Padres Ante-Nicenos, Vol. VII: Padres del Tercer y Cuarto Siglos: Lactancio, Venantio, Asterio, Victorino, Dionisio, Enseñanza Apostólica y Constituciones, Homilía y Liturgias

6. “And I saw an angel flying through the midst of heaven.”] The angel flying through the midst of heaven, whom he says that he saw, we have already treated of above, as being the same Elias who anticipates the kingdom of Antichrist in his prophecy.

8. “And another angel following him.”] The other angel following, he speaks of as the same prophet who is the associate of his prophesying. But that he says,—

15. “Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather in the grapes of the vine,”] he signifies it of the nations that should perish on the advent of the Lord. And indeed in many forms he shows this same thing, as if to the dry harvest, and the seed for the coming of the Lord, and the consummation of the world, and the kingdom of Christ, and the future appearance of the kingdom of the blessed.

19, 20. “And the angel thrust in the sickle, and reaped the vine of the earth, and cast it into the wine-press of the wrath of God. And the wine-press of His fury was trodden down without the city.”] In that he says that it was cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God, and trodden down without the city, the treading of the wine-press is the retribution on the sinner.

“And blood went out from the wine-press, even unto the horse-bridles.”] The vengeance of shed blood as was before predicted, “In blood thou hast sinned, and blood shall follow thee.” 2307

“For a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”] That is, through all the four parts of the world: for there is a quadrate put together by fours, as in four faces and four appearances, and wheels by fours; for forty times four is one thousand six hundred. Repeating the same persecution, the Apocalypse says:—

Footnotes

357:2307

Ezek. xxxv. 6

from the fifteenth chapter.

1. “And I saw another great and wonderful sign, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is completed the indignation of God.”] For the wrath of God always strikes the obstinate people with seven plagues, that is, perfectly, as it is said in Leviticus; and these shall be in the last time, when the Church shall have gone out of the midst.

2. “Standing upon the sea of glass, having harps.”] That is, that they stood stedfastly in the faith upon their baptism, and having their confession in their mouth, that they shall exult in the kingdom before God. But let us return to what is set before us.

from the seventeenth chapter.

1–6. “There came one of the seven angels, which have the seven bowls, and spake with me, saying, Come, I will show thee the judgment of that great whore who sitteth upon many waters. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs.”] The decrees of that senate are always accomplished against all, contrary to the preaching of the true faith; and now already mercy being cast aside, itself here gave the decree among all nations.

3. “And I saw the woman herself sitting upon the scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy.”] But to sit upon the scarlet beast, the author of murders, is the image of the devil. Where also is treated of his captivity, concerning which we have fully considered. I remember, indeed, that this is called Babylon also in the Apocalypse, on account of confusion; and in Isaiah also; and Ezekiel called it Sodom. In fine, if you compare what is said against Sodom, and what Isaiah says against Babylon, and what the Apocalypse says, you will find that they are all one. 2308

9. “The seven heads are the seven hills, on p. 358 which the woman sitteth.”] That is, the city of Rome.

10. “And there are seven kings: five have fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he is come, he will be for a short time.”] The time must be understood in which the written Apocalypse was published, since then reigned Cæsar Domitian; but before him had been Titus his brother, and Vespasian, Otho, Vitellius, and Galba. These are the five who have fallen. One remains, under whom the Apocalypse was written—Domitian, to wit. “The other has not yet come,” speaks of Nerva; “and when he is come, he will be for a short time,” for he did not complete the period of two years.

11. “And the beast which thou sawest is of the seven.”] Since before those kings Nero reigned.

