One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
Dr. Peter J. Wallace
March 9-10, 2007
2. A Catholic Church
Introduction: What does it mean to be “catholic”?
Galatians 3:27-28
Colossians 3:11
1. The Ecclesiastical Dimension of the Arian Controversy
Arius’s Letter to Eusebius:
“What is it that we say and think and have taught and teach? That the Son is not unbegotten, nor a part of the unbegotten in any way, nor formed out of any substratum, but that he had his being by God’s will and counsel, before times and before ages, full of grace and truth, divine, unique, unchangeable. And before he was begotten or created or ordained or founded, he was not. For he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say, “the Son has a beginning but God is without beginning.” For this we are persecuted, because we say, “He is made out of things that were not.” But this is what we say, since he is neither a part of God nor formed out of any substratum. For this we are persecuted….”
Arius’s Confession
Before everlasting ages he begot his unique Son, through whom he made the ages and all things. He begot him not in appearance, but in truth, constituting him by his own will, unalterable and unchangeable, a perfect creature of God, but not as one of the creatures–an offspring, but not as one of things begotten. (refutes heresies)… But as we said, by the will of God he was created before times and before ages and received life and being and glories from the Father, the Father so constituting him. . . . Thus there are three hypostases. God being the cause of all things is without beginning and most unique, while the Son, begotten timelessly by the Father and created before ages and established, was not before he was begotten. . . . He is neither eternal nor co-eternal nor co-unbegotten with the Father, nor does he have his being together with the Father…introducing two self-existent beings
Original Nicene Creed (325)
We believe in one God the Father All‑sovereign, maker of all things.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only‑begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, things in heaven and things on the earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and became man, suffered, and rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is coming to judge living and dead.
And in the Holy Spirit.
And those that say ‘There was when he was not,’ and, ‘Before he was begotten he was not,’ and that, ‘He came into being from what‑is‑not,’ or those that allege, that the son of God is ‘Of another substance or essence’ or ‘created,’ or ‘changeable’ or ‘alterable,’ these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.
Creed of the Council of Ariminum (360)
We believe in One God, Father Almighty, from whom are all things;
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.
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,’ which He sent unto them when He had ascended into the heavens.
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.
Letter of the Council of Constantinople to the West (382)
We believe in one Godhead and power and substance (ousia) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, of equal dignity and coeternal majesty, in three perfect hypostases, that is, three perfect persons (prosopon). Thus no place is found for the error of Sabellius in which the hypostases are confused and their individualities taken away, nor does the blasphemy of the Arians (and others) prevail, in which the substance (ousia) or nature of the Godhead is cut up and some kind of later nature, created and of a different substance (ousia), is added to the uncreated and homoousion and coeternal Trinity. We also preserve unperverted the doctrine of the incarnation of the Lord, receiving the dispensation of the flesh as neither without soul nor without mind nor incomplete, but knowing that he existed as perfect God, the Word, before all ages, and became perfect man in the last days for our salvation.
2. Case Study: The Antiochene Schism
Timeline of the Antiochene Schism:
325-Council of Nicea
-Eustathius installed as Bishop of Antioch
331-Eustathius deposed (Arian successor installed)
360-Meletius installed as compromise bishop of Antioch-recognized by most easterners
(many orthodox follow Paulinus-recognized by Athanasius and Rome)
414-resolution of Antiochene division
Conclusion: The Reformed Catholic Church
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