XLII. We have from the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ received that brief confession of faith which hath been always a badge of the Church, a mark whereby to discern Christian men from Infidels and Jews. “This faith received from the Apostles and their disciples,” saith Irenæus1, “the Church though dispersed throughout the world, doth notwithstanding keep as safe as if it dwelt within the walls of some one house, and as uniformly hold, as if it had but one only heart and soul; this as consonantly it preacheth, teacheth, and delivereth, as if but one tongue did speak for all. As one sun shineth to the whole world, so there is no faith but this one published, the brightness whereof must enlighten all that come to the knowledge of the truth.” “This rule,” saith Tertullian2, “Christ did institute; the stream and current of this rule hath gone as far, it hath continued as long, as the very promulgation of the Gospel.”
Under Constantine the emperor about three hundred years and upward after Christ, Arius a priest in the church of Alexandria, a subtle-witted and a marvellous fair-spoken man, but discontented that one should be placed before him in honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, became through envy and stomach prone unto contradiction, and bold to broach at the length that heresy, wherein the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ contained but not opened in the former creed, the co-equality and co-eternity of the Son with the Father was denied. Being for this impiety deprived of his place by the bishop of the same church, the punishment which should have reformed him did but increase his obstinacy, and give him occasion of labouring with greater earnestness elsewhere to entangle unwary minds with the snares of his damnable opinion. Arius in short time had won to himself a number both of followers and of great defenders, whereupon much disquietness on all sides ensued. The emperor to reduce the Church of Christ unto the unity of sound belief, when other means whereof trial was first made took no effect, gathered that famous assembly of three hundred and eighteen bishops in the council of Nice, where besides order taken for many things which seemed to need redress, there was with common consent for the settling of all men’s minds, that other confession of faith set down which we call the Nicene Creed, whereunto the Arians themselves which were present subscribed also; not that they meant sincerely and in deed to forsake their error, but only to escape deprivation and exile, which they saw they could not avoid openly persisting in their former opinions when the greater part had concluded against them, and that with the emperor’s royal assent. Reserving therefore themselves unto future opportunities, and knowing that it would not boot them to stir again in a matter so composed, unless they could draw the emperor first and by his means the chiefest bishops unto their part, till Constantine’s death and somewhat after they always professed love and zeal to the Nicene faith; yet ceased not in the meanwhile to strengthen that part which in heart they favoured, and to infest by all means under colour of other quarrels their greatest adversaries in this cause: amongst them Athanasius especially, whom by the space of forty-six years, from the time of his consecration to succeed Alexander archbishop in the church of Alexandria till the last hour of his life in this world, they never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day. The heart of Constantine stolen from him. Constantius Constantine’s successor his scourge and torment by all the ways that malice armed with sovereign authority could devise and use. Under Julian no rest given him. And in the days of Valentinian as little. Crimes there were laid to his charge many, the least whereof being just had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the world standeth. His judges evermore the selfsame men by whom his accusers were suborned. Yet the issue always on their part, shame; on his, triumph. Those bishops and prelates, who should have accounted his cause theirs, and could not many of them but with bleeding hearts and with watered cheeks behold a person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so foul indignities, were sure by bewraying their affection towards him to bring upon themselves those molestations, whereby if they would not be drawn to seem his adversaries, yet others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his friends.
Whereupon it came to pass in the end, that (very few excepted) all became subject to the sway of time; other odds there was none amongst them, saving only that some fell sooner away, some later, from the soundness of belief; some were leaders in the host of impiety, and the rest as common soldiers, either yielding through fear, or brought under with penury, or by flattery ensnared, or else beguiled through simplicity, which is the fairest excuse that well may be made for them. Yea (that which all men did wonder at) Osius the ancientest bishop that Christendom then had, the most forward in defence of the Catholic cause and of the contrary part most feared, that very Osius with whose hand the Nicene Creed itself was set down and framed for the whole Christian world to subscribe unto, so far yielded in the end as even with the same hand to ratify the Arians’ confession, a thing which they neither hoped to see, nor the other part ever feared, till with amazement they saw it done. Both were persuaded that although there had been for Osius no way but either presently subscribe or die, his answer and choice would have been the same that Eleazar’s was3, “It doth not become our age to dissemble, whereby many young persons might think, that 4Osius an hundred years old and upward were now gone to another religion, and so through mine hypocrisy (for a little time of transitory life) they might be deceived by me, and I procure malediction and reproach to my old age. For though I were now delivered from the torments of men, yet could I not escape the hand of the Almighty, neither alive nor dead.” But such was the stream of those times, that all men gave place unto it, which we cannot but impute partly to their own oversight. For at the first the emperor was theirs, the determination of the council of Nice was for them, they had the Arians’ hands to that council. So great advantages are never changed so far to the contrary, but by great error.