“And he is the eighth.”] He says only when this beast shall come, reckon it the eighth place, since in that is the completion. He added:—

“And shall go into perdition.”] For that ten kings received royal power when he shall move from the east, he says. He shall be sent from the city of Rome with his armies. And Daniel sets forth the ten horns and the ten diadems. And that these are eradicated from the former ones,—that is, that three of the principal leaders are killed by Antichrist: that the other seven give him honour and wisdom and power, of whom he says:—

16. “These shall hate the whore, to wit, the city, and shall burn her flesh with fire.”] Now that one of the heads was, as it were, slain to death, and that the stroke of his death was directed, he speaks of Nero. For it is plain that when the cavalry sent by the senate was pursuing him, he himself cut his throat. Him therefore, when raised up, God will send as a worthy king, but worthy in such a way as the Jews merited. And since he is to have another name, He shall also appoint another name, that so the Jews may receive him as if he were the Christ. Says Daniel: “He shall not know the lust of women, although before he was most impure, and he shall know no God of his fathers: for he will not be able to seduce the people of the circumcision, unless he is a judge of the law.” 2309 Finally, also, he will recall the saints, not to the worship of idols, but to undertake circumcision, and, if he is able, to seduce any; for he shall so conduct himself as to be called Christ by them. But that he rises again from hell, we have said above in the word of Isaiah: “Water shall nourish him, and hell hath increased him;” who, however, must come with name unchanged, and doings unchanged, as says the Spirit.

Footnotes

357:2308

[Apparently in conflict with what our author says supra, pp. 352 and 355.]

358:2309

Dan. xi. 37.

from the nineteenth chapter.

11. “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True.”] The horse, and He that sits upon him, sets forth our Lord coming to His kingdom with the heavenly army. Because from the sea of the north, which is the Arabian Sea, even to the sea of Phœnice, and even to the ends of the earth, they will command these greater parts in the coming of the Lord Jesus, and all the souls of the nations will be assembled to judgment.

from the twentieth chapter.

1–3. “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he held the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be finished: after this he must be loosed a little season.”] Those years wherein Satan is bound are in the first advent of Christ, even to the end of the age; and they are called a thousand, according to that mode of speaking, wherein a part is signified by the whole, just as is that passage, “the word which He commanded for a thousand generations,” 2310 although they are not a thousand. Moreover that he says, “and he cast him into the abyss,” he says this, because the devil, excluded from the hearts of believers, began to take possession of the wicked, in whose hearts, blinded day by day, he is shut up as if in a profound abyss. And he shut him up, says he, and put a seal upon him, that he should not deceive the nations until the thousand years should be finished. “He shut the door upon him,” it is said, that is, he forbade and restrained his seducing those who belong to Christ. Moreover, he put a seal upon him, because it is hidden who belong to the side of the devil, and who to that of Christ. For we know not of those who seem to stand whether they shall not fall, and of those who are down it is uncertain whether they may rise. Moreover, that he says that he is bound and shut up, that he may not seduce the nations, the nations signify the Church, seeing that of them it itself is formed, and which being seduced, he previously held until, he says, the thousand years should be completed, that is, what is left of the sixth day, to wit, of the sixth age, which subsists for a thousand years; after this he must be loosed for a little season. The little season signifies three years and six months, in which with all his power the devil will avenge himself under Antichristp. 359 against the Church. Finally, he says, after that the devil shall be loosed, and will seduce the nations in the whole world, and will entice war against the Church, the number of whose foes shall be as the sand of the sea. 2311

4, 5. “And I saw thrones, and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were slain on account of the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor have received his writing on their forehead or in their hand; and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years: the rest of them lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.”] There are two resurrections. But the first resurrection is now of the souls that are by the faith, which does not permit men to pass over to the second death. Of this resurrection the apostle says: “If ye have risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” 2312

6. “Blessed and holy is he who has part in this resurrection: on them the second death shall have no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and they shall reign with Him a thousand years.”] I do not think the reign of a thousand years is eternal; or if it is thus to be thought of, they cease to reign when the thousand years are finished. But I will put forward what my capacity enables me to judge. The tenfold number signifies the decalogue, and the hundredfold sets forth the crown of virginity: for he who shall have kept the undertaking of virginity completely, and shall have faithfully fulfilled the precepts of the decalogue, and shall have destroyed the untrained nature or impure thoughts within the retirement of the heart, that they may not rule over him, this is the true priest of Christ, and accomplishing the millenary number thoroughly, is thought to reign with Christ; and truly in his case the devil is bound. But he who is entangled in the vices and the dogmas of heretics, in his case the devil is loosed. But that it says that when the thousand years are finished he is loosed, so the number of the perfect saints being completed, in whom there is the glory of virginity in body and mind, by the approaching advent of the kingdom of the hateful one, many, seduced by that love of earthly things, shall be overthrown, and together with him shall enter the lake of fire.

