By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpktos and Agiou Vlasiou
This year we celebrate the anniversary of 1,700 years since the convocation of the First Ecumenical Synod, which was convened in 325 A.D. in Nicaea of Bithynia in order to confront the heresy of Arius. Arius, drawing on principles of Greek philosophy, taught that the Son and Word of God is the first creature of the Father’s creation and that “there was a time when He was not,” that is, there was a time when He did not exist. Therefore, according to Arius, the Son is a creature of the Father, created by the will of the Father. The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod condemned the heresy of Arius and composed the first seven articles of the Symbol of Faith, the well-known “Creed.”
When the First Ecumenical Synod was convened, Basil the Great had not yet been born; he was born five years after the Synod, in 330. Saint Gregory the Theologian was born in 329, four years after the Synod, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa had not yet been born either, since he was born ten years later, in 335. All three were Cappadocians and became exponents of what is known as Cappadocian theology. They accepted the decisions of the First Ecumenical Synod and played a significant role in the triumph of its decisions; most importantly, they played a decisive role in the decisions of the Second Ecumenical Synod, which took place in Constantinople in 381 A.D. This Synod completed the Symbol of the First Ecumenical Synod, which is why it is called the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed.
Specifically, the teaching of Basil the Great significantly influenced the decisions of the Second Ecumenical Synod, even though he had reposed two years before it was convened, in 379. Saint Gregory the Theologian served for a time as president of the Second Ecumenical Synod and later resigned. Saint Gregory of Nyssa was the secretary of this Synod and also contributed to the formulation of its definition and to the acceptance of its decisions. Furthermore, Saint John Chrysostom was born in 349, about twenty-four years after the First Ecumenical Synod. He did not participate in the Second Ecumenical Synod, but he played an important role in the acceptance of its decisions among the people through his powerful gift of preaching.
In today’s presentation I will refer to the decisions of the First Ecumenical Synod, to the events that followed, and to the significant contribution of Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa — on the one hand to the acceptance of its decisions, and on the other hand to the preparation of the Second Ecumenical Synod, which completed the work of the First Ecumenical Synod by finalizing the Symbol of Faith. This is a very interesting topic from every perspective and is dedicated to the Fathers of the Church, who are the successors of the Holy Apostles.
Therefore, I will divide the topic into three sections:
First, the decision of the First Ecumenical Synod — the condemnation of the heretical views of Arius and the Orthodox decision concerning the divinity of the Word of God.
Second, what followed in the period after the First Ecumenical Synod up to the Second Ecumenical Synod.
Third, the theological contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers — Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa — to the formulation of Orthodox theology.
This is a historical-theological presentation, in which the difference in thought between philosophizing theologians and the great empirical theologians — the Fathers of the Church — will become evident.
1. The Decision of the First Ecumenical Synod on the Divinity of the Son and Word of God
Fr. John Romanides, a leading dogmatic theologian and professor at the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki, offered an original and insightful analysis of how Arius and the Arians came to deny the divinity of the Word of God. In Syria during the second and third centuries A.D., there were philosophers who followed Aristotelian philosophy, which spoke of the principle of entelechy, according to which every changeable thing has a “potential” and an “actual” state, meaning that what is changeable is perfected from potentiality to actuality. However, this principle does not apply to the immutable, which is Being itself, since it is perfect by nature and has no need of perfection.
Christian theologians in those regions argued in discussions with philosophers that God created the world “out of non-being;” it did not previously exist and was created by the will of God. The philosophers countered that if God created a world that did not previously exist, then God must not be perfect but changeable, and therefore created the world in order to perfect Himself, according to the principle of entelechy, from potentiality to actuality. The philosophizing Christian theologians responded with the teaching of the distinction between essence and energy in God: God has both essence and energy; according to His essence He is absolutely free and immutable, while He creates the world by His energy. Thus, God has no need of the world; He is absolutely perfect, self-sufficient, and free. In this way they introduced, from a philosophical perspective, the distinction between essence and energy in God.
