Against Auxentius

Many antichrists.—And lest we be charged with using abusive reproaches against them in our words, we do not keep silent about the cause of the public ruin, lest it remain unknown to anyone. We have learned, even from the preaching of the apostle John, that there are many antichrists. For whoever has denied Christ as He was preached by the apostles is an antichrist. The proper meaning of the name antichrist is to be contrary to Christ. This is now being accomplished under the guise of false piety, this is being labored at under the appearance of evangelical preaching, so that the Lord Jesus Christ, while He is believed to be preached, is denied.

The Church was not founded on human supports.—And first it is permitted to pity the toil of our age, and to lament together the foolish opinions of the present times, by which human means are believed to be of service to God, and labor is expended with worldly ambition to protect the Church of Christ. I ask you, O bishops who believe yourselves to be such, by what patronage did the apostles make use of in preaching the Gospel? By what powers aided did they preach Christ, and transfer nearly all the nations from idols to God? Did they assume for themselves any dignity from the palace, singing a hymn to God in prison amid chains and after scourgings; and was Paul, while he was himself a spectacle in the theatre, gathering a Church for Christ by the edicts of the king? Was it under the patronage of Nero, I suppose, or Vespasian, or Decius, that he was protected?—by whose hatred toward us the confession of the divine preaching flourished.

Those men, sustaining themselves by hand and labor, assembling within upper rooms and secret places, traversing villages and towns and nearly all the nations of land and sea against the decrees of the senate and the edicts of kings—did they not, I suppose, have the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Or did not the power of God then manifest itself openly against human hatred, when Christ was preached all the more, the more His preaching was forbidden?

Violence done to faith is condemned.—But now, alas! Earthly patronage commends the divine faith, and Christ, destitute of His own power, is accused while ambition is conciliated to His name. The Church terrifies with exiles and prisons: and compels belief in itself, that Church which was believed in through exiles and prisons. It depends upon the favor of those who communicate with it, that Church which was consecrated by the terror of persecutors. It drives out priests, that Church which was propagated when priests were driven out. It glories in being loved by the world, that Church which could not be Christ's unless the world had hated it. This the very reality which is before the eyes and on the lips of all has cried out, from the comparison of the Church once handed down to us and now destroyed.

The time of antichrist is now at hand.—But what that is which must no longer remain unknown, I shall briefly explain. According to God's good pleasure, the times have been compressed into a fullness. For the circumscribed reckoning of them is taught by the heavenly books: and it is necessary that we have fallen upon the very age of antichrist, whose ministers, according to the Apostle, transforming themselves into angels of light, abolish from the sense and conscience of nearly all the Christ who truly is. For in order that the affirmation of error may be certain, the uncertain opinion of the truth is set before it: and it is now open to antichrist to deceive men into thinking that he is that Christ, concerning whom there has been disagreement until now. Hence those various opinions, hence under the faith of one Christ the preaching of many, hence recently the spirit of Arius, flowing out from the angel of the devil, has passed and flowed down entirely to Valens, Ursacius, Auxentius, Germinius, and Gaius.

For these men have now introduced a new Christ, through whom antichrist might creep in.

The opinions of Auxentius, Valens, concerning Christ. A hidden heresy does not yet harm the people.—For they wish this their Christ to be not of the same divinity as the Father, but to be a creature powerful and surpassing other creatures, and to have been brought into existence from nothing by the will of God: and that He was born God from God before all ages and before all time absolutely; but that He is not from the substance of God, nor is the truth of divine birth and of His majesty which belongs to God to be understood in Him; lest He who is truly God as Father should be equally truly God as Son: so that what the Son and Father are proclaimed to be in the Gospels—one—should consist only in a fellowship of will and charity, not in the truth of divinity.

But if this is not the same in the Son as that which belongs to God, so that in the confession of faith God is one; why do they confess the Son as God, why before times and ages, unless because the name of God is destined for each holy person by the indulgence of eternity? Or are not all the regenerate truly sons of God, or are not all the angels, certainly created through Christ, created before all times and before all ages absolutely? But in order that antichrist might be introduced with less ill-will, and be believed by the wretched, they attribute to Christ the name of God; because this has also been attributed to men: they confess Him truly Son of God; because by the sacrament of baptism each person is truly made a son of God: they confess Him before times and ages; which cannot be denied of angels and the devil. Thus to the Lord Christ alone are attributed those things which are either the proper attributes of angels, or our own.