8–10. “And they went up upon the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil who seduced them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”] This belongs to the last judgment. And after a little time the earth was made holy, as being at least that wherein lately had reposed the bodies of the virgins, when they shall enter upon an eternal kingdom with an immortal King, as they who are not only virgins in body, but, moreover, with equal inviolability have protected themselves, both in tongue and thought, from wickedness; and these, it shows, shall dwell in rejoicing for ever with the Lamb.

Footnotes

358:2310

Ps. cv. 8.

359:2311

[Compare vol. v. pp. 207, 215, caps. 15 and 54.]

359:2312

Col. iii. 1.

from the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters.

16. “And the city is placed in a square.”] The city which he says is squared, he says also is resplendent with gold and precious stones, and has a sacred street, and a river through the midst of it, and the tree of life on either side, bearing twelve manner of fruits throughout the twelve months; and that the light of the sun is not there, because the Lamb is the light of it; and that its gates were of single pearls; and that there were three gates on each of the four sides, and that they could not be shut. I say, in respect of the square city, he shows forth the united multitude of the saints, in whom the faith could by no means waver. As Noah is commanded to make the ark of squared beams, 2313 that it might resist the force of the deluge, by the precious stones he sets forth the holy men who cannot waver in persecution, who could not be moved either by the tempest of persecutors, or be dissolved from the true faith by the force of the rain, because they are associated of pure gold, of whom the city of the great King is adorned. Moreover, the streets set forth their hearts purified from all uncleanness, transparent with glowing light, that the Lord may justly walk up and down in them. The river of life sets forth that the grace of spiritual doctrine flowed through the minds of the faithful, and that manifold flourishing forms of odours germinated therein. The tree of life on either bank sets forth the Advent of Christ, according to the flesh, who satisfied the peoples wasted with famine, that received life from One by the wood of the Cross, with the announcement of God’s word. And in that he says that the sun is not necessary in the city, he shows, evidently, that the Creator as the immaculate light shines in the midst of it, whose brightness no mind has been able to conceive, nor tongue to tell.

In that he says there are three gates placed on each of the four sides, of single pearls, I think that these are the four virtues, 2314 to wit, prudence, fortitude, justice, temperance, which are associated with one another. And, being involved p. 360 together, they make the number twelve. But the twelve gates we believe to be the number of the apostles, who, shining in the four virtues as precious stones, manifesting the light of their doctrine among the saints, cause it to enter the celestial city, that by intercourse with them the choir of angels may be gladdened. And that the gates cannot be shut, it is evidently shown that the doctrine of the apostles can be separated from rectitude by no tempest of contradiction. Even though the floods of the nations and the vain superstitions of heretics should revolt against their true faith, they are overcome, and shall be dissolved as the foam, because Christ is the Rock 2315 by which, and on which, the Church is founded. 2316 And thus it is overcome by no traces of maddened men. Therefore they are not to be heard who assure themselves that there is to be an earthly reign of a thousand years; who think, that is to say, with the heretic Cerinthus. 2317 For the kingdom of Christ is now eternal in the saints, although the glory of the saints shall be manifested after the resurrection.

Footnotes

359:2313

Gen. vi. 14, LXX.

359:2314

[Called the philosophical virtues. Vol. ii. note 7, p. 502.]

360:2315

[From a Western theologian of the date of our author. This is emphatic.]

360:2316

[Compare vol. v. p. 561, Elucidation VII.]

360:2317

[Here is evidence that Cerinthus (see vol. i. 351, 352) and other heretics had disgusted the Church even with the less carnal views of the Millenium entertained by the better “Chiliasts,” such as Commodian. See vol. iv. pp. 212 and 218.]

GENERAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

1. The whole subject of the Apocalypse is so treated, 2318 in the Speaker's Commentary, as to elucidate many questions suggested by the primitive commentators of this series, and to furnish the latest judgments of critics on the subject. It is so immense a matter, however, as to render annotations on patristic specialties impossible in a work like this. Every reader must feel how apposite is the sententious saying of Augustine: “Apocalypsis Joannis tot sacramenta quot verba.”

2. The seven spirits, p. 344, ver. 4. That is, the one Spirit in His seven-fold gifts. He now fulfills the promise of Christ, “He shall show you things to come.” Without this complement the Church would lack assurance that her great Head upon the throne has ordered and limited the whole course of this world for her conflicts and her final triumph by the Spirit's power. St. John’s rapture was the Spirit’s work: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” 2319 The whole Apocalypse is an Easter sermon (on the text, i. 18) and an Easter song (vers. 9-14, and passim). It supplements the appearances of the risen Redeemer for identification, by a manifestation, which is the Church’s assurance of His glorification, and of His perpetual work in her and for her, as well as of His presence with her, by the Spirit.

3. Seven golden candlesticks, p. 344, ver. 12. The symbol of the seven-fold Spirit in the Church. On the Arch of Titus this symbol had just been set up as proof of its removal from the Mosaic Church. It is now found to be transferred to the “seven churches,” a symbol of the Catholic Church 2320 or the “communion of saints.” The threatening of removal from particular churches derives force from the (then) recent removal out of Jerusalem.

4. All the Saints shall assemble, p. 345, ver. 15. Our author clings to the purer Chiliasm of Commodian, to which Augustine had now given the death-blow by his famous retraction. 2321

5. New forms of prophesying, p. 347, ver.17. A retrospective glance at Montanism, and a caveat against the mistakes of Tertullian.

6. I will vomit thee, p. 347, ver. 17. Bishop Wordsworth suggests, that, if the canon of Scripture compiled by the church of Laodicea lacks the Apocalypse, its terrible reproof of that church may have influenced its unwillingness to accept it. Accordingly she was vomited, and perished in the Saracen invasion.

7. That is the Spirit, p. 348, ver. 1. Christ’s divine nature as distinguished from his flesh. 2322 “In a word,” says Professor Milligan, 2323 “πνευμα is a short expression for our Lord’s resurrection state.” A truth, but based on the distinction between the flesh of Christ and His spiritual nature as the Word. See Tertullian, 2324 vol. iii. p. 609, note 5, and p. 610, note 5: also 2 Cor. iii. 17-18.

8. The genealogy of Mary, p. 348, vers. 7-10. It is remarkable that St. Matthew should be credited with this, and not St. Luke, who in the sixteenth century 2325 began to be regarded as giving the ancestry of Mary. See Africanus 2326 on the subject, and my elucidation, 2327 in which I followed Wordsworth. Though I had already prepared the pages of Victorinus for the press, I failed to note at that time this modification of the general truth, that antiquity regards both genealogies as those of Joseph.

9. Dan himself, p. 349, ver. 8. Here is a touch of Chiliasm again, i.e., of the better sort. Even Dan is promised a restoration: and the use of Gen. xlix. 16 for that intent is noteworthy, as compared with Rev. vii. 5-8, where Dan is omitted. But Hippolytus takes a very different view of the same text. 2328

10. Hades, p. 351. “A region withdrawn from punishment and fires,” says our author. He identifies it with paradise, and shows that in his day the Latin churches knew of no purgatorial fires. He knows of nothing but a place for those “who die in the Lord,” and a place for the wicked. It is perpetually overlooked, that, in the fiction of “purgatory,” it is only the righteous who are entitled to it: none but those dying in full communion with the Church having any portion in it, or any title to Masses for their repose. Of all this our author had no conception. 2329

11. To take the book and eat it up, p. 353, ver. 10. We must not fail to note with this the passage Jer. xv. 16, where the Revised Version pedantically sacrifices the Septuagint reading, ὁ λόγος σου, (which is followed by the Vulgate), distinguishing “sermones tui” from “Verbum tuum.” The Seventy have testified to this distinction in their day, and their copies of the Hebrew must have supported it. So understood, what riches in the text of Jeremiah!