Subsequently, however, these philosophizing theologians, having accepted that God has essence and energy and having used this theology to address the philosophers on the creation of the world, attempted to interpret the relationships among the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch (ca. 200–275 A.D.), identified the essence of God with the hypostasis of the Father; thus, according to him, there is one essence-hypostasis with two energies, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This was characterized as dynamic monarchianism and was condemned by the Church at the Synod of Antioch in 268.
Sabellius (2nd–3rd century A.D.) proposed modalistic monarchianism, teaching that God is one but is revealed in three modes — as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Following the view that man is one hypostasis with three designations — body, soul, and spirit — he applied this to God, claiming that God is one simple monad with three modes of operation, using the term “person” (πρόσωπο) first introduced by Hippolytus, in the sense of a mask (προσωπείου).
The heresy of Paul of Samosata was continued by Lucian and his disciples, known as the Lucianists, and was then taken up by Arius. According to this philosophical view, in the Triune God there is one essence-hypostasis, the Father, and the Word, as an energy of the Father, became incarnate. Thus, in the man born of the Virgin Mary dwells the Word as an uncreated energy of God the Father, and not God the Word as a distinct Person.
Moreover, the disciples of Paul of Samosata and of Lucian, such as Arius, adapted the condemned teaching by asserting that God the Father creates the Word by will and does not beget Him by nature, because, according to Aristotelian philosophy, what is by nature is by necessity, whereas God the Father is absolutely free and not subject to necessity. Therefore, the relationship between Father and Son is one of energy and will, not of essence. Thus Arius taught that the Son was created in time by the Father, that He is the first creature between God and matter, and therefore that “there was a time when He was not.” He further claimed that the Son is of a different essence from the Father, that He is changeable and ignorant of the Father, and that after the Son the Holy Spirit is the second created power.
The Fathers at the First Ecumenical Synod condemned these heretical views of Arius, as is evident in the Symbol of Faith of the First Ecumenical Synod, with phrases such as: “the Son of God,” “begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father,” “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father,” and “incarnate and made man.”
At the end of the Creed, the anathemas were also recorded:
“But those who say ‘there was a time when He was not,’ and ‘before He was begotten He was not,’ and that ‘He came into being from non-being,’ or who claim that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or essence, or is created, or changeable, or alterable — the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.”
The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, in composing the Creed, took into account the various local confessions of faith or baptismal symbols and on their basis composed the new Creed in order to confront the heresy of Arius. Saint Athanasios the Great, in a work written after the First Ecumenical Synod around 350–352 titled 'On the Synod of Nicaea,' discusses in detail the issues addressed and condemned by that Synod.
Among other things, he writes that at first the bishops wished to say that the Word is the true power and image of the Father, like and identical to Him in all things, immutable and indivisible from the Father. However, because there was objection that the term “like” (ὅμοιον) could also be applied to human beings — since it is written that man is “the image and glory of God” — they expressed it more precisely by stating that the Word of God is not merely like the Father, but of one essence with the Father and indivisible from Him, something that does not apply to us. Thus the phrases “from the essence of the Father” and “of one essence” refute the heretical babblings that the Son is created, changeable, or that “He was not before He was begotten.” Whoever does not think in this way opposes the Synod.
It is significant that in this text Saint Athanasios also includes a “copy of the letter of the Synod of Nicaea against Arius and those with him,” which was sent to the Church of Alexandria, where the teaching of Arius first appeared. In this synodal letter the phrases used by Arius and condemned by the First Ecumenical Synod are cited, such as that the Son of God is “from non-being,” that “before He was begotten He was not,” that “there was a time when He was not,” and that the Son of God is “capable of virtue and vice by free choice,” and is called a creature and a work. This last point is particularly interesting, because what is created has free choice — that is, the freedom to choose virtue or vice — whereas the Son and Word of God is uncreated.
2. The Period After the First Ecumenical Synod Up To the Second Ecumenical Synod
The First Ecumenical Synod condemned the heresy of Arius and confessed the Orthodox dogmatic truth that the Son is of one essence with the Father, true God, begotten and not created, light from light, true God, and that through Him the world was created. While one might have expected peace to follow, matters instead became even more intense. The Arians continued to teach their views, and the Pneumatomachians also appeared, since along with their belief that the Son is a creature they taught that the Holy Spirit is also a creature. This was also taught by Macedonius of Constantinople, hence they were called Macedonians.