It plainly appeareth that the first thing which weakened them was their security. Such as they knew were in heart still affected towards Arianism, they suffered by continual nearness to possess the minds of the greatest about the emperor, which themselves might have done with very good acceptation, and neglected it. In Constantine’s lifetime to have settled Constantius the same way had been a duty of good service towards God, a mean of peace and great quietness to the Church of Christ, a labour easy, and how likely we may conjecture, when after that so much pain was taken to instruct and strengthen him in the contrary course, after that so much was done by himself to the furtherance of heresy, yet being touched in the end voluntarily with remorse, nothing more grieved him than the memory of former proceedings in the cause of religion, and that which he now foresaw in Julian, the next physician into whose hands the body that was thus distempered must fall5.
Howbeit this we may somewhat excuse, inasmuch as every man’s particular care to his own charge was such as gave them no leisure to heed what others practised in princes’ courts. But of the two synods of Arimine and Seleucia what should we think? Constantius by the Arians’ suggestion had devised to assemble all the bishops of the whole world about this controversy, but in two several places, the bishops of the West at Arimine in Italy, the Eastern at Seleucia the same time. Amongst them of the East there was no stop, they agreed without any great ado, gave their sentence against heresy, excommunicated some chief maintainers thereof, and sent the emperor word what was done. They had at Arimine about four hundred which held the truth, scarce of the adverse part fourscore, but these obstinate, and the other weary of contending with them: whereupon by both it was resolved to send to the emperor such as might inform him of the cause, and declare what hindered their peaceable agreement. There are chosen for the Catholic side such6 men as had in them nothing to be noted but boldness, neither gravity nor learning nor wisdom. The Arians for the credit of their faction take the eldest, the best experienced, the most wary, and the longest practised veterans they had amongst them. The emperor conjecturing of the rest on either part by the quality of them whom he saw, sent them speedily away, and with them a certain confession of faith ambiguously7 and subtilly drawn by the Arians, whereunto unless they all subscribed, they should in no case be suffered to depart from the place where they were. At the length it was perceived, that there had not been in the Catholics either at Arimine or at Seleucia so much foresight, as to provide that true intelligence might pass between them what was done. Upon the advantage of which error, their adversaries, abusing each with persuasion that other had yielded, surprised both. The emperor the more desirous and glad of such events, for that, besides all other things wherein they hindered themselves, the gall and bitterness of certain men’s writings, who spared him little for honour’s sake, made him for their sakes the less inclinable to that truth, which he himself should have honoured and loved.
Only in Athanasius there was nothing observed throughout the course of that long tragedy, other than such as very well became a wise man to do and a righteous to suffer. So that this was the plain condition of those times: the whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius against it; half a hundred of years spent in doubtful trial which of the two in the end would prevail, the side which had all, or else the part which had no friend but God and death, the one a defender of his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles.
Now although these contentions were cause of much evil, yet some good the Church hath reaped by them, in that they occasioned the learned and sound in faith to explain such things as heresy went about to deprave. And in this respect the Creed of Athanasius first exhibited unto Julius bishop of Rome8, and afterwards (as we may probably gather) sent to the emperor Jovian9, for his more full information concerning that truth which Arianism so mightily did impugn, was both in the East and the West churches accepted as a treasure of inestimable price, by as many as had not given up even the very ghost of belief10. Then was the Creed of Athanasius written11, howbeit not then so expedient to be publicly used as now in the Church of God; because while the heat of division lasteth truth itself enduring opposition doth not so quietly and currently pass throughout all men’s hands, neither can be of that account which afterwards it hath, when the world once perceiveth the virtue thereof not only in itself, but also by the conquest which God hath given it over heresy.
