the reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius because he refused to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. The books that are ascribed to him with certainty are the two Apologies for the Christians, which comprise an erudite defense of Christians against charges of atheism and sedition in the Roman state, and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which professes to be the record of an actual discussion at Ephesus. His writings are valuable for the information they give about the 2nd-century Christian church (Justin Martyr, 1994, Microsoft Encarta, Funk & Wagnall's Corporation).
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TATIAN’S DIATESSARON, by Dr. Ethelbert W. Bullinger (Things to Come, 1(2):30-31, 1894)
“Tatian…(A.D. 110-180, was a pupil of Justin Martyr who lived by 114 to 165 A.D.) compiled… about the year 130 to 150 A. D… [a work that until quite recently was supposed to be lost]… the Diatessaron… [which] means, through four, i.e., one through four (is the technical term in music for the interval of the fourth. Tessares means four. In music, through four notes; just as diapason means through all, i.e., all eight notes, and was used of the octave). In English idiom it would be represented by our word “Harmony,” when we speak of “a harmony of the four gospels,” i.e., one produced by means of the four…” In Tatian’s work An Address to Greeks he writes that he was an “initiate” of the ancient “mysteries,” but that he was shocked by “demons” instigating to the perpetration of evil, “retiring”, he says, “by myself, I sought how I might be able to discover the truth; and while I was giving my most earnest attention to the matter, I happened to meet with certain barbaric writings [the books of the Hebrew Old Testament. How wondrous thus to hear of the power of God’s Word!] too old to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks, and too divine to be compared with their errors; and I was led to put faith in these by the unpretending cast of the language, the inartificial character of the writers, the foreknowledge displayed by future events, the excellent quality of the precepts, and the declaration of the government of the universe as centered in one Being; and my soul being taught of God, I discerned that the former class of writings [the Greek philosophies and mythologies] lead to condemnation, but that these put an end to the slavery that is in the world, and rescue us from a multiplicity of rulers and ten thousand tyrants.” His address concludes thus “These things, O Greeks, I Tatian… have composed for you. I was born in the land of the Assyrians, having been first instructed in your doctrines, and afterwards in those which I now undertake to proclaim. Henceforward, knowing who God is, and what is His work, I present myself to you prepared for an examination concerning my doctrines, while I adhere immoveably to that mode of life which is according to God” [the names of other works of Tatian have come down to us; e.g., A Book of Problems (explaining what seemed obscure in the Old Testament), Of Perfection According to the Saviour, On Animals, A Collection of the Epistles of St. Paul (some eleven “fragments” of these, as preserved in quotations by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Jerome, and others, are given in vol. xlii of T. and T. Clark’s Ante-Nicene Christian Library, pp. 46-48)] Tatian was received into the church of Rome, dying at Edessa. Eusebius (A.D. 325) in his Ecc. History (iv. 29) speaks of the Diatessaron, though he had not seen it. Epiphanius in his work on Heresies (about 374 A. D.) says, “The Diatessaron Gospel is said to have been composed by Tatian, which some call according to the Hebrews” (Cap. xlvi. I). Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, near the Euphrates, about 420 A.D., speaks of having collected and put away some 200 copies of the Diatessaron, replacing them by [newer] copies of the four evangelists. It was doubtless written in Syriac and therefore inaccessible to Greek and Latin churches, while it was being used in the Syrian Churches to the exclusion of the separate gospels… In the Vatican Library is an Arabic MS numbered xiv. But no one knew anything of it until 1883, when Agostino Ciasca, one of the Guild of Writers to the Vatican, examined it and published an essay on it in Paris, entitled, On the Arabic Version of Tatian’s Diatessaron. Still the MS itself remained in Arabic, untranslated. In 1886 Ciasca happened to show the MS to Antonio Moreos, Visitor Apostolic to the Catholic Copts, who said he had seen one like it in Egypt, and could obtain it for him. In August, 1886, the promised MS arrived in Rome, evidently a copy of the same work as “MS xiv.” This MS Ciasca selected for translation, and in 1888 he published a Latin Translation of it in honour of the Pope’s Jubilee. The latter MS distinctly states that it was translated from the Syriac into Arabic. This must have been before 1043 A.D., as the translator, Abû-l-Faraj, died in that year. Tatian’s work has been translated into English with a valuable and elaborate introduction and appendix by the Rev. J. Hamlyn Hill, B.D., and published by T. and T. Clark. Mr. Hill concludes by saying “has been a subject of interest to Christians of every age since it was first written, around which so many controversies have revolved, which has been in its entirety so singularly recovered in our own day, which throws so much light upon the information possessed by Christians of the second century, and which at the same time possesses a national interest” (an account of the Diatessaron has been written by the Pastor William Elliot of Plymouth, entitled Tatian’s Diatessaron and the Modern Critics)”.