Furthermore, Apollinaris of Laodicea (ca. 310–360), following Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy that man consists of body, soul, and mind, taught that Christ, in His incarnation, assumed the body and the irrational soul, but not the rational and free soul (mind and spirit); the divine Word took the place of the mind. Thus he denied the fullness and completeness of the human nature assumed by the Son and Word of God in His incarnation. Moreover, Eunomius of Cyzicus (335–394 A.D.) and others of like mind, known as Arians or Anomoeans, taught that the Son and the Spirit have no similarity whatsoever with the Father and are changeable servants of Him. They also identified essence with energy.
All these new heresies were not merely theoretical and harmless but were aggressively directed against the Orthodox, especially against Saint Athanasios the Great, often using political power, and above all were expressed synodically. That is, synods of bishops were convened in various parts of the Roman Empire, articulated their views, and even issued their own creeds. Amid all these heretical views there were also Orthodox bishops who upheld the decisions of the First Ecumenical Synod. Two extremes appeared: the zealots and the liberal heretics.
From the year 325, when the First Ecumenical Synod was convened in Nicaea, until the year 381, when the Second Ecumenical Synod was convened in Constantinople — a span of fifty-six years — approximately fifty large synods were held, with differing views that created chaos in the Church. The most important Arian-leaning synods were those of Antioch (326–331), Caesarea (334), Tyre (335), Jerusalem (335), Constantinople (336), Antioch (341), Sirmium (351, 357, 359), Ariminum in Italy and Seleucia in Isauria (359). The principal Orthodox synods were those of Gangra (340–342), Sardica (342 or 343), Antioch (344), Jerusalem (346), Milan (347), Carthage (348), Alexandria (362 and 363), Antioch (363), Rome (371 or 372), and Iconium (376). Some of these synods were Orthodox and others heretical; some condemned Athanasios the Great and others restored him; some drafted new creeds and others did not.
One can see that during the fifty-six years between the First and Second Ecumenical Synods there were many theological discussions, great turmoil, many synods, and new creeds with differences among them. Eventually, at the Second Ecumenical Synod, the complete Creed that we have today was defined, after certain additions, removals, and changes were made to the Creed of Nicaea. When we compare the two Creeds of the First and Second Ecumenical Synod, we can see their differences.
Specifically, in the Creed of the Second Ecumenical Synod the phrase from the Second Article of the First Ecumenical Synod, “that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God … both things in heaven and things on earth,” was removed, and at the end the anathemas were also removed. Added were the remaining seven articles concerning the Holy Spirit, the Church, Baptism, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.
These are the changes and additions made by the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Synod to the Creed of the First Ecumenical Synod, resulting in the complete Symbol of Faith we now have. They were made because, in the meantime, theological discussions required clarification of terminology. In theology there is a strong principle that one thing is the revelatory experience — the participation in the glory of God — and another is the formulation of that experience.
In this work after the First Ecumenical Synod, the three Cappadocian Fathers — Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa — played a significant role, which we will briefly see in the third section of this lecture.
3. The Theological Contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers
Amid this theological turbulence in which the Church found herself, and within this theological tempest that lasted for fifty-six years — between the First and the Second Ecumenical Synods — great Fathers, wise teachers, and powerful theologians emerged: Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Like spiritual captains of the ship of the Church in the midst of this storm, through their gifts, their acumen, their learning, and above all the illumination of God, they succeeded in bringing about the completion of the Symbol of Faith and, in general, the formulation of Orthodox theology. It was necessary, however, throughout this entire period to refine terminology, to further develop revelatory discourse, and to wage great struggles against the philosophizing theologians who were heretical.
The great Cappadocian Fathers began from the revelatory experience of God, as it was manifested in the Prophets and the Apostles; they were “initiated by experience,” while also possessing the learning of their age. By contrast, the philosophizing theologians followed only philosophical presuppositions for doing theology, such as those of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists. We shall see very briefly what their contribution was to theology and to the Church. After the First Ecumenical Synod many heretics appeared, who will be mentioned briefly with regard to the term homoousios used by the Synod.