That which heresy did by sinister interpretations go about to pervert in the first and most ancient Apostolic Creed, the same being by singular dexterity and plainness cleared from those heretical corruptions partly by this Creed of Athanasius, written about the year three hundred and forty, and partly by that other12 set down in the synod of Constantinople forty years after, comprehending together with the Nicene Creed an addition of other articles which the Nicene Creed omitted, because the controversy then in hand needed no mention to be made of them; these catholic declarations of our belief delivered by them which were so much nearer than we are unto the first publication thereof, and continuing needful for all men at all times to know, these confessions as testimonies of our continuance in the same faith to this present day, we rather use than any other gloss or paraphrase devised by ourselves, which though it were to the same effect, notwithstanding could not be of the like authority and credit. For that of Hilary13 unto St. Augustine hath been ever and is likely to be always true: “Your most religious wisdom knoweth how great their number is in the Church of God, whom the very authority of men’s names doth keep in that opinion which they hold already, or draw unto that which they have not before held.”
Touching the Hymn of Glory, our usual conclusion to Psalms: the glory of all things is that wherein their highest perfection doth consist14; and the glory of God that divine excellency whereby he is eminent above all things15, his omnipotent, infinite, and eternal Being, which angels and glorified saints do intuitively behold16, we on earth apprehend principally by faith, in part also by that kind of knowledge which groweth from experience of those effects, the greatness whereof exceedeth the powers and abilities of all creatures both in heaven and earth. God is glorified, when such his excellency above all things is with due admiration acknowledged17. Which dutiful acknowledgment of God’s excellency by occasion of special effects, being the very proper subject and almost the only matter purposely treated of in all psalms, if that joyful Hymn of Glory have any use in the Church of God whose name we therewith extol and magnify, can we place it more fitly than where now it serveth as a close or conclusion to psalms?
Neither is the form thereof newly or unnecessarily invented. “We must (saith18 St. Basil) as we have received even so baptize, and as we baptize even so believe, and as we believe even so give glory.” Baptizing we use the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; confessing the Christian faith we declare our belief in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost; ascribing glory unto God we give it to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. It is ἀπόδειξις του̑ ὀρθου̑ ϕρονήματος19, “the token of a true and sound understanding” for matter of doctrine about the Trinity, when in ministering baptism, and making confession, and giving glory, there is a conjunction of all three, and no one of the three severed from the other two.
Against the Arians affirming the Father to be greater than the Son in honour, excellency, dignity, majesty, this form and manner of glorifying God was not at that time first begun, but received long before, and alleged at that time as an argument for the truth20. “If (saith Phœbadius) there be that inequality which they affirm, then do we every day blaspheme God, when in thanksgivings and offerings of sacrifice we acknowledge those things common to the Father and the Son.” The Arians therefore, for that they perceived how this did prejudice their cause, altered the Hymn of Glory, whereupon ensued in the church of Antioch about the year 349 that jar which Theodoret and Sozomen mention21. “In their quires while they praised God together as the manner was, at the end of the psalms which they sung, it appeared what opinion every man held, forasmuch as they glorified some the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; some the Father by the Son in the Spirit; the one sort thereby declaring themselves to embrace the Son’s equality with the Father as the council of Nice had defined, the other sort against the council of Nice his inequality.” Leontius their bishop although an enemy to the better part, yet wary and subtile, as in a manner all the heads of the Arians’ faction were, could at no time be plainly heard to use either form, perhaps lest his open contradicting of them whom he favoured not might make them the more eager, and by that mean the less apt to be privately won; or peradventure for that though he joined in opinion with that sort of Arians who denied the Son to be equal with the Father, yet from them he dissented which thought the Father and the Son not only unequal but unlike, as Aëtius did upon a frivolous and false surmise, that because the Apostle hath said, “One God of whom, one Lord by whom, one Spirit in whom22,” his different manner of speech doth argue a different nature and being in them of whom he speaketh: out of which blind collection it seemeth that this their new devised form did first spring.
