Page:History of Heresies (Liguori).djvu/69

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AND THEIR REFUTATION.
61

and we are probably judged by you, for you are given to us by God as Gods on this earth, and it is not meet that man should judge Gods." He refused to sit down on the low seat he had prepared for himself in the council until the bishops desired him; he then sat down, and all the bishops with his permission also took their seats[1]. One of the fathers of the council—it is generally supposed Eustachius, Bishop of Antioch[2]—then arose and delivered an oration, in which he praised the Emperor's zeal, and gave God thanks for his victories. Constantine then spoke[3]: It afforded him, he said, the greatest consolation to see so many fathers thus united in the same sentiments; he recommended peace to them, and gave every one liberty to speak his mind; he praised the defenders of the faith, and reproved the temerity of the Arians. The fathers then framed the decree in the following form, as Cabassutius gives it[4]:—"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible; and in One Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten Son of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, born, not made, consubstantial to the Father by whom all things were made in heaven and in earth; who for us died, for our salvation descended, became incarnate and was made man; he suffered and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and again shall come to judge the quick and the dead; and in the Holy Ghost." This symbol, St. Athanasius says[5], was composed by Osius, and was recited in the synod. The council then fulminated an anathema against any one who should say there was a time when the Son of God did not exist, or that he did not exist before he was born, or that he was made of those things that exist not; or should assert that he was of any other substance or essence, or created, or mutable, or convertible. All who speak thus of the Son of God, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.

Baronius says[6], that the council then added to the hymn, "Glory be to the Father, &c.," the words, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for ever, and ever. Amen."

17. The bishops of the opposite side were, as we have already seen, twenty-two at first, but they were reduced, as Sozymen[7] says, to seventeen; and even these, terrified by the threats of Constantine, and fearing to lose their sees, and be banished, all gave in with the exception of five[8]; these were Eusebius of Nicomedia; Theognis of Nice; Maris of Chalcedon; Theonas of Marmorica; and Secundus of Ptolemais; and of these, three finally yielded, and the two first alone remained obstinate, and were deposed and

  1. Fleury l. 11, n. 10.
  2. Theod. l. 1, c. 7.
  3. Euseb. in vita Const. c. 12.
  4. Cabass. Not. Concil. p. 88, ex St. Athan. Socrat. Rufin. & Theod.
  5. St. Athan. Hist. Arian. n. 42.
  6. Baron. Ann. 325, n. 173.
  7. Sozymen, l. 1, c. 28.
  8. Socrat. l. 1, c. 3.