There were the Anomoeans, or Heterousians, or Aetians, who claimed that the Son has a completely different essence from the Father. There were also the Homoeans, who tried to reconcile the Anomoeans with the Homoousians and claimed that the Father and the Son have only an external similarity to one another. There were also the Homoiousians, who asserted that the Son is similar to the Father in all respects, even as to essence, but did not accept that He is identical in essence or consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and thus rejected the term homoousios. Of course, there were also the Orthodox, who remained faithful to the term of the First Ecumenical Synod, homoousios, but for a long time identified the term essence (ousia) with hypostasis, and thus accepted in God one essence and one hypostasis, saying “one hypostasis, one Godhead.” Eventually, the Arian-minded anti-homoousian factions tried to persuade the Orthodox Homoousians to abandon the term homoousios and to accept some kind of compromise formula.
This meant that the terms essence and hypostasis had to be clarified even further and defined more precisely in order to confront the heretics. This task was undertaken by the Cappadocian Fathers, with the aim of uniting the divided Christians who had remained faithful to the homoousios of the First Ecumenical Synod but distinguished it from hypostasis–person. We shall see this briefly by outlining the basic points of their teaching.
Saint Athanasios the Great championed the Orthodox faith both before and after the First Ecumenical Synod, but because of age and many hardships — exiles and persecutions — he was, in the words of Saint Gregory the Theologian, “wearied by fighting,” and could no longer cope with the new and numerous heresiarchs. It is characteristic that all three Cappadocian Fathers revered Athanasios as their “Elder,” and Athanasios, in turn, trusted them as his successors. In general, the three Cappadocian Fathers did not theologize philosophically, as the heretics did, but theologized through their empirical theology — hesychasm — that is, through the revelation of God to the Prophets and Apostles. Taking these as their model, they followed the ascetic path and expressed the experience of the Church.
Basil the Great, in his works, expressed the hesychastic life and the relationship between sacred stillness and empirical theology as revelation of God. Possessing this empirical theology, he found the appropriate terms with which to confront the heretics.
Saint Gregory the Theologian taught that a true theologian is one who has purified the nous and been led to theoria (the vision of God); those who do not follow this method he calls “chatterers,” that is, verbose talkers.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, taking Moses as his model, explains that Orthodox theology is the experience of God in the vision of God.
Basil the Great (330–379 A.D.) taught that the names of God — Father, Son, and Spirit — do not signify the essence, but the hypostatic properties. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not indicate “what God is” (the essence), but “that He is,” that the Godhead exists as person, or “how He is,” namely, the unbegottenness of the Father, the begottenness of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit. All three Persons have the same essence; they are consubstantial or identical in essence, not of different or alien essence, yet they have different modes of existence: the unbegotten Father, the begotten Son, and the proceeding Holy Spirit.
What is common to all three Persons is the essence; what is particular is the hypostasis–person. Thus he made the distinction between essence and hypostasis–person. In this way the terminology was formulated that God has one essence and three hypostases. With this distinction he made a great breakthrough in Orthodox theology. The energies of God are common to all three Persons, since the Father is the “initiating” cause, the Son the “creative” cause, and the Holy Spirit the “perfecting” cause. Moreover, sacred Tradition must be preserved as the apple of the eye and must not be altered. Tradition is authentic when it is the experience of the truth of Christ.
Saint Gregory the Theologian taught the same as Basil the Great, but also used additional expressions. God is one according to essence or nature, but three according to persons or hypostases. Speaking of the divine essence he wrote: “The divine is therefore infinite and difficult to contemplate, and this alone is wholly comprehensible about it — its infinity.” Furthermore, we cannot rationally comprehend the unbegottenness of the Father, the begottenness of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit. Concerning essence and hypostases he writes: “The Godhead is undivided in divided hypostases.” The Son and Word of God, by His incarnation, assumed “the whole assumption,” the entire human nature, for “that which is not assumed is not healed, but that which is united to God is also saved.” He theologized safely and divinely inspired concerning the Holy Spirit, that He proceeds from the Father — something incomprehensible to reason. The Triune God is light and life. He writes: “He was and He was and He was, but He was one. Light and light and light, but one light, one God… from the light of the Father we apprehend the Son in the light of the Spirit — a brief and simple theology of the Trinity.”
The Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament “at first faintly,” “then more clearly,” and “now (at Pentecost) most perfectly.” He writes of the Holy Spirit: “The Holy Spirit always was, and is, and will be — neither beginning nor ceasing — but always ordered and numbered with the Father and the Son… He was always imparting, but not imparted; perfecting, but not being perfected; filling, but not being filled; sanctifying, but not being sanctified; deifying, but not being deified; ever identical with Himself and with those with whom He is ranked; invisible, timeless, uncircumscribed, immutable, without quality, without quantity, formless, intangible, self-moved, ever-moving, self-determined, omnipotent… life and life-giver, light and giver of light.” All that the Father has, the Son has, except unbegottenness; all that the Son has, the Spirit has, except generation. These differences, according to my reasoning, do not distinguish essence, but distinguish what pertains to essence. Concerning God: “To speak of Him is impossible, and to conceive of Him is even more impossible.”
He placed great emphasis on the prerequisite for theologizing, which is revelatory experience; this distinguishes Orthodox theology from heretical ways of theologizing. For this reason he stresses that theology is not for everyone, but “for those who have been examined and have passed through theoria, and before that have purified or are purifying both soul and body, at least to a moderate degree.”
Saint Gregory of Nyssa followed his brother according to the flesh, Basil the Great, in all things and continued his struggle, confronting Eunomius, while sharing much in common with Saint Gregory the Theologian. He did not insist on who or what God is, but on the “how” of man’s assimilation to God; therefore he wrote many mystical and hesychastic works. He emphasized the distinction between the uncreated and the created, that God is “truly Being,” “uncreated,” “without end,” while the worldly is “subsistent,” “created,” and transient.
He distinguished that the difference among the Persons of the Triune God lies in “cause” and “caused.” This difference does not lie in nature or essence, which is common, but in mode of being: the Father is the cause and the source of the other two; the Son and the Holy Spirit are the caused. The Father is always the cause; the Son proceeds from the cause as caused, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the cause. He also expanded the Christology of Basil the Great, emphasizing that the Word assumed the whole of human nature except sin. The union of divinity and humanity took place in such a way that the divinity remains immutable and unchangeable, while the human nature is transformed, yet remains unconfused in itself and is not absorbed by the divine.
What is remarkable is that the theology of these three Cappadocian Fathers significantly influenced the later Ecumenical Synods that confronted other heresies, and it remains to this day the theology of our Church. These theological analyses were somewhat demanding, but the subject was theological and could not be simplified further. With what I have said, I wished to show:
First, that the heretics theologized according to the principles of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, whereas the Fathers of the Church theologized from revelatory experience, as articulated by the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers. Hesychasm is the fundamental prerequisite of theology.
Second, that the formation of the Symbol of Faith by the First and Second Ecumenical Synods was the product of many years of discussion and study of the texts of Holy Scripture, as well as spiritual experience and prayer. Many struggles took place; the Fathers faced persecutions and exiles, and martyr-like efforts were required.
Third, that in these struggles a significant role was played by the three great Cappadocian Fathers — Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa — while Saint John Chrysostom, later in time, contributed to the strengthening of Christians through his pastoral work and his brilliant preaching.
These Fathers followed the great “spiritual general,” Saint Athanasios, Archbishop of Alexandria, and proved to be genuine theologians of the Church who, through knowledge, experience, education, discernment, and sobriety, established true theology by making certain clarifications in terminology.
Therefore, when we hear the Symbol of Faith being recited in the Church, we should feel a spiritual shudder, the deepest emotion, because every word of it is the product of great struggles by Saint Athanasios the Great and the three Cappadocian Fathers of the Church. Beyond the boundless reverence we should feel for this blessed and sanctified Symbol of Faith and for each of its words, we should recite it often, learn it by heart, and proclaim it with reverence, for it is steeped in the tears, sweat, and blood of the saints, in addition to the energy of the Holy Spirit.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