But what is legitimate and true for Christ as God—that Christ is true God, that is, that the divinity of the Son is the same as that of the Father—is denied. And indeed the fraud of this impiety is accomplished until now in such a way that already under the priests of antichrist the people of Christ do not perish, since they think that what belongs to the voice belongs to faith. They hear Christ called God; they think He is what is said. They hear Son of God; they think that in the birth of God there is the truth of God. They hear before the ages; they think that what is before the ages is the same as what always is. The ears of the people are holier than the hearts of the priests. If the Arians preach Christ as true God, they have confessed God without deceit: but if they say God and deny true; they grant the name and take away the truth.

What transpired between Hilarius and Auxentius at Milan. Auxentius confesses consubstantiality.—Although therefore all the documents of the churches and the books are now full of their most impious blasphemies: yet what recently occurred must not be passed over in silence. When the holy king had ordered by a severe edict that the church of the Milanese, which confesses Christ as true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father, should be disturbed under the guise and will of unity; I also urged by an importunate petition that Auxentius was a blasphemer and was altogether to be regarded as an enemy of Christ: and I added that he believed otherwise than the king himself or all the others held. Moved by these things, the king commanded that we be heard by the Quaestor and the Master, with about ten bishops sitting together with us. And first, as is customary in a court, he raised an objection against my person, that I, having once been condemned by Saturninus, ought not to be heard as a bishop.

It is not the time now to recount what was answered to these things: but those who were then listening decide that the matter of faith rather, as had pleased the king, should be discussed. And when the danger of denial was already pressing; Auxentius professed that he believed Christ to be true God and of one divinity and substance with God the Father. It was therefore agreed that this should be written down, and lest what had been said should slip from the memory of those present, I immediately offer a document to the king through the Quaestor, containing what had been agreed: and lest I be accused of any falsehood, I have appended copies of the same. It pleases all that Auxentius should profess these very things repeatedly: and he was compelled to write it himself. He, turning his plans over for a long time, most cunningly eludes the faith of the king: he produces a document composed in the style of antichrist.

By a document he evades the faith he had confessed.—For first he testifies that those things are holy which the impiety of all had dissolved at Nicaea in Thrace: affirming, that is, that the violence inflicted upon the bishops was the faith of true confession. He also denies that he knows Arius: although he had begun to be a presbyter in Alexandria in the Arian church over which Gregory presided. But let us say nothing about the synod of Ariminum, which has been religiously dissolved by all: only the contrivances of the devil must be laid bare. Since it had been agreed therefore that it should be written that Christ is true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father: there is set down by him, as by the most cunning devil, such a sentence as would signify that Christ, born before all ages, is true God the Son: so that according to the Arians the truth would be referred to the Son, not to God.

And so that a far greater difference of this meaning might exist, it is added, From the true God the Father: so that in the Father the truth of God would be, while in Christ only the truth of the Son would be written. Then as the discourse proceeds, one divinity is proclaimed by Auxentius, and in it he does not confess the Son also: so that the one sole divinity would be in the Father alone, not also in the Son.

He is spread abroad as one who thinks rightly. Hilarius, exposing the fraud, is ordered to depart.—It is spread abroad among the peoples that Auxentius had written that Christ is true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father, and that his opinion did not differ from the faith set forth by me: after which the king came to communion with him out of sincerity of faith. But when this mystery of impiety, long concealed, could no longer be kept silent, and I was saying that everything was being feigned, that faith was being denied, that God and men were being deceived; I am ordered to depart from Milan, since there was no freedom for me to remain there against the will of the king.

These things therefore, Brethren, in whom the judgment of God is held in fear, I signify to have been done in this manner. Auxentius was unwilling to confess what he feared to deny: for I have appended copies of the exposition itself. If he wrote the same thing, convict him of deceiving: but if he wrote something other than what he professed, understand now that another Christ, that is, antichrist, is being preached through him. He has indeed played with words by which he might deceive even the elect; but the profession of so great impiety lies open.

The perfidy of Auxentius is set forth.—He denies that he preaches two gods, because there are not two fathers. Who, according to this, does not see that the confession of one God is therefore proper to the Father alone, because He alone would be? Whence also that style of Satan appeared: We know one sole true God the Father. And after malicious insinuations, he says: The Son like unto His begetter the Father, according to the Scriptures. If this is written anywhere in the holy volumes, it has the profession of innocence. But if in the truth of divinity the Son and Father are one, why is the imperfect opinion of likeness set before it? Christ is indeed the image of God: but it is not doubtful that man also is the image of God, since Adam was made in the image and likeness of God. Why do you, heir of Arius, concede to Christ only what is ours?