But in truth even that very form which the Arians did then use (saving that they chose it to serve as their special mark of recognizance, and gave it secretly within themselves a sinister construction) hath not otherwise as much as the show of any thing which soundeth towards impiety. For albeit if we respect God’s glory within itself, it be the equal right and possession of all three, and that without any odds, any difference; yet touching his manifestation thereof unto us by continual effects, and our perpetual acknowledgment thereof unto him likewise by virtuous offices, doth not every tongue both ways confess, that the brightness of his glory hath spread itself throughout the world by the ministry of his only-begotten Son, and is in the manifold graces of the Spirit every way marvellous; again, that whatsoever we do to his glory, it is done in the power of the Holy Ghost, and made acceptable by the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ? So that glory to the Father and the Son, or glory to the Father by the Son, saving only where evil minds do abuse and pervert most holy things, are not else the voices of error and schism, but of sound and sincere religion.
It hath been the custom of the Church of Christ to end sometimes prayers, and sermons always, with words of glory; wherein, as long as the blessed Trinity had due honour, and till Arianism had made it a matter of great sharpness and subtilty of wit to be a sound believing Christian, men were not curious what syllables or particles of speech they used. Upon which confidence and trust notwithstanding when St. Basil began to practise the like indifferency, and to conclude public prayers, glorifying sometime the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost, sometime the Father by the Son in the Spirit, whereas long custom had inured them unto the former kind alone, by means whereof the later was new and strange in their ears; this needless experiment brought afterwards upon him a necessary labour of excusing himself to his friends, and maintaining his own act against them, who because the light of his candle too much drowned theirs, were glad to lay hold on so colourable matter, and exceeding forward to traduce him as an author of suspicious innovation23.
How hath the world forsaken that course which it sometime held! How are the judgments, hearts, and affections of men altered! May we not wonder that a man of St. Basil’s authority and quality, an arch-prelate in the house of God, should have his name far and wide called in question, and be driven to his painful apologies, to write in his own defence whole volumes, and yet hardly to obtain with all his endeavour a pardon, the crime laid against him being but only a change of some one or two syllables in their usual church liturgy? It was thought in him an unpardonable offence to alter any thing; in us as intolerable that we suffer any thing to remain unaltered. The very Creed of Athanasius and that sacred Hymn of Glory, than which nothing doth sound more heavenly in the ears of faithful men, are now reckoned as superfluities, which we must in any case pare away, lest we cloy God with too much service. Is there in that confession of faith any thing which doth not at all times edify and instruct the attentive hearer? Or is our faith in the blessed Trinity a matter needless to be so oftentimes mentioned and opened in the principal part of that duty which we owe to God, our public prayer? Hath the Church of Christ from the first beginning by a secret universal instinct of God’s good Spirit always tied itself to end neither sermon nor almost any speech of moment which hath concerned matters of God without some special words of honour and glory to that Trinity which we all adore; and is the like conclusion of psalms become now at the length an eyesore or a galling to their ears that hear it?
“Those flames of Arianism” they say “are quenched, which were the cause why the Church devised in such sort to confess and praise the glorious deity of the Son of God. Seeing therefore the sore is whole, why retain we as yet the plaister? When the cause why any thing was ordained doth once cease, the thing itself should cease with it, that the Church being eased of unprofitable labours, needful offices may the better be attended. For the doing of things unnecessary, is many times the cause why the most necessary are not done.” But in this case so to reason will not serve their turns.
For first, the ground whereupon they build is not certainly their own but with special limitations. Few things are so restrained to any one end or purpose that the same being extinct they should forthwith utterly become frustrate. Wisdom may have framed one and the same thing to serve commodiously for divers ends, and of those ends any one be sufficient cause for continuance though the rest have ceased; even as the tongue, which nature hath given us for an instrument of speech, is not idle in dumb persons, because it also serveth for taste. Again, if time have worn out, or any other mean altogether taken away what was first intended, uses not thought upon before may afterwards spring up, and be reasonable causes of retaining that which other considerations did formerly procure to be instituted. And it cometh sometime to pass that a thing unnecessary in itself as touching the whole direct purpose whereto it was meant or can be applied, doth notwithstanding appear convenient to be still held even without use, lest by reason of that coherence which it hath with somewhat most necessary, the removal of the one should endamage the other; and therefore men which have clean lost the possibility of sight keep still their eyes nevertheless in the place where nature set them.