12. Thessalonians, p. 354, ver. 7. On which much that is suggestive is said by St. Augustine, though he confesses, concerning what St. Paul had said to the Thessalonians, “Ego prorsus quid dixerit me fateor ignorare.” See De Civ. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 19, p. 685, ed. Migne.

13. The woman, p. 355, ver. 1. Compare vol. vi. p. 337, note 4, and Elucidation II. p. 355. It is quite important to observe the voice of antiquity on a matter which, in our own times, has been made a stumbling-block to souls by a wanton, personal act of the Bishop of Rome and his dogma of the “Immaculate Conception.”

14. The hope of those that sleep, p. 355, ver. 1. To make our author consistent with himself (see note 10, supra), we should read thus: “But they have in their darkness a light (some think) such as the moon.” Here, however, it seems to me, he is giving his mind to “the Church of Fathers and Prophets” exclusively, in which its “saints and apostles” were for a time waiting and looking for the Man-child. Even that Church of the Hebrews had, in Hades, light “like that of the moon,” where they reposed in Abraham’s bosom; but Christ removed them into a fairer region, i.e., Paradise, when He illuminated Hades, and then became “the first-fruits of them that slept.” Such seems to be the sense.

15. In a certain Greek codex, p. 357, ver. 18. Can αντεμος here be a reference to Anthemius, of the kindred of Julian (d. a.d. 472)? His history, mixed up with that of Ricimer, connects with Genseric, who died a.d. 477.

16. Sea of the north, p. 358, ver. 11. The Mediterranean, near Mount Carmel, is “the sea of Phœnice,” I suppose: but how the Arabian Gulf can be called the sea of the north, I do not comprehend. As Routh says, the manuscripts must have been much corrupted.

17. Two resurrections, p. 359, ver. 5. Here our author, who is supposed to be the contemporary of St. Augustine, accepts his final judgment. 2330 But Victorinus was a Chiliast of the better sort, according to St. Jerome. This confirms the corruption of the mss. Indeed, if the Victorinus mentioned by Jerome be the same as our author, the mention of Genseric proves the subsequent interpolation of his works.

18. It is evident that the fragment which is here preserved, if, indeed, it be the work of Caius Marius Victorinus, surnamed Afer, is full of the corrections of some pious disciple of St. Augustine who lived much later. The reader must consult Lardner, 2331 and compare Routh, whose notes on this treatise are indeed few. He does not think the reference to abbots 2332 of any consequence in determining its age, because he finds albatorum elsewhere sustained as the true reading, i.e., those “made white in the blood of the Lamb.” But the great probability that there were two authors of the name living in different ages seems more than suspected by the learned. Dupin, who calls him Marius without the Caius (changed to Fabius by the English translator), leaves one yet more in a mist as to the identity of our author with the one he writes about.

Footnotes

360:2318

By William Lee, D.D., archdeacon of Dublin.

360:2319

The Lord’s day is here the Paschal feast, “the Great Sunday,” probably. See Eichhorn in Rosenmüller, Scholia, tom. v. p. 626.

360:2320

P. 345, sec. 16.

360:2321

Civ. Dei, xx. cap. 7, p. 667, ed. Migne.

360:2322

See vol. iii. note 5, pp. 624, 630.

360:2323

Ut supra, p. 249, note 15.

360:2324

See Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 530, for a brief comment on this and its supposed scriptural base.

360:2325

Virtually in the fifteenth, as Annius published his theory in 1502, and wrote, no doubt, before that century began. Vol. vi. p. 139.

360:2326

Vol. vi. p. 126, this series.

360:2327

Vol. vi. p. 139.

360:2328

Vol. v. p. 207, this series.