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Book: “The Life Of The Blessed Emperor Constantine”, by Eusebius Pamphilus,
Book IV, Chapter XXXIV.
That he wrote to Eusebius respecting Easter, and respecting Copies of the Holy Scriptures.
EVER careful for the welfare of the churches of God, the emperor addressed me personally in a letter on the means of providing copies of the inspired oracles, and also on the subject of the most holy feast of Easter.
Chapter XXXVI.
Constantine' s Letter to Eusebius on the Preparation of Copies of the Holy Scriptures.
"Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus [Constantinus Augustus, the great and the victorious], to Eusebius.
"It happens, through the favoring providence of God our Saviour [God the Saviour], that great numbers have united themselves to the most holy church in the city which is called by my name [which bears our name]. It seems, therefore, highly requisite, since that city is rapidly advancing in prosperity in all other respects, that the number of churches should also he increased. Do you, therefore, receive with all readiness my determination on this behalf. I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies [volumes] of the sacred Scriptures [of the Holy Scriptures], the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the [congregation of the] Church, to be written on prepared [fine] parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form [handy], by professional [skilled] transcribers [calligraphers] thoroughly practiced in their art. The catholicus (procurator, financial agent) of the diocese has also received instructions by letter from our Clemency to be careful to furnish all things necessary for the preparation of such copies; and it will be for you to take special care that they be completed with as little delay as possible [within a short space of time]. You have authority also, in virtue of this letter, to use two of the public carriages for their conveyance, by which arrangement the copies when fairly written will most easily be forwarded for my personal inspection; and one of the deacons of your church may be intrusted with this service [Appoint one of the deacons of your church to take charge of this part of the business], who, on his arrival here, shall experience my liberality [he shall receive proofs of our benevolence]. God preserve you, beloved brother!"
Chapter XXXVII.
How the Copies were provided.
SUCH were the emperor's commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold form. This fact is attested by another letter, which the emperor wrote in acknowledgment, in which, having heard that the city Constantia in our country, the inhabitants of which had been more than commonly devoted to superstition, had been impelled by a sense of religion to abandon their past idolatry, he testified his joy, and approval of their conduct.
[The letter on Chapter 36 also appeared in the book “Testimonies Of The Ancients In Favor Of Eusebius”, in which the word “catholicus” is translated “procurator”, and in the book “The Ecclesiastical History, by Socrates Scholasticus, Book I, Chapter 9”, in which the word “catholicus” is translated as “financial agent”, and also in the book: “The Ecclesiastical History Of Theodoret”, Book I, Chapter XV, The Epistle of Constantine concerning the preparation of copies of the Holy Scriptures. (Theodoret’s translations are merged in Eusebius’ text using brackets [ ] )]
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Book: “The Life And Writings Of Eusebius Of Caesarea”. Chapter II. The Writings Of Eusebius.
V. Critical And Exegetical Works.
Biblical Texts. We learn from Jerome (Pr'f. in librum Paralip.) that Eusebius and Pamphilus published a number of copies of Origen's edition of the LXX., that is, of the fifth column of the Hexapla… These editions of the LXX. must have been issued before the year 309, when Pamphilus suffered martyrdom, and in all probability before 307, when he was imprisoned (see Lardner's Credibility, Part II. chap. 72.
In later
years we find Eusebius again engaged in the publication of copies of the
Scriptures. According to the Vita Const. IV. 36, 37, the Emperor wrote
to Eusebius, asking him to prepare fifty sumptuous copies of the Scriptures for
use in his new Constantinopolitan churches. The commission was carefully
executed, and the MSS prepared at great cost. It has been thought that
among our extant MSS may be some of these copies which were produced
under Eusebius' supervision, but this is extremely improbable (see Lightfoot,
p. 334)
Ten Evangelical Canons,
with the Letter to Carpianus prefixed (kanones deka; Canones decem
harmoniae evangeliorum pr'missa ad Carpianum epistola). Ammonius of
Alexandria, early in the third century had constructed a harmony of the
Gospels, in which, taking Matthew as the standard, he placed alongside of that
Gospel the parallel passages from the three others. Eusebius' work was
suggested by this Harmony, as he tells us in his epistle to Carpianus. An
inconvenient feature of Ammonius' work was that only the Gospel of Matthew
could be read continuously, the sequence of the other Gospels being broken in
order to bring their parallel sections into the order followed by Matthew.
Eusebius, desiring to remedy this defect, constructed his work on a different principle.