As for these two branches whereof our question groweth, Arianism was indeed some occasion of the one, but a cause of neither, much less the only entire cause of both. For albeit conflict with Arians brought forth the occasion of writing that Creed which long after was made a part of the church liturgy, as hymns and sentences of glory were a part thereof before; yet cause sufficient there is why both should remain in use, the one as a most divine explication of the chiefest articles of our Christian belief, the other as an heavenly acclamation of joyful applause to his praises in whom we believe; neither the one nor the other unworthy to be heard sounding as they are in the Church of Christ, whether Arianism live or die.
Against which poison likewise if we think that the Church at this day needeth not those ancient preservatives which ages before us were so glad to use, we deceive ourselves greatly. The weeds of heresy being grown unto such ripeness as that was, do even in the very cutting down scatter oftentimes those seeds which for a while lie unseen and buried in the earth, but afterward freshly spring up again no less pernicious than at the first. Which thing they very well know and I doubt not will easily confess, who live to their great both toil and grief, where the blasphemies of Arians, Samosatenians, Tritheites, Eutychians, and Macedonians24 are renewed; renewed by them who to hatch their heresy have chosen those churches as fittest nests, where Athanasius’ Creed is not heard25; by them I say renewed, who following the course of extreme reformation, were wont in the pride of their own proceedings to glory26, that whereas Luther did but blow away the roof, and Zwinglius batter but the walls of popish superstition, the last and hardest work of all remained, which was to raze up the very ground and foundation of popery, that doctrine concerning the deity of Christ which Satanasius27 (for so it pleased those impious forsaken miscreants to speak) hath in this memorable creed explained. So manifestly true is that which one of the 28ancient hath concerning Arianism, “Mortuis auctoribus hujus veneni, scelerata tamen eorum doctrina non moritur:” “The authors of this venom being dead and gone, their wicked doctrine notwithstanding continueth.”
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Footnotes
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Iren. lib. i. cap. 3. [al. c. 10. p. 46. Ἡ μὲν ἐκκλησία, καίπερ καθ’ ὅλης τη̑ς οἰκουμένης ἕως περάτων τη̑ς γη̑ς διεσπαρμένη, παρὰ δὲ τω̑ν Ἀποστόλων, καὶ τω̑ν ἐκείνων μαθητω̑ν παραλαβου̑σα τὴν εἰς ἕνα Θεὸν, Πατέρα παντοκράτορα … πίστιν … καὶ εἰς ἕνα Χριστὸν Ἰησου̑ν … . καὶ εἰς Πνευ̑μα ἅγιον … . . του̑το τὸ κήρυγμα παρειληϕυι̑α, καὶ ταυτὴν τὴν πίστιν, ὡς προέϕαμεν, ἡ ἐκκλησία, καίπερ ἐν ὅλῳ τῳ̑ κόσμῳ διεσπαρμένη, ἐπιμελω̑ς ϕυλάσσει, ὡς ἕνα οἰ̑κον οἰκου̑σα· καὶ ὁμοίως πιστεύει τούτοις, ὡς μίαν ψυχὴν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχουσα καρδίαν· καὶ συμϕώνως ταυ̑τα κηρύσσει, καὶ διδάσκει, καὶ παραδίδωσιν, ὡς ἕν στόμα κεκτημένη … . Ὥσπερ ὁ ἥλιος, τὸ κτίσμα του̑ Θεου̑, ἐν ὅλῳ τῳ̑ κόσμῳ εἷς καὶ ὁ αὐτός· οὕτω καὶ τὸ κήρυγμα τη̑ς ἀληθείας πανταχῃ̑ ϕαίνει, καὶ ϕωτίζει πάντας ἀνθρώπους τοὺς βουλομένους εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθει̑ν.] ↩
