(No web searching before you guess.)
In accord with the command of your devout piety, we declare our faith, and in writing profess before God that we and our adherents believe as follows:
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, and in the Lord Jesus Christ his Son, who was begotten of him before all ages, God the Word through whom all things were made, both things in heaven and on earth; who descended, and became human, and suffered, and rose again, ascended into heaven, and will again come to judge the living and the dead. We believe also in the Holy Spirit, and in the resurrection of the flesh, and in the life of the coming age, and in the kingdom of the heavens, and in one catholic church of God, extending from one end of the earth to the other. This faith we have received from the holy gospels, in which the Lord says to his disciples: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” If we do not so believe and do not truly receive the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as the whole catholic church and the holy Scriptures teach (in which we believe in every respect), may God judge us both now, and in the coming judgment.
Good luck!
Arius?
ReplyDeleteIt cant be Arius because it clearly calls Jesus God the Word, and arianism is the denial of Christ's divinity.
DeleteMany times heretics have told lies with a straight face and solemnly, even though they believe the opposite of what they say. Not saying who it is, though I made my answer clear in my previous post.
DeleteAs in the same as Andrew. Not saying that it's right or wrong.
DeleteArius did not deny that Jesus was the Word or that he was God. Rather he denied that he was begotten, not made.
DeleteArius denied that the Son of God was God in any meaningful sense. Socrates Scholasticus quoting Alexander of Alexandria:
DeleteThese then are those who have become apostates: Arius, Achillas, Aithales, and Carpones, another Arius, Sarmates, Euzoïus, Lucius, Julian, Menas, Helladis, and Gaius; with these also must be reckoned Secundus and Theonas, who once were called bishops. The dogmas they have invented and assert, contrary to the Scriptures, are these: That God was not always the Father, but that there was a period when he was not the Father; that the Word of God was not from eternity, but was made out of nothing; for that the ever-existing God ('the I AM'— the eternal One) made him who did not previously exist, out of nothing; wherefore there was a time when he did not exist, inasmuch as the Son is a creature and a work. That he is neither like the Father as it regards his essence, nor is by nature either the Father's true Word, or true Wisdom, but indeed one of his works and creatures, being erroneously called Word and Wisdom, since he was himself made of God's own Word and the Wisdom which is in God, whereby God both made all things and him also. Wherefore he is as to his nature mutable and susceptible of change, as all other rational creatures are: hence the Word is alien to and other than the essence of God; and the Father is inexplicable by the Son, and invisible to him, for neither does the Word perfectly and accurately know the Father, neither can he distinctly see him. The Son knows not the nature of his own essence: for he was made on our account, in order that God might create us by him, as by an instrument; nor would he ever have existed, unless God had wished to create us.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26011.htm
Pope Gregory the Great, to some Byzantine Emperor.
ReplyDeleteI also believe Arius.
ReplyDeleteMr. Grump (I now refer to myself in the third person) was unaware that His Traddiness had moved this post out of draft mode, so my apologies for the delay.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is indeed Arius. The point is that even outright heretics can conceal themselves as orthodox believers when it suits them.
Let us be wise as serpents, for serpents our enemies are.
Thus, Arius fooled Emperor Constantine, though St. Athanasius wasn't.
ReplyDelete