---
title: "Select Works and Letters"
author: "Athanasius"
translator: "Archibald Robertson"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 117 of 146
url: https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/117/
cite: "Athanasius, tr. Archibald Robertson, Select Works and Letters, section 117. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/117/"
---

# Select Works and Letters

*Athanasius, tr. Archibald Robertson*

Athanasius defends the Nicene faith: the Orations against the Arians, his letters and more.

## 117. History of Arian Opinions · 3 of 3

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/117/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/117/#p-N

[¶0] We decline not to bring forward the authentic faith published at the Dedication at Antioch; though certainly our fathers at the time met together for a particular subject under investigation. But since ‘Coessential’ and ‘Like-in-essence,’ have troubled many persons in times past and up to this day, and since moreover some are said recently to have devised the Son’s ‘Unlikeness’ to the Father, on their account we reject ‘Coessential’ and ‘Like-in-essence,’ as alien to the Scriptures, but ‘Unlike’ we anathematize, and account all who profess it as aliens from the Church. And we distinctly confess the ‘Likeness’ of the Son to the Father, according to the Apostle, who says of the Son, ‘Who is the Image of the Invisible God’ (Col. i. 15).

[¶1] And we confess and believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

[¶2] And we believe also in our Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, generated from Him impassibly before all the ages, God the Word, God from God, Only-begotten, light, life, truth, wisdom, power, through whom all things were made, in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible. He, as we believe, at the end of the world, for the abolishment of sin, took flesh of the Holy Virgin, and was made man, and suffered for our sins, and rose again, and was taken up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and is coming again in glory, to judge quick and dead.

[¶3] We believe also in the Holy Ghost, which our Saviour and Lord named Paraclete, having promised to send Him to the disciples after His own departure, as He did send; through whom He sanctifieth those in the Church who believe, and are baptized in the Name of Father and Son and Holy Ghost.

[¶4] But those who preach aught beside this faith the Catholic Church regards as aliens. And that to this faith that is equivalent which was published lately at Sirmium, under sanction of his religiousness the Emperor, is plain to all who read it.

[¶5] 30. Having written thus in Isauria, they went up to Constantinople, and there, as if dissatisfied, they changed it, as is their wont, and with some small additions against using even ‘Subsistence’ of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they transmitted it to those at Ariminum, and compelled even those in the said parts to subscribe, and those who contradicted them they got banished by Constantius. And it runs thus:—

[¶6] We believe in One God, Father Almighty, from whom are all things;

[¶7] And in the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten from God before all ages and before every beginning, by whom all things were made, visible and invisible, and begotten as only-begotten, only from the Father only, God from God, like to the Father that begat Him according to the Scriptures; whose origin no one knows, except the Father alone who begat Him. He as we acknowledge, the Only-begotten Son of God, the Father sending Him, came hither from the heavens, as it is written, for the undoing of sin and death, and was born of the Holy Ghost, of Mary the Virgin according to the flesh, as it is written, and convened with the disciples, and having fulfilled the whole Economy according to the Father’s will, was crucified and dead and buried and descended to the parts below the earth; at whom hades itself shuddered: who also rose from the dead on the third day, and abode with the disciples, and, forty days being fulfilled, was taken up into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, to come in the last day of the resurrection in the Father’s glory, that He may render to every man according to his works.

[¶8] And in the Holy Ghost, whom the Only-begotten Son of God Himself, Christ, our Lord and God, promised to send to the race of man, as Paraclete, as it is written, ‘the Spirit of truth’ (Joh. xvi. 13), which He sent unto them when He had ascended into the heavens.

[¶9] But the name of ‘Essence,’ which was set down by the Fathers in simplicity, and, being unknown by the people, caused offence, because the Scriptures contain it not, it has seemed good to abolish, and for the future to make no mention of it at all; since the divine Scriptures have made no mention of the Essence of Father and Son. For neither ought Subsistence to be named concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But, we say that the Son is Like the Father, as the divine Scriptures say and teach; and all the heresies, both those which have been afore condemned already, and whatever are of modern date, being contrary to this published statement, be they anathema.

[¶10] 31. However, they did not stand even to this: for coming down from Constantinople to Antioch, they were dissatisfied that they had written at all that the Son was ‘Like the Father, as the Scriptures say;’ and putting their ideas upon paper, they began reverting to their first doctrines, and said that ‘the Son is altogether unlike the Father,’ and that the ‘Son is in no manner like the Father,’ and so much did they change, as to admit those who spoke the Arian doctrine nakedly and to deliver to them the Churches with licence to bring forward the words of blasphemy with impunity. Because then of the extreme shamelessness of their blasphemy they were called by all Anomœans, having also the name of Exucontian, and the heretical Constantius for the patron of their irreligion, who persisting up to the end in irreligion, and on the point of death, thought good to be baptized; not however by religious men, but by Euzoius, who for his Arianism had been deposed, not once, but often, both when he was a deacon, and when he was in the see of Antioch.

[¶11] 32. The forementioned parties then had proceeded thus far, when they were stopped and deposed. But well I know, not even under these circumstances will they stop, as many as have now dissembled, but they will always be making parties against the truth, until they return to themselves and say, ‘Let us rise and go to our fathers, and we will say unto them, We anathematize the Arian heresy, and we acknowledge the Nicene Council;’ for against this is their quarrel. Who then, with ever so little understanding, will bear them any longer? who, on hearing in every Council some things taken away and others added, but perceives that their mind is shifty and treacherous against Christ? who on seeing them embodying to so great a length both their professions of faith, and their own exculpation, but sees that they are giving sentence against themselves, and studiously writing much which may be likely by their officious display and abundance of words to seduce the simple and hide what they are in point of heresy? But as the heathen, as the Lord said, using vain words in their prayers (Mat. vi. 7), are nothing profited; so they too, after all this outpouring, were not able to quench the judgment pronounced against the Arian heresy, but were convicted and deposed instead; and rightly; for which of their formularies is to be accepted by the hearer? or with what confidence shall they be catechists to those who come to them? for if they all have one and the same meaning, what is the need of many? But if need has arisen of so many, it follows that each by itself is deficient, not complete; and they establish this point better than we can, by their innovating on them all and remaking them. And the number of their Councils, and the difference of their statements is a proof that those who were present at them, while at variance with the Nicene, are yet too feeble to harm the Truth.