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Tertull. de Præscr. advers. Hæret. [c. 14. “Hæc regula a Christo … . instituta nullas habet apud nos quæstiones, nisi quas hæreses inferunt, et quæ hæreticos faciunt.”] et advers. Prax. [c. 2. “Hanc regulam ab initio Evangelii decucurrisse, etiam ante priores quosque hæreticos, nedum ante Praxean hesternum, probabit tam ipsa posteritas omnium hæreticorum, quam ipsa novellitas Praxeæ hesterni.”] ↩
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2 Mac. vi. 24. ↩
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Major centenario. Sulpit. Sever. Hist. lib. ii. [c. 54.] ↩
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[Greg. Naz. Orat. 21. t. i. 389.] ↩
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Sulpit. lib. ii. [c. 57.] “Ex parte nostra leguntur homines adolescentes, parum doctiet parum cauti. Ab Arianis autem missi senes, callidi et ingenio valentes, veterno perfidiæ imbuti, qui apud regem facile superiores exstiterunt.” ↩
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Ibid. [c. 59.] “Eisdemque conscriptam ab improbis fidem tradit verbis fallentibus involutam, quæ catholicam disciplinam perfidia latente loqueretur.” ↩
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[A conjecture of Baronius, Ann. ad 340.] ↩
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[Greg. Naz. Orat. 21. t. i. p. 394.] ↩
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Greg. Nazian. de Athan. [ubi sup.] Ταύτην μοι δοκου̑σιν αἰδούμενοι τὴν ὁμολογίαν οἵ τε τη̑ς έσπερίας καὶ τη̑ς ἑῴας ὅσον βιώσιμον. ↩
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[For the most probable account of this matter, see Waterland’s Critical Hist. of the Athanasian Creed, Works, iv. 24 . . 269. Oxford, 1823.] ↩
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That Creed which in the Book of Common Prayer followeth immediately after the reading of the Gospel. ↩
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Hilar. Arelat. Epist. ad Aug. [§ 8. t. ii. 828. “Non ignorat prudentissima pietas tua, quanto plures sint in Ecclesia, qui auctoritate nominum in sententia teneantur, aut a sententia transferantur.”] ↩
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1 Cor. xv. 40. ↩
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Exod. xxxiii. 18; Heb. i. 3. ↩
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Matt. xviii. 10. ↩
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Josh. vii. 19; Psal. xxii. 23. ↩
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Basil. Epist. 78. [al. 125. p. 216 D. δει̑ γὰρ ἡμα̑ς βαπτίζεσθαι μὲν ὡς παρελάβομεν· πιστεύειν δὲ ὡς βαπτιζόμεθα· δοξάζειν δὲ ὡς πεπιστεύκαμεν, Πατέρα καὶ γἱὸν καὶ Ἅγιον Πνευ̑μα. This epistle is in the nature of a solemn document, much to the same purpose as the Athanasian Creed itself: reciting the Nicene Creed, and the blasphemies which had since become current, and anathematizing them.] ↩
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[S. Basil, ubi supr.] ↩
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Phœbad. lib. contra Arian. [ap. Bibl. Patr. Colon. t. iv. 232. C. “ ‘Pater,’ inquit, ‘major me est:’ et quomodo major, statim hæretica præsumptione definiunt: honore, claritate, dignitate, majestate. Quod si ita est, cur jubetur ut omnes honorificent Filium, sicut honorificant Patrem? Quod si ita est, ergo quotidie blasphemamus in gratiarum actionibus et oblationibus sacrificiorum, communia hæc Patri et Filio confitentes.”] ↩