He made a table of ten canons, each containing a list of passages as follows:
Canon I. passages common to all four Gospels; II. those common to Matthew,
Mark, and Luke; III. those common to Matt, Luke, and John; IV. those common to
Matt., Mark, and John; V. those common to Matthew and Luke; VI. those common to
Matt. and Mark; VII. those common to Matt. and John; VIII. those common to Luke
and Mark; IX. those common to Luke and John; X. those peculiar to each Gospel:
first to Matthew, second to Mark, third to Luke, and fourth to John… It has
indeed never been superseded, and the sections and canons are still indicated
in the margins of many of our best Greek Testaments (e.g., in those of
Tregelles and of Tischendorf)… For further particulars in regard to them, see
Lightfoot’s article on Eusebius, p. 334 sq., and Scrivener’s Introduction to
the Criticism of the New Testament, 2d ed. p. 54 sq. The canons, with the
letter to Carpianus prefixed, are given to Migne, Opera, IV. 1275–1292.
Gospel Questions and
Solutions. This work consists of two parts, or of two separate works
combined. The first bears the title Gospel
Questions and Solutions addressed to Stephanus (pro “Stefanon peri twn en euaggelioi” zhthmatwn kai lusewn),
and is referred to by Eusebius in his Dem. Evang. VII. 3, as Questions
and Solutions on the Genealogy of our Saviour (twn ei “thn genealogian tou swthro” hmwn zhthmatwn kai lusewn). The second part is entitled Gospel Questions and
Solutions addressed to Marinus (pro Marinon). The first work consisted of
two books, we learn from the opening of the second work. In that passage,
referring to the previous work, Eusebius says that having discussed there the
difficulties which beset the beginning of the Gospels, he
will now proceed to consider questions concerning the latter part of them,
the intermediate portions being omitted. He thus
seems to regard the two works as in a sense forming parts of one whole.
In his de vir ill. 81, Jerome mentions among the writings of Eusebius
one On the Discrepancy of the Gospels (De Evangeliorum Diaphonia), and
in his Comm. in Matt. chap. I. vers. 16, he refers to Eusebius’ libri
diafwnia
euaggeliwn. Ebedjesu also
remarks, “Eusebius Caesariensis composuit librum solutionis contradictionum
evangelii.” In the sixteenth century there were
found in Sicily, according to the announcement of Latino Latini, “libri tres
Eusebii Caesariensis de Evangeliorum diaphonia,” but nothing more has been
heard or seen of this Sicilian ms. There can be no doubt that the work referred to under the title De Evangeliorum
Diaphonia is identical with the Gospel Questions and Solutions, for
the discrepancies in the Gospels occupy a considerable space in the Questions
and Solutions as we have it, and the word diafwnia occurs frequently. The
three books mentioned by Latino Latini were therefore the two books addressed
to Stephanus which Eusebius himself refers to, and the one book addressed to
Marinus. The complete work is no longer
extant, but an epitome of it was discovered and published by Mai, together with
numerous fragments of the unabridged work, two of them in Syriac (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 217 sq.; reprinted by
Migne, Opera, IV. 879–1016). In the epitome the work addressed to
Stephanus consists of sixteen chapters, and the division into two books is not
retained. The work addressed to Marinus consists of only four chapters. The
work purports to have been written in answer to questions and difficulties
suggested by Stephanus and Marinus, who are addressed by Eusebius in terms of
affection and respect. The first work devoted chiefly to a discussion of the
genealogies of Christ, as given by Matthew and Luke; the
second work deals with the apparent discrepancies between the accounts of the
resurrection as given by the different evangelists. Eusebius does not
always reach a solution of the difficulties, but his work is suggestive and
interesting. The question as to the date of the work is complicated by the fact
that there is in the Dem. Evang. VII. 3 a reference to the Questions
and Solutions addressed to Stephanus, while in the epitome of the latter
work (Quaest. VII. §7) there is a distinct reference to the Demonstratio
Evang. This can be satisfactorily explained only by supposing, with
Lightfoot, that the Epitome was made at a later date than the original work,
and that then Eusebius inserted this reference to the Demonstratio. We
are thus led to assume two editions of this work, as of the others of Eusebius’
writings, the second edition being a revised abridgement of the first. The
first edition, at least of the Qeaestions ad Stephanum, must have been
published before the Demonstratio Evangelica. We cannot fix the date of
the epitome, nor of the Quaestiones ad Marinum..