360:2329

Compare vol. iii. p. 428, Elucidation VIII.

360:2330

See p. 360, note 2.

360:2331

Credib., vol. iv. p. 254.

360:2332

P. 344, note 6, supra.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE

p. 363

TO

DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF ROME.

[a.d. 259-269.] Dionysius is no exception to the rule that Latin Christianity had no place in Rome till after the Nicene Council. He was a Greek by birth, and reflects the spirit and orthodoxy of the Greek Fathers; and what we have from him is written in the Greek language. We find it in Athanasius, where, remarks Waterland, 2333 its genuineness cannot be suspected, because “Athanasius did not entirely approve of it, and would certainly never have forged an interpretation different from his own.” He concurred with the Easterns in the discipline of Paul of Samosata. Waterland says of the following fragment: “It is of admirable use for showing the doctrine of the Trinity as professed by the Church of Christ at that time.”

The purely receptive character of the Roman See during the Ante-Nicene period must be sufficiently apparent to the possessors of the volumes of this series. Until after the Council of Nice, as a Roman pontiff has testified, she was unfelt in the churches as a teaching church. 2334 Irenæus has justly stated her case: as the focus of the empire, she was the natural center of exchange and social commerce among all nations. Thither all Christians converged, and there at all times might be found representatives of all the churches,—those of Gaul and Britain; those of Asia Minor and Syria; those of Alexandria and Egypt; those of North Africa, where Latin Christianity had begun to exist, and where it had reached a vigorous maturity at the Nicene period. Hence, from all these churches came into Rome a Catholic testimony, which was thus preserved at the metropolis by the pressure from without.

This is the fact which gives importance to the earliest dogmatic testimony proceeding from the See of Rome. 2335 Dionysius has the great distinction of sustaining the orthodoxy which Hippolytus and other comprovincial bishops had established against the heresy of two of his predecessors; and this little essay, embedded in the works of Athanasius, comes forth as a genuine “bee” out of his precious amber, sweet with the honey of truth, and pungent with the sting of an acute and piercing testimony against error.

For the necessary preface to this essay or synodical letter, the reader must turn to the history of Dionysius of Alexandria, surnamed the Great, and to the letters he wrote to his namesake of Rome. 2336 For a complete view of the whole matter, and for the originals of both these great prelates, the student will not fail to consult Routh. 2337 Athanasius, the touchstone of orthodoxy, does not altogether commend the idioms of either; but he sustains the essential orthodoxy of both with that vast sweep of genius which could insist upon Nicene idioms after the council, but sustain those who, in defective language, fought previously for essential truth.p. 364

For a just view of Novatian and of the orthodoxy of Rome in the times of Dionysius, as that unhappy but competent witness sets it forth, the reader would do well to consult Dr. Waterland. 2338 For a vindication of the Alexandrian Dionysius, to whom his contemporaries gave the surname Magnus, see the same lucid expounder of antiquity. 2339 For a sententious statement of the subordination of the Son, on which so much hinges in these inquiries, consult the same theologian. 2340

I might have suffixed this essay to the works of the great Dionysius but for several important considerations: (1) I was glad to give due prominence to this exceptional voice from old Rome, and to place Dionysius with due dignity before the reader; (2) as the Bishop of Rome was without a hearing at Nicæa, I was anxious to show what good Sylvester would have said had he been able to attend the council; (3) I was not willing, therefore, to hide this writer’s light under the bushel of the pages devoted to the Alexandrian school; (4) I was anxious to close this important volume by a just exhibition of the Ante-Nicene doctrine, previous to the compilation of the Great Symbol; (5) I considered it judicious to elucidate Dionysius by the doctrines of Athanasius, to whom we owe the preservation of the fragment itself; and (6) I felt that here was the place to record the “Athanasian Confession” (so called), which, apocryphal though it be, as a “creed” under his name is allowed to embody the principles for which the whole life of Athanasius was a contest unparalleled in the history of Christianity.

Footnotes

363:2333

Works, vol. iii. p. 318

363:2334

Vol. iv. p. 170, this series. Compare Irenæus, vol. i. pp. 415-460, this series.

