A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryAyer, Joseph Cullen
History
A Source Book for Ancient Church History
Ayer, Joseph Cullen
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Sources
We believe in one and only true God, Father Almighty, of whom are all
things. And in the only begotten Son of God, who before all ages and
before every beginning was begotten of God, through whom all things were
made, both visible and invisible; begotten, only begotten, alone of the
Father alone, God of God, like the Father that begat Him, according to the
Scriptures, whose generation no one knoweth except only the Father that
begat Him. This only begotten Son of God, sent by His Father, we know to
have come down from heaven, as it is written, for the destruction of sin
and death; begotten of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, as it is
written, according to the flesh. Who companied with His disciples, and
when the whole dispensation was fulfilled, according to the Father’s will,
was crucified, dead and buried, and descended to the world below, at whom
hell itself trembled; on the third day He rose from the dead and companied
with His disciples, and when forty days were completed He was taken up
into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of His Father, and is
coming at the last day of the resurrection, in His Father’s glory, to
render to every one according to his works. And in the Holy Ghost, which
the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, both God and Lord, promised to
send to the race of men, the comforter, as it is written, the spirit of
truth, and this Spirit He himself sent after He had ascended into the
heavens and sat at the right hand of the Father, from thence He is coming
to judge both the quick and the dead.
But the word “substance,” which was simply inserted by the Fathers and not
being understood was a cause of scandal to the people because it was not
found in the Scriptures, it hath seemed good to us to remove, and that for
the future no mention whatever be permitted of “substance,” because the
sacred Scriptures nowhere make any mention of the “substance” of the
Father and the Son. Nor must one “subsistence” [hypostasis] be named in
relation to the person [prosopon] of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And we
call the Son like the Father, as the Holy Scriptures call Him and teach.
But all heresies, both those already condemned, and any, if such there be,
which have arisen against the document thus put forth, let them be
anathema.
(_c_) Hilary of Poitiers. _De Synodis_, §§ 88, 89, 91. (MSL, 10:540.)
That the Homoiousian party meant substantially the same by their
term homoiousios as did the Homoousians or the Nicene party, by
their term homoousios.
Hilary was of great importance in the Arian controversy in
bringing the Homoiousian party of the East and the Nicene party of
the West to an agreement. The Eastern theologians, who hesitated
to accept the Nicene term, were eventually induced to accept,
understanding by the term homoousios the same as homoiousios. See
below, § 70.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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