Commentary on Luke (ei to kata Loukan euallelion). This work is no longer extant, but considerable fragments of it exist and have been published by Mai (Bibl. Nova Patrum, IV. 159 sq.; reprinted by Migne, Opera, VI. 529–606). Although the fragments are all drawn from Catenae on Luke, there are many passages which seem to have been taken from a commentary on Matthew (see notes of the editor). A number of extracts from the work are found in Eusebius’ Theophania (see Mai’s introduction to his fragments of the latter work).
The date of the
commentary cannot be fixed with certainty, but I am inclined to place it before
the persecution of Diocletian, for the reason that there appears in the work,
so far as I have discovered, no hint of a persecution, although the passages
expounded offer many opportunities for such a reference, which it is difficult
to see how the author could have avoided making if a persecution were in
progress while he was writing; and further, because in discussing Christ’s
prophecies of victory and dominion over the whole world, no reference is made
to the triumph gained by the Church in the victories of Constantine. A
confirmation of this early date may be found in the extreme simplicity of the
exegesis, which displays neither the wide learning, nor the profound study that
mark the commentaries on the Psalms and on Isaiah.
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. This work is no longer extant, and we know of it only from a reference in Jerome’s Ep. ad Pammachium, §3 (Migne’s ed. Ep. 49): “Origenes, Dionysius, Pierius, Eusebius Caesariensis, Didymus, Apollinaris latissime hanc Epistolam interpretati sunt.
“Eusebius’ apology in five books for Origen's teachings is now lost. Eusebius was averse to discussing “the nature of the trinity” and preferred the simple language of the Scriptures to “the subtleties of metaphysical distinctions” ["Eusebius of Caesarea," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation”]
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“First Book Against Eusebius of Caesarea's “Apology for Origen” ”, Antipater, Bishop of Bostra:
"Since now, this man was very learned, having searched out
and traced back all the books and writings of the more ancient writers, and
having set forth the opinions of almost all of them… Eusebius would not have chosen to take this view, unless
he had accurately ascertained that all the opinions of the ancients required
it. I, indeed, agree and admit that the man was very learned, and that not
anything of the more ancient writings escaped his knowledge; for, taking
advantage of the imperial co-operation, he was enabled easily to collect for
his use material from whatever quarter."
"Moreover, Theodore of Mopsuestia relates that there were only nine persons out of all whom the decrees of the Synod did not please, and that their names are as follows: Theognis of Nica (Nic'a), Eusebius of Nicomedia, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine, Narcissus of Neronias in Cilicia, which is now called Irenopolis, Paulinus of Tyre, Menophantus of Ephesus, Secundus of Ptolemaïs, which borders upon Egypt, and Theonas of Marmarica."
"I deny that the man has yet arrived at an accurate knowledge of the doctrines; wherefore he ought to be given place to so far as regards his great learning, but as regards his knowledge of doctrine he ought not. "
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Book: “The Ecclesiastical History Of Theodoret”, Book I, Chapter IV.
The Letter of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia.
[Arius,] To his very
dear lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius, Arius, [who is] unjustly persecuted by Alexander the Pope, on
account of that all-conquering truth of which you
also are a champion, sendeth greeting in the Lord. Ammonius, my
father, being about to depart for Nicomedia, I considered myself bound
to salute you by him, and withal to inform that natural affection which you
bear towards the brethren for the sake of God and
His Christ, that the bishop greatly wastes
and persecutes us, and leaves no stone
unturned against us… Eusebius your brother
bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregorius, Aetius, and all
the bishops of the East, have been condemned because they say that God had an
existence prior to that of His Son... But we say and believe, and have
taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten,
nor in any way part of the unbegotten... before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or
established, He was not... We are persecuted,
because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning...
And this we say, because He is neither part of God,
nor of any essential being... [Arius friends mentioned were: Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea, Theodotus of Laodicea,
Paulinus of Tyre, Athanasius of Anazarbus, Gregorius of Berytus, and Aetius of
Lydda. Lydda is now called Diospolis. Arius adversaries were: Philogonius, bishop of Antioch, Hellanicus, of Tripolis, and
Macarius, of Jerusalem… enemies which claimed that the Son is eternal, existing before all ages, of equal honour
and of the same substance with the Father. All the works of Arius were
destroyed by catholic censorship; all that we know of Arius is mainly because
of the written comments against them, by his adversaries]
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From the “Epistle of Eusebius of Nicomedia, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre” (given by Theodoret in his “Eccles. Hist.” I. 6).
"Neither has the
zeal of my lord Eusebius concerning the truth, nor thy silence in this matter
been unknown, but has reached even us. And, as was fitting, on the one hand we
have rejoiced on account of my lord Eusebius; but on the other, we are grieved
on thy account, since we look upon the silence of
such a man as a condemnation of our cause."