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Theod. lib. ii. cap. 24. [διχῃ̑ διῃρημένους τοὺς ἱερωμένους καὶ τὸν λοιπὸν ὅμιλον θεωρω̑ν, καὶ τοὺς μὲν τὸ, ΚΑΙ, σίνδεσμον ἐπὶ τη̑ς του̑ Υἱου̑ δοξολογίας τιθέντας, τοὺς δὲ τὴν μὲν, ΔΙ’ ΟΥ, πρόθεσιν ἐπὶ του̑ Υἱου̑, τὴν δὲ, ἘΝ, ἐπὶ του̑ Πνεύματος προσαρμόζοντας, σιγῃ̑ τὴν δοξολογίαν προσέϕερε· μόνον δὲ τὸ, εἰς τοὺς αἰω̑νας τω̑ν αἰώνων, ἤκουον οἱ πελάζοντες.] Sozom. lib. iv. [iii.] cap. 19. [20. κατὰ χοροὺς ὡς ἔθος ἐν τῳ̑ ὑμνει̑ν τὸν θεὸν συνιστάμενοι, πρὸς τῳ̑ τέλει τω̑ν ᾠδω̑ν τὴν οἰκείαν προαίρεσιν ἐπεδείκνυον· καὶ οἱ μὲν, Πατέρα ΚΑΙ Υἱὸν ὡς ὁμότιμον ἐδόξαζον· οἱ δὲ, Πατέρα ἘΝ Υἱῳ̑ τῃ̑ παρενθέσει τη̑ς προθέσεως δευτερεύειν τὸν Υἱὸν ἀποϕαίνοντες· ἀμέλει τοι τούτων ὠ̑δε γεγενημένων, ἀπορω̑ν ὅ τι ποιήσειε Λεόντιος, δς κατὰ τόνδε τὸν χρόνον ἐκ τη̑ς ἐναντίας αἱρέσεως τὸν Ἀντιοχέων διει̑πε θρόνον, κωλύειν μὲν οὐκ ἐπεχείρησε τοὺς κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν τη̑ς ἐν Νικαίᾳ συνόδου τὸν Θεὸν ὑμνου̑ντας· ἐδεδίει γὰρ, μὴ στασιάσῃ τὸ πλη̑θος. λέγεται δὲ τη̑ς κεϕαλη̑ς ἐϕαψάμενος, ὑπὸ πολίας λευκη̑ς οὔσης, εἰπει̑ν, ὡς “ταυτησὶ τη̑ς χιόνος λυθείσης, πολὺς ἔσται πηλός.”] ↩
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1 Cor. viii. 6; xii. 3, 4, 13. ↩
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[De Sp. Sancto, cap. 1. tit. iii. p. 3. D. Προσευχομένῳ μοι πρώην μετὰ του̑ λαου̑, καὶ ἀμϕοτέρως τὴν δοξολογίαν ἀποπληρου̑ντι τῳ̑ θεῳ̑ καὶ Πατρὶ, νυ̑ν μὲν μετὰ του̑ Υἱου̑ σὺν τῳ̑ Πνεύματι τῳ̑ Ἁγίῳ, νυ̑ν δὲ διὰ του̑ Υἱου̑ ἐν τῳ̑ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, ἐπέσκηψάν τινες τω̑ν παρόντων, ξενιζούσαις ἡμα̑ς ϕωναι̑ς κεχρη̑σθαι λέγοντες, καὶ ἅμα πρὸς ἀλλήλας ὑπεναντίως ἐχούσαις. To explain and justify himself was his immediate object in writing the Treatise of the Holy Ghost.] ↩
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Beza to Duditius, Tract. iii. 191. “Vestrarum ecclesiarum turbatores Tritheitæ, Ariani, Samosateni.” Id. Præf. ad Explic. Perfid. Val. Gent. 13. “Ecce in unico Serveto revocati sunt ab inferis Samosatenus, Arius, et Eutyches.” The Macedonian heresy was especially advocated by Stator, a pupil of Beza, in a Polish synod, 1561. Fleury, t. xxxii. l. 157, c. 80.] ↩
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[It would seem on comparison of the several confessions of the Protestant churches, (vid. Syntagm. Confess. Gen. 1554,) that this expression, “is not heard,” can hardly mean the total exclusion of this Creed from the Church formularies, since they almost all recognise it. Vid. Conf. Helv. c. 11; Gallican. c. 5; Saxon. c. 1; Wirtemb. c. 1; and (although less expressly) Bohem. art. 3. It remains that Hooker must be supposed to mean the exclusion of the Creed from the public liturgy: in which case his remark applies more especially to the Calvinistic and Zuinglian churches, as also to the Bohemian or Moravian: which two denominations formed the majority of the Polish protestants. Accordingly we find Valentinus Gentilis declaring that among the churches, such as they were, he considered those of Savoy to be the purest. See “Benedicti Arretini, Bernensis, Valentini Gentilis brevis Historia,” p. 45. Socinus himself was for some time at Geneva. Blandrata, Francis David, Lismanini, and others, the chief corrupters of the Polish and Transylvanian churches, passed through Calvinism or Zuinglianism to their heresy. See Sandius, Bibl. Anti-Trinit. pag. 28; Lubieniecius, Hist. Reform. Polon. ii. 2; Contin. of Fleury, Hist. Eccles. clxii. 