363:2335

Novatian (vol. v. p. 607, this series) must not be overlooked, but he is valued merely as a personal witness.

363:2336

See pp. 78 and 92, vol. vi., this series.

363:2337

Reliqu. Sac.; vol. iii. pp. 221-250.

364:2338

Works, vol. iii. pp. 57, 119, 139, 214, 274, 454-459.

364:2339

Ib., pp. 43, 111, 274.

364:2340

Works, iii. p. 23.

Against the Sabellians. 2341

p. 365

1 Now truly it would be just to dispute against those who, by dividing and rending the monarchy, which is the most august announcement of the Church of God, into, as it were, three powers, and distinct substances (hypostases), and three deities, destroy it. 2342 For I have heard that some who preach and teach the word of God among you are teachers of this opinion, who indeed diametrically, so to speak, are opposed to the opinion of Sabellius. For he blasphemes in saying that the Son Himself is the Father, and vice versa; but these in a certain manner announce three gods, in that they divide the holy unity into three different substances, absolutely separated from one another. For it is essential that the Divine Word should be united to the God of all, and that the Holy Spirit should abide and dwell in God; and thus that the Divine Trinity should be reduced and gathered into one, as if into a certain head—that is, into the omnipotent God of all. For the doctrine of the foolish Marcion, which cuts and divides the monarchy into three elements, is assuredly of the devil, and is not of Christ’s true disciples, or of those to whom the Saviour’s teaching is agreeable. For these indeed rightly know that the Trinity is declared in the divine Scripture, but that the doctrine that there are three gods is neither taught in the Old nor in the New Testament.

2 But neither are they less to be blamed who think that the Son was a creation, and decided that the Lord was made just as one of those things which really were made; whereas the divine declarations testify that He was begotten, as is fitting and proper, but not that He was created or made. It is therefore not a trifling, but a very great impiety, to say that the Lord was in any wise made with hands. For if the Son was made, there was a time when He was not; but He always was, if, as He Himself declares, 2343 He is undoubtedly in the Father. And if Christ is the Word, the Wisdom, and the Power,—for the divine writings tell us that Christ is these, as ye yourselves know,—assuredly these are powers of God. Wherefore, if the Son was made, there was a time when these were not in existence; 2344 and thus there was a time when God was without these things, which is utterly absurd. But why should I discourse at greater length to you about these matters, since ye are men filled with the Spirit, and especially understanding what absurd results follow from the opinion which asserts that the Son was made? The leaders of this view seem to me to have given very little heed to these things, and for that reason to have strayed absolutely, by explaining the passage otherwise than as the divine and prophetic Scripture demands. “The Lord created me the beginning of His ways.” 2345 For, as ye know, there is more than one signification of the word “created;” and in this place “created” is the same as “set over” the works made by Himself—made, I say, by the Son Himself. But this “created” is not to be understood in the same manner as “made.” For to make and to create are different from one another. “Is not He Himself thy Father, that hath possessed thee and created thee?” 2346 says Moses in the great song of Deuteronomy. And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and rash men! was then “the first-born of every creature” 2347 something made?—“He who was begotten from the womb before the morning star?” 2348 —He who in the person of Wisdom says, “Before all the hills He begot me?” 2349 Finally, any one may read in many parts of the divine utterances that the Son is said to have been begotten, but never that He was made. From which considerations, they who dare to say that His divine and inexplicable generation was a creation, are openly convicted of thinking that which is false concerning the generation of the Lord.

3 That admirable and divine unity, therefore, p. 366 must neither be separated into three divinities, nor must the dignity and eminent greatness of the Lord be diminished by having applied to it the name of creation, but we must believe on God the Father Omnipotent, and on Christ Jesus His Son, and on the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that the Word is united to the God of all, because He says, “I and the Father are one;” 2350 and, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” 2351 Thus doubtless will be maintained in its integrity the doctrine of the divine Trinity, and the sacred announcement of the monarchy.