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Book: “The Church History Of Eusebius”, Book VI.
Origen, who is highly honored... For this man, having been a hearer of Ammonius, who had attained the greatest proficiency in philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life, he pursued a course opposite to his. For Ammonius, being a Christian, and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws. Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life. His works yet extant show this, as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left. For example, the work entitled The Harmony of Moses and Jesus, and such others as are in the possession of the learned (Chapter XIX, Circumstances related of Origen). There flourished many learned men in the Church at that time, whose letters to each other have been preserved and are easily accessible. They have been kept until our time in the library at AElia, which was established by Alexander, who at that time presided over that church. We have been able to gather from that library material for our present work. Among these Beryllus has left us, besides letters and treatises, various elegant works. He was bishop of Bostra in Arabia (Chapter XX, The Extant Works of the Writers of that Age). It may be well to add that in the sixth book of his exposition of the Gospel of John he states that he prepared the first five while in Alexandria. Of his work on the entire Gospel [of John] only twenty-two volumes have come down to us… He wrote also the books De Principiis before leaving Alexandria; and the discourses entitled Stromata (Chapter XXIV, The Commentaries which he prepared at Alexandria). While Origen was carrying on his customary duties in Caesarea, many pupils came to him not only from the vicinity, but also from other countries. Among these Theodorus, the same that was distinguished among the bishops of our day under the name of Gregory, and his brother Athenodorus… Remaining with him five years, they made such progress in divine things, that although they were still young, both of them were honored with a bishopric in the churches of Pontus (Chapter XXX, The Pupils of Origen). Beryllus, whom we mentioned recently as bishop of Bostra in Arabia, turned aside from the ecclesiastical standard... He dared to assert that our Saviour and Lord did not pre-exist in a distinct form of being of his own before his abode among men, and that he does not possess a divinity of his own, but only that of the Father dwelling in him. There are still extant writings of Beryllus and of the synod held on his account, which contain the questions put to him by Origen, and the discussions which were carried on in his parish, as well as all the things done at that time (Chapter XXXIII, The Error of Beryllus). At this time, as the faith extended and our doctrine was proclaimed boldly before all, Origen, being, as they say, over sixty years old, and having gained great facility by his long practice, very properly permitted his public discourses to be taken down by stenographers, a thing which he had never before allowed. He also at this time composed a work of eight books in answer to that entitled True Discourse, which had been written against us by Celsus the Epicurean, and the twenty-five books on the Gospel of Matthew... We have arranged in distinct books to the number of one hundred, so that they might be no longer scattered, as many of these as we have been able to collect, which have been preserved here and there by different persons (Chapter XXXVI, Other Works of Origen). About the same time others arose in Arabia... They said that during the present time the human soul dies and perishes with the body, but that at the time of the resurrection they will be renewed together (Chapter XXXVII, The Dissension of the Arabians).
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“[It took me] much trouble to fill in what was lacking in Origen”
[Conclusion of Rufinus’ version of Origen’s Commentary
on Romans. And Rufinus’ boast continues, in Latin: “laborem
adimplendi quae deerant… ne pulsatae quaestiones et relictae, quod in
homiletico dicendi genere ab illo fieri solet, latino lectori fastidium
generarent”. In Origen’s Hom. viii, § 4 in Exodum, as rendered by Rufinus,
comes his fourth reference to the altered Mt 28:19 inserted in the works of
Origen, as given by Rufinus in Latin: “Cum ergo uenimus ad gratiam baptismi,
uniuersis aliis diis et dominis renuntiantes, Solum confitemur Deum Patrem et
Filium et Spiritum Sanctum. Sed hoc confitentes, nisi toto corde diligamus
Dominum Deum nostrum… non sumus effecti pars Domini… et Dominum, ad quem
confugimus, propitium non efficimus, quem non ex toto et integro corde
diligimus.” Why is “Dominum” alone
mentioned, if just before the trine formula had stood in the original Greek?
The commentary awakes this suspicion in us. “Vix
certo distingui potest, ubi solus Origenes loquatur, aut ubi suas merces
obtrudat Rufinus”, says De la Rue (monitum in Exodum). Thus, it is only in Rufinus’ work that the text Mt 28, 19
occurs; in three cases embedded in comment which smacks of him rather than of
Origen, while in the other two the trine formula is in no way necessitated by
the context (Conybeare, F. C., Zeitschrift f. d. Neutest. Wiss.
Jahrg. II, 1901, p. 285)]
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Book: “Letters Of Jerome”
The books of Origen have been read
before a council of bishops and unanimously condemned. The following are his
chief errors, mainly found in the periArkpn (that
is, “of Principles” or “of Powers”, according to Rufinus)… 2. Christ's kingdom will one day
come to an end. 3. We ought to pray to the Father alone, not to the Son.