82. For the annoyance they gave Calvin in the church of Geneva itself, see his life by Beza, ad 1553, 1555, 1558. After the execution of Gentilis in Sept. 1566, a kind of official pamphlet was printed at Geneva, drawn up by Calvin, and entitled, “Explicatio Perfidiæ Valentini Gentilis;” in the preface of which, addressed by Beza to the protestants of Transylvania and Poland, is the following: “Quanti vobis illa Blandratæ vocula, unius Dei, constiterit, an nondum animadvertitis, cum hoc a vobis in vestro catechismo sit extortum, ut non modo Symbola reliqua præter illud quod Apostolicum vocant supervacanea nisi ad contradicendum scriberetis, sed etiam Essentiæ, Hypostaseos, Homousii, cæteraque id genus vocabula, ut sophistica, repudiaretis?” Calvin had said, writing “ad Fratres Polonos,” p. 794, “Valde miror eos qui Symbolum” (Nicænum) “jactant, fastidiose respuere certum et idoneum ejus interpretem.” The theological terms however, and all Creeds except the Apostles’, were disused the same year (1562) by decree of the Polish synod at Pinczow. Hist. Ref. Polon. 186.] ↩
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[The allusion here is perhaps to a Tract called “Tabula de Trinitate,” published about 1562, by Gregorio Pauli, a minister of Cracow, which gave occasion to Calvin’s writing his “Brevis Admonitio ad Fratres Polonos.” The “Tabula” was also attacked by Vigand of Pomerania, from whose work the following extract is given in the Explic. Perfid. V. G. p. 77. “Luthero vix minimam partem revelationis et destructionis Antichristi relinquunt, nempe superioris tantum tecti in ædificio Antichristiano denudationem. At sibimet isti spiritus arrogant Antichristi excisionem et extirpationem ab imis usque fundamentis.” Bened. Aret. in Hist. Val. Gent. p. 44. “Gentilis apud Regem Sigismundum conqueritur, Lutherum, Zuinglium, Bucerum, in oppugnando Antichristo, solum occupatos fuisse in caudæ oppugnatione, solumque Philippum ex tot millibus unum fuisse, qui quasi aliud agens lethale vulnus ei potius minari quam infligere videatur. Idem facit Gregorius ille Paulus. Scribit Deum per Lutherum cœpisse ecclesiam Antichristi a tecto demoliri, non a fundamento, ne domus putrida eum opprimeret. Scilicet quia negotium Trinitatis inconvulsum reliquerunt.” The epitaph of Faustus Socinus, who died 1604, runs thus: “Tota licet jacet?] Babylon; destruxit tecta Lutherus, Calvinus muros, sed fundamenta Socinus.” Biogr. Univ. Art. Socin. It seems likely that the notion about the Pope’s triple crown, mentioned by Hooker, b. iv. c. viii. 2, had met his eye in the ‘Table’ above mentioned.] ↩
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[Fleury, (speaking of Val. Gentilis,) xxxiii. 162, 90. “Il fit un recueil de tous ses erreurs, les présenta au roi Sigismond Auguste comme des pures vérités de l’évangile, et parla d’une manière indigne du symbole de S. Athanase, qu’il appelle le symbole de Satan.” It was probably the work which he had printed before at Lyons, concerning which, see Explic. Perfid. Gent. p. 31. and Bened. Aret. in Hist. Val. Gent. pp. 11, 12.] ↩
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Phœbad. cont. Arian. [278.] ↩