Answers to the Critics of the Book on the Synods

I. And although not without some scandal to the ears, the Orientals resisted the Anomoeans. If this sentence had been carefully weighed, perhaps the reasoning of my whole treatise would not have been regarded with suspicion. For I did not conceal that there was something there which could not be heard without scandal.

II. After the recitation of the first decree of the Synod of Ancyra: All the expositions of the Synod of Ancyra described in this book, if they contain any fault, contain it within themselves; but they are not considered to have it on their public face. But because I knew that those alone had been brought to Sirmium.

III. The exposition of like substance, which is called homoeousion, with faithful and pious understanding: I do not think anyone needs to be reminded, in this place, to consider why I said A pious understanding of like substance, unless because I understood there was also an impious one: and for this reason I said like, not only equal, but also the same, so that I might neither disapprove of the likeness which you, brother Lucifer, had wished to be proclaimed; and yet I might warn that the only pious understanding of likeness is that which proclaims the unity of substance.

IV. O men at last zealous for apostolic and evangelical doctrine; how great a hope of restoring the true faith have you brought? In the fact that I am led by some into odium for praising them, I have been insufficiently understood. For I did not say that they had brought the true faith, but The hope of restoring the true faith: so that just as they were heard, so also we from this point might be heard against Valens and Ursacius, and the smooth speech of address to be fitted to them would do nothing other than avoid the foulness of shameless insults; since in what follows, especially section ninety-one, I was going to expose the hidden scandals of the expositions more bitterly and even more reproachfully. V. But I pray you, most holy men, that you weigh my anxieties with kind indulgence. Consider in your prudence what it means to ask of most holy men that they hear a speaker with kind indulgence; and whether it belongs to the same person to flatter and to rebuke.

This was said in this way because what had been kept silent for the present by these men I was going to expose afterward; yet I should not seem to be making false accusations against those things which could be defended as excusable. VI. And I, though unwilling, will respond. Quite plainly, Lord brother Lucifer, it could be recognized that I make mention of homoeousion unwillingly. But because you were proclaiming the likeness of the Son to the Father, the demonstration of it had to be set forth by me without fault. VII. You think one should subscribe to the Synod of Samosata; let us also subscribe to the Synod of Nicaea. Did I not here also warn the reader concerning homoeousion, showing in no other way that it ought to be received, unless it were referred to the unity of substance? VIII. And I am moved by the nakedness of homoeousion. Can anyone think that I wish to receive homoeousion, concerning which I have treated these things?

IX. Akin to this, it is adduced after the examples brought forward of those things which deceive by external likeness. Was I here also negligent of likeness? X. For still sparing them I say nothing of those things which were decreed at Ancyra with scandal. Am I thought to remove suspicion from these things, or to praise those things for which I spare? For to spare, and to spare with delay toward this end, is nothing of the wicked and the remiss. XI. That homoeousion may be proved, let us not disapprove of homoousion; and likewise, What you dare is impious. Do I here suffer like substance to be anything other than one? Which, if it is not first to be confessed as one, will afterwards be impiously proclaimed as like. XII. I do not know nor understand homoeousion, except only from the confession of like essence. Do I seem to have been able to prove what I did not know (by taking homoeousion for a non-substantial likeness)? By no means.

But because the catholic faith ought not to believe likeness except through unity; so that it recalls likeness only to exclude union, not to bring about a division of unity: for this reason I said that, although I had not known the names of homoousion and homoeousion, I had nevertheless received likeness through unity. This very point is immediately resolved by the sentence that follows.