I implore you to oppose them wherever they come, and to
prevent them from unsettling the brethren committed to you (Letter XCII. The Synodical
Letter Of [Pope] Theophilus To The Bishops Of Palestine And Of Cyprus).
Theophilus
informs Jerome that he has expelled the Origenists from the monasteries of
Nitria, and urges him to shew his zeal for the faith by writing against the
prevalent heresy. The date of the letter is 400 A.D. ...It is our desire, if
possible, to guard in our days not only the Catholic faith and the rules of the
church, but the people committed to our charge, and to give a quietus to all
strange doctrines (Letter LXXXVII. From Theophilus To Jerome).
By universal consent Origen himself may be expressly condemned and also the infamous heresy of which he was the author. I have learned that certain calumniators of the true faith, named Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius, filled with a fresh access of enthusiasm in behalf of the heresy, have taken ship for Constantinople, to ensnare with their deceits as many new converts as they can… (Letter XC. From Theophilus To Epiphanius).
Does any one wish to praise Origen Let him praise him as I do. From his childhood he was a great man, and truly a martyr's son. At Alexandria he presided over the school of the church, succeeding a man of great learning, the presbyter Clement… He knew the scriptures by heart and laboured hard day and night to explain their meaning. He delivered in church more than a thousand sermons, and published innumerable commentaries which he called tomes…. Which of us can read all that he has written? and who can fail to mire his enthusiasm for the scriptures?… overcoming my scruples, I have taken up my pen against a man whose ability I once eulogized. I would sooner, indeed, risk my reputation… My friends have placed me in the awkward dilemma that if I say nothing I shall be held guilty, and if I offer a defence I shall be accounted an enemy. Both alternatives are hard; but of the two I will choose that which is the least so... I leave to your judgment to discover how much labour I have expended in translating the books On First Principles; for on the one hand if one alters anything from the Greek the work becomes less a version than a perversion… ( Letter LXXXIV. To Pammachius And Oceanus).
At the request of Theophilus Anastasius, bishop of Rome, writes to Simplicianus, bishop of Milan, to inform him that he, like Theophilus, has condemned Origen whose blasphemies have been brought under his notice... If Origen has put forth any other writings, you are to know that they and their author are alike condemned by me (Letter XCV. From Pope Anastasius To Simplicianus).
See, Pope Theophilus is freely allowed to prove Origen a heretic; and the disciples do not defend the master's words. They merely pretend that they have been altered by heretics and tampered with, like the works of many other writers. Thus they seek to maintain his cause not by their own belief but by other people's errors (Letter XCVII. To Pammachius And Marcella) [It is noteworthy Jerome’s unqualified eulogium upon Origen, which contrasts strongly with the tone adopted by the writer in subsequent years (see, e.g., Letter XXXIII, To Paula. Vs. Letter LXXXIV)]
7. He [John of Jerusalem] charges me [Jerome] with having translated Origen into Latin. In this I do not stand alone for the confessor Hilary [of Poitiers] has done the same, and we are both at one in this that while we have rendered all that is useful, we have cut away all that was harmful… For, while I have always allowed to Origen his great merit as an interpreter and critic of the scriptures, I have invariably denied the truth of his doctrines… As for the six thousand volumes of Origen of which he speaks… (Letter LXXXII. To Theophilus Bishop Of Alexandria.)
A letter from Augustine in which he… urges Jerome to base his scriptural labours not on the Hebrew text but on the version of the LXX. The date of the letter is 403 A.D. (Letter CIV. From Augustine).
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Book: “Rufinus' Apology (The Apology of Rufinus), Book II”
Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to
Pammachius.
Written at Aquileia A.D. 400
9 (2). He [Jerome] condemns as heathenish unobjectionable views which he himself holds ...in accordance with the character of the Trinity, which is good and simple and unchangeable...
21. Contrast of Jerome's earlier and later attitude towards Origen.
23… since that letter contains certain
more secret matters, I do not wish to see it published before the right time;
and therefore I will corroborate what I say by other proofs similar to it. In
the meantime let this be counted as demonstrated by what I have said above,
that he [Jerome] extols Origen's writings as in every way admirable, and
declares that 'if he translates them, the Roman tongue will then recognize what
a store of good it had hitherto been ignorant of and now has begun to
understand,' that is the twenty six books on
Matthew, the five on Luke, and the thirty two on John. These are the books to which he [Jerome] gives the highest honour; and in these absolutely
everything is to be found which is contained in the books on Peri
`Arkwn the
groundwork of his charges against me, only set forth with greater breadth and
fulness. If then he promises that he will translate
these, why does he condemn me for a similar course?
