Letter 125

125. A Copy of the Confession of Faith dictated by the most holy Basil, to which Eustathius, Bishop of Sebasteia, subscribed.

Those who have been preoccupied by another confession of faith and wish to be transferred to fellowship with the orthodox, or who now for the first time desire, in the catechizing of the word of truth, to be instructed, must be taught the faith written by the blessed fathers in the council once convened at Nicaea. This same course would be useful also toward those suspected of being opposed to sound teaching and of cloaking the mind of false doctrine under specious evasions of their own. For these too the faith set down is sufficient. For either they will correct their hidden disease, or, concealing it in the depths, they will themselves bear the judgment of their deceit, while preparing for us an easy defence on the day of judgment, when the Lord will uncover the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts. They must therefore be received when they confess that they believe according to the words set forth by our Fathers at Nicaea, and according to the sound meaning conveyed by those words.

For there are some who, even within this faith, falsify the word of truth and drag the sense of the words in it toward their own purpose. Thus even Marcellus dared — impiously denying the subsistence of our Lord Jesus Christ and interpreting him as a mere word — to allege that he had taken the starting-points of his teaching from there, wrongly interpreting the meaning of the term "of one substance." And some of those who hold the impiety of Sabellius the Libyan, supposing subsistence and substance to be the same, draw from there the occasions for the construction of their own blasphemy, from the fact that it is written in the faith: "But if anyone says that the Son is of another substance or subsistence, the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes him." For there they did not say that substance and subsistence were the same. For if the terms conveyed one and the same notion, what need was there of both? But it is plain that, since some were denying that the Son is of the substance of the Father, while others were saying that he is not of the substance but of some other subsistence, they thus forbade both, as foreign to the mind of the Church. For where they declared their own mind, they said that the Son is of the substance of the Father — no longer adding "of the subsistence." So that the former clause is set down for the rejection of the wicked opinion, while the latter holds the manifestation of the saving doctrine. We must therefore confess the Son to be of one substance with the Father, as it is written; and confess that the Father is in his own subsistence, the Son in his own, and the Holy Spirit in his own, just as they themselves also plainly set forth. For they showed it sufficiently and clearly when they said "light from light" — that the light which begot is one, and the light begotten another, yet light and light all the same; so that the account of the substance is one and the same. Let, then, the very faith written at Nicaea be set before us.

"We believe in one God the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. 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 from God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not made; of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both the things in heaven and the things on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, and was made flesh, became man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say, 'There was a time when he was not,' and 'Before he was begotten he was not,' and that he came to be out of things that are not; or who assert that the Son of God is of another subsistence or substance, or is changeable or alterable — such persons the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes."

Since, then, here all the other matters have been defined sufficiently and exactly — some for the correction of those who have been harmed, others for guarding against those expected to spring up — but the statement concerning the Spirit lies in passing, deemed worthy of no elaboration, because this question had not yet then been stirred, but the understanding concerning it remained unassailed in the souls of believers; and since, little by little, the wicked seeds of impiety advancing — those that were first sown by Arius, the champion of the heresy, and afterward nurtured to the ruin of the churches by those who succeeded badly to his teachings — the sequence of impiety has burst out into blasphemy against the Spirit: it is necessary, against those who do not spare themselves, nor foresee the inescapable threat which our Lord held out against those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, to set forth this — that they must anathematize those who call the Holy Spirit a creature, and those who so think, and those who do not confess that it is holy by nature, as the Father is holy by nature and the Son is holy by nature, but who estrange it from the divine and blessed nature. And the proof of right thinking is not to separate it from the Father and the Son (for we must be baptized as we received it, and believe as we are baptized, and glorify as we have believed — Father and Son and Holy Spirit), but to stand apart from the communion of those who call it a creature, as plainly blasphemous; this being agreed upon (for the notice is necessary, on account of the slanderers): that we neither call the Holy Spirit unbegotten — for we know one unbegotten and one principle of beings, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — nor begotten; for we have been taught in the tradition of the faith one only-begotten. But having been taught that the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father, we confess it to be of God, without being created. And we must anathematize also those who call the Holy Spirit "ministering," as by this word bringing it down into the rank of the creature. For the ministering spirits Scripture has handed down to us as creatures, saying, "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth for service?" And on account of those who confound all things and do not keep the teaching in the Gospels, it is necessary to add this distinction also: that we must flee those who change the order which the Lord handed down to us, as plainly fighting against godliness — those who set the Son before the Father, and put the Holy Spirit before the Son. For we ought to keep the order unmoved and untampered with, which we received from the very voice of the Lord, when he said: "Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The subscription of Bishop Eustathius.

I, Eustathius the bishop, having read it to you, Basil, have understood it, and have assented to what is written above. And I have subscribed in the presence of the brothers who were with me — our own Fronto, and the chorepiscopus Severus, and certain other clergy.