Footnotes

365:2341

A fragment of an epistle or treatise of Dionysius, bishop of Rome. [From the epistle of St. Athanasius, De Decretis Nicænæ Synodi, cap. xxvi. p. 231, ed. Benedict.]

365:2342

Athan., Ep. de decret. Nic. Syn., 4. 26.

365:2343

John xiv. 11. [See vol. v. Elucidation V. p. 156.]

365:2344

[He quotes the formula, afterwards notorious, ἧ ὃτε οὐκ ἦν.]

365:2345

Prov. viii. 22

365:2346

Deut. xxxii. 6

365:2347

Col. i. 15 [See vol. v. Elucidation XI. p. 159.]

365:2348

Ps. cx. 3, LXX.

365:2349

Prov. viii. 25.

366:2350

John x. 30.

366:2351

John xiv. 10.

elucidations.

I.

The Confession, improperly called the “Creed of Athanasius,” is acknowledged to embody the (Athanasian) doctrine of the Nicene Council; and I append it here as an index to the state of theology at the period which is the limit of our series. Nothing is properly a “creed” which has never been accepted as such by the whole Church, and the Greeks knew no other creed than that called Nicene. The Anglo-American Church has ceased to recite this Confession in public worship, but does not depart from it as doctrine. The “Reformed” communion in America 2352 retains it among her liturgical forms, and I suppose the same is true of the Lutherans. It is a Western Confession, and, like the Te Deum, is a hymn rather than a symbol, though breathing the spirit of the Creed.

Usher adopts a.d. 447 as its date, and Beveridge assigns it to the fourth century. Dupin gives it a later origin than Usher, and a considerable number of eminent authorities agree with him in the date a.d. 484.

What are called the anathemas are the enacting clauses (so to speak), and, like the same in the Nicene Creed, may be regarded as no part of the Confession itself. If they have disappeared from the Great Symbol itself, as unsuitable to liturgical recitation, why not apply the same rule here?

confession of our christian faith, commonly called the creed of st. athanasius.

Quicunque vult.

¶ Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

i.

And the Catholick Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;

Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance.

For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost.

But the God-head of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son: and such is the Holy Ghost.

The Father un-create, the Son un-create: and the Holy Ghost un-create.

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible: and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and the Holy Ghost eternal.

And yet they are not three eternals: but one eternal.

As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three un-created: but one un-created, and one incomprehensible.

So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty.p. 367

And yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God.

And yet they are not three Gods: but one God.

So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord: and the Holy Ghost is Lord.

And yet not three Lords: but one Lord.

For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord;

So we are forbidden by the Catholick Religion: to say, there be three Gods, or three Lords.

The Father is made of none: neither created, nor begotten.

The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created, but begotten.

The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: 2353 neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons: one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.

And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other: none is greater, or less than another;

But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together: and co-equal.

So that in all things, as is aforesaid: the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.

¶ He therefore that will be saved: must thus think of the Trinity.

ii.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation: that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;

God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds: and Man, of the Substance of His Mother, born in the world;

Perfect God, and perfect Man: of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;

Equal to the Father, as touching His God-head: and inferior to the Father, as touching His Manhood.

Who although He be God and Man: yet He is not two, but one Christ;

One; not by conversion of the God-head into flesh: but by taking of the Manhood into God;

One altogether; not by confusion of Substance: but by unity of Person.

For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and Man is one Christ;

Who suffered for our Salvation: descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.

He ascended into heaven, He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty: from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies: and shall give account for their own works.

And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

¶ This is the Catholick Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

ii.

It is with regret that I am forced to take exception to the most useful Ecclesiastical History of the learned Professor Schaff, in this connection. I quote from that work 2354 as follows:—

“He, Dionysius, maintained distinctly, in (a) controversy with Dionysius of Alexandria, at once the unity of essence and the real personal distinction, etc., . . . and avoided tritheism, Sabellianism, and (b) subordination, with the instinct of orthodoxy, and also with the art of anathematizing, (c) already familiar to (d) the popes.”