25. You observe how he [Jerome] treats Ambrose. First, he [Jerome] calls him a crow and says that he is black all over... [however] you [Jerome] had been accused of plagiarizing from Origen. And you did not deny it, but said: "What they bring against me in violent abuse I accept as the highest praise; for I wish to imitate the man whom we and all who are wise admire." Your plagiarisms redound to your highest praise; those of others make them crows and jackdaws in your estimation.
27 a. But I [Rufinus] followed his [Jerome’s] method of translation [Jerome’s method of forgery] ...in certain places where you [Jerome] found things relating to the faith, that is the Trinity, expressed in a strange manner, you left out words at your discretion. This mode of translation we have both of us observed [Jerome and Rufinus]...
28. But if any one blame me [Rufinus] for having translated anything at all of Origen's, then I say that I am the last of many who have done the deed, and the blame, if any, should begin with the first. But does any one ever punish a deed the doing of which he had not previously forbidden. We did what was permissible. If there is to be a new law, it holds good only for the future. But it may be said that the works themselves [Rufinus’ tampering the works of Origen, without the same "art" as Jerome, specifically “De Principiis”] ought to be condemned and their author [Rufinus] as well. If that be so, what is to happen to the other author who writes the same things [Jerome], as I have shewn most fully above?
35. Danger of altering the Versions of Scripture... Is it not evident, how greatly the grounds for the heathens' unbelief have been increased by this proceeding?… They know that our law [the Vulgate version of the New Testament and of the Old Testament versus the Septuagint, as Rufinus presents three examples of Septuagint (LXX) inserted adulterations to the Book of Daniel: “Susanna... not true, the boy Daniel... a mistake, the Hymn of the three children... false” (all that was not present in Hebrew older MSS was called “apocrypha” and rejected by Jerome, however, those forged documents still present in all catholic versions: Baruch, Wisdom, Tobias, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, Maccabees, the adulterous insertions to the Books of Daniel and Esther, the extra books of Esdras, etc…): “”] has been amended, or at least changed… [Jerome wrote that] "The ears of simple men among the Latins ought not after four hundred years to be molested by the sound of new doctrines"...
37. But suppose that you had reason to be offended at the fact that, in my translation of Origen, I passed over some things which appeared to me unedifying in point of doctrine--though in this I only did what you [Jerome] had done. Possibly I was deserving of blame and correction for this. You [Jerome] say that some of the brethren sent letters to you demanding that the faults of the translator [Rufinus] should be pointed out [see below].
45. The point turns upon a statement in my Preface, where I said of him [Jerome] who is now my persecutor and accuser that in the works or Origen which he [Jerome] translated there are found certain grounds of offence in the Greek, but that he has in his translation so cleared them away that the Latin reader will find nothing in them which is dissonant from our faith.
45... Why my translations of Origen had created offence, but Jerome's not?
46. ... [but] the doctrine he [Jerome] has expressed about the Trinity; namely, that the two Seraphim are the Son and the Holy Ghost, from which especially the charge of blasphemy is drawn [by Rufinus against Jerome]...”
47. A Synod, if called on to condemn Origen, must condemn Jerome also... it has been of no advantage to Origen that yon [Jerome] have praised him, so it will be of no profit to you that I [Rufinus] have pleaded in your behalf. I shall then be bound to follow the judgment of the Catholic Church whether it is given against the books of Origen or against yours.
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Book: “Letters Of Jerome”
Letter LXXX. From Rufinus To Macarius.
1.His style [Jerome’s] is certainly attractive but I can see that he aims at a more ambitious task than that of a mere translator. Not content with rendering the words of Origen he desires to be himself [Jerome] the teacher. I [Rufinus] for my part do but follow up an enterprise which he has sanctioned and commenced, but I lack his [Jerome’s] vigorous eloquence with which to adorn the sayings of this great man [Origen].
Letter LXXXIII, From Pammachius And Oceanus.
1. Pammachius and Oceanus to the presbyter Jerome, health.
A reverend brother has brought to us sheets containing a certain person's translation [Rufinus] into Latin of a treatise by Origen--entitled periarkpn [De Principiis]…. with a view of clearing the author [Origen], many passages of his books have been removed which had they been left would have plainly proved the irreligious character of his teaching. We therefore request your excellency to be so good as to bestow upon this particular matter an attention which will benefit not only ourselves but all who reside in the city; we ask you to publish in your own language [Latin] the abovementioned book of Origen exactly as it was brought out by the author himself; and we desire you to make evident the interpolations which his defender [Rufinus] has introduced... The writer [Rufinus] in the preface to his work has, with much subtlety but without mentioning your holiness's name [Jerome], implied that he has done no more than complete a work which you had yourself [Jerome] promised, thus indirectly suggesting that you agree with him. Remove then the suspicions, men cannot help feeling, and confute your assailant [Rufinus]; for, if you ignore his implications, people will say that you [Jerome] admit their truth.