Why do you circumvent the King, the Companions, the Church of God, by the art of your father, that is, of Satan? You call Christ God: why do you deceive in the name? Deny that Moses was called god to Pharaoh. You speak of Christ as Son and firstborn of God: deny that the firstborn son Israel belongs to God. You assert that Christ was born before the ages: and deny that the devil was established before the ages and ages. You mention Christ as like the Father: deny that man began to be in the image and likeness of God. You deny to Christ alone what is His, lest He be true God and of one divinity and substance with the Father. And you are accustomed together with your masters to charge me with heresy: set forth, by whatever writings you can, the cause of my impiety, and put forward the title of my blasphemies.

But for me, he is antichrist who does not confess the Son to be of one divinity with the Father: and who does not so preach the one true God the Father that the truth of divinity is also understood in the Son. If Christ and God are of one divinity, why did you not write this plainly? If for you they are not, why did you not plainly deny this?

Let there not be too great a love of church walls.—I would have wished, Brethren, to reveal the secret of so pestilential a mystery in person rather than through letters, and to explain all the blasphemies of Auxentius word by word. But since that is not permitted, let each one at least understand what is permitted to him. A sense of shame restrains me from bringing forward many other things before the Church, and I greatly fear to commit to a letter the disgraces of the Arians' blasphemies. One thing I warn: beware of antichrist: for the love of walls has taken hold of you wrongly, you wrongly venerate the Church of God in roofs and buildings, you wrongly thrust the name of peace upon these things. Is it doubtful that antichrist will sit in these? Mountains, and forests, and lakes, and prisons, and chasms are safer for me: for in these the prophets, either dwelling or submerged, prophesied by the Spirit of God.

Depart therefore from Auxentius, the angel of Satan, the enemy of Christ, the ruinous destroyer, the denier of the faith: who professed to rule it in such a way as to deceive; so deceived as to blaspheme. Let him now convene whatever synods he wishes against me, and proscribe me as a heretic, as he has already often done, by public title, and stir up whatever wrath of the powerful he wishes against me: he certainly will never be anything other than a devil to me, because he is an Arian: nor will the peace of any persons ever be desired, save of those who, in accordance with the proceedings of our fathers at Nicaea, having anathematized the Arians, will preach Christ as true God.

To the most blessed and most glorious emperors Valentinian and Valens, Augusti, Auxentius, bishop of the catholic church of the Milanese.

Auxentius called a heretic.—"I indeed, most pious Emperors, consider that the unity of six hundred bishops ought not, after such great labors, to be reopened by the contention of a few men who were cast out ten years ago, as the documents also make plain. But if some from among the people, who have never been in communion either with those who were bishops before me, now further stirred up by Hilary and Eusebius, disturbing certain persons, have called me a heretic: your piety has ordered that praiseworthy men, the Quaestor and the Master, should take cognizance of these matters: and as I said before, that those who have once been deposed do not have the standing of accusers or the right to judge (I mean Hilary and those who agree with him): nevertheless, obedient to your Serenity, I came forward to make manifest those who speak falsely, and blaspheme, and call me an Arian, and as though I do not confess that Christ the Son of God is God.

He sets forth his faith.—"I set forth my confession to the friends of your piety, giving satisfaction first of all, because I never knew Arius, did not see him with my eyes, did not know his doctrine: but from infancy, as I was taught, as I received from the holy Scriptures, I believed, and I believe in one sole true God the Father almighty, invisible, impassible, immortal: and in his only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, born before all ages and before all beginning from the Father, True God the son from God the true Father, according to what is written in the Gospel: And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. For through him all things were made, visible and invisible.

Who descended from heaven by the will of the Father for our salvation, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary according to the flesh, as it is written, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, whom our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ sent to the disciples, the Spirit of truth. So I believed, and I believe, just as also the only-begotten Son of God, ascending into heaven, delivered to the disciples, saying: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

He adheres to the faith of Rimini.—"I have never preached two gods: for there are not two fathers, that two gods should be named, nor two sons; but one Son from one Father, alone from the alone, God from God, as it is written: One God the Father from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things: on account of which we also preach one deity. All heresies therefore, which come against the catholic faith, the catholic bishops assembled have always condemned and anathematized, but especially those convening at Rimini, and from there we condemned them. But the catholic faith of the Gospels, which the Apostles handed down, this we have faithfully kept. But that your piety might more truly know the things which were done in the council of Rimini, I have transmitted them, and I ask that you order them to be read with pleasure: for thus your Serenity will know that those who were long since deposed, that is, Hilary and Eusebius, strive everywhere to make schisms.

For the things which have been well set forth from the holy Scriptures concerning the catholic faith, your piety perceives that these ought not to be reopened."