[The translation to Latin of Origen’s book periarkpn [De Principiis]…. was also made at the request of Macarius and its greater part is known to us only through those Latin translations. Besides this, translations of Origen's “Seven Homilies on Matthew and one on John”, and of his treatises on Mary Magdalen and on Christ's Epiphany have at times been attributed to Rufinus]
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Prefaces to Jerome's Early Works.
Prefaces to the Vulgate Version of
the New Testament. The Four Gospels.
Addressed to Pope Damasus, A.D. 383.
You urge me to revise the old Latin version… Is there a man, learned or unlearned, who will not, when he
takes the volume into his hands, and perceives that what he reads does not suit
his settled tastes, break out immediately into violent language, and call me a
forger and a profane person for having the audacity to add anything to the
ancient books, or to make any changes or
corrections therein?… which enable me to bear the odium-in the first
place, the command is given by you who are the
supreme bishop… the New Testament… was undoubtedly
composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who
was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his
work in Judaea in Hebrew characters. We must confess
that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies… I pass over those manuscripts which are associated with
the names of Lucian and Hesychius, and the authority of which is perversely
maintained by a handful of disputatious persons. It is obvious that these writers could not amend anything in the Old
Testament after the labours of the Seventy… to
avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I
have used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such
passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to
remain as they are [in Latin].
[When
Augustin expressed to Jerome his gratitude for 'his translation of the
Gospels,' he tacitly corrected him by substituting for this phrase 'the correction of the New Testament.' Yet, although
he proposed to himself this limited object, the various
forms of corruption which had been introduced were, as he describes, so
numerous that the difference of the old and revised (Hieronymian) text is
throughout clear and striking." Jerome’s New Testament version was
made at Rome between the years 382 and 385.
The Vulgate Version of the Old Testament was not undertaken with ecclesiastical sanction, as was the case with the
Gospels, but at the request of private friends, or from Jerome's "own
sense of the imperious necessity of the work." It was wholly made at
Bethlehem, and was begun about A.D. 391, and finished about A.D. 404.Lucian in Syria and Hesychius in Egypt attempted their
recensions about the middle of the third century, the time when Origen also
began to labour in the same direction. Lucian's recension, also called
the Constantinopolitan, and to which the Slavonian and Gothic versions belong,
spread over Asia Minor and Thrace. See the Preface to the Chronicles. It was
decreed by a council held under Pope Gelasius, A.D. 494, that "the Gospels
which Lucian and Hesychius falsified are apocryphal."]
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Preface to Jerome’s Translation of Origen on St. Luke.
Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 388.
A few days ago you told me that you had read some commentaries on Matthew and Luke, of which one was equally dull in perception and expression, the other frivolous in expression, sleepy in sense. Accordingly you requested me to translate, without regarding such rubbish, our Adamantius' [Origen’s nickname] thirty-nine "homilies" on Luke, just as they are found in the original Greek; I replied that it was an irksome task and a mental torment to write, as Cicero phrases it, with another man's heart not one's own; but yet I will undertake it, as your requests reach no higher than this. The demand which the sainted Blesilla once made, at Rome, that I should translate into our language his [Origen’s] twenty-five volumes on Matthew, five on Luke, and thirty-two on John is beyond my powers, my leisure, and my energy…
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Book: “The Ecclesiastical History”, by Socrates Scholasticus, Book II, Chapter VII.
“The Emperor Constantius II, son of Constantine the Great, ejects Paul after his Election to the Bishopric, and sending for Eusebius of Nicomedia, invests him with the Bishopric of Constantinople.”
[Eusebius of Nicomedia Studied in Antakya or Antioch (Turkey)].
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“Anathemas Against Origen… VIII. If anyone shall not acknowledge that God the Word, [is] of the same substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and who was made flesh and became man, one of the Trinity… let him be anathema.”
Second Council of Constantinople, 553 A. D. (convened by the Emperor Justinian 1 and by the Pope Vigilius)
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Baptism… perhaps more simply “in the name of Christ,” has been from the beginning the means of initiation into Christianity ("Christianity," 1994, Microsoft Encarta).
ETC…
References taken mainly from: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/RTF
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To go to the main text: http://www.oocities.org/fdocc3/in-my-name.htm
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