Letter to the Emperor Jovian on the Faith

1A love of learning and a longing for heavenly things are fitting for a God-loving emperor, for in this way you will truly have your heart in the hand of God. Since your piety has desired to learn from us the faith of the catholic Church, we have given thanks to the Lord for this, and we have resolved above all to remind your piety of the faith confessed by the Fathers at Nicaea.

Some have rejected this faith and plotted against us in various ways because we would not obey the Arian heresy, and they have become the cause of heresy and schisms in the catholic Church. The true and devout faith in the Lord is clear to all, known and read from the divine Scriptures. In this faith the saints were made perfect and bore witness, and now, having departed, they are in the Lord. This faith would have remained unharmed forever if the wickedness of certain heretics had not dared to falsify it.

Arius and those with him attempted to corrupt this faith and to introduce impiety against it, saying that the Son of God is from nothing, a creature, a thing made, and changeable. They deceived many with these words, so that even those who seemed to be something were carried away with them into their blasphemy. And yet our holy Fathers, when they had gathered, as we said before, at the council in Nicaea, anathematized them and confessed the faith of the catholic Church in writing, so that, as this faith was proclaimed everywhere, the heresy kindled by the heretics might be extinguished.

This faith was known and proclaimed without guile everywhere in every Church. But now some, wishing to renew the Arian heresy, have dared to reject the faith confessed at Nicaea by the Fathers. They pretend to confess it, but in truth they deny it, misinterpreting "of one being" and themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit by saying that it is a creature and a thing made through the Son. Therefore, seeing the harm that comes upon the people from such blasphemy, we have been eager to present to your reverence the faith confessed at Nicaea, so that your piety may know what has been written with all precision and how greatly those who teach contrary to it go astray.

Know this, most God-loving Augustus: these things have been proclaimed from eternity, and the Fathers who gathered at Nicaea confessed this faith. With it agree all the Churches everywhere in every place—those in Spain, Britain, the Gauls, all Italy, Dalmatia, Dacia, Mysia, Macedonia, all Greece, all Africa, Sardinia, Cyprus, Crete, Pamphylia, Lycia, Isauria, the Churches in Egypt, the Libyas, Pontus, Cappadocia, those near us, and the Churches in the East—except for a few who hold the views of Arius. We have learned the mind of all those mentioned by experience, and we have letters. And you know, most God-loving Augustus, that even if a few oppose this faith, they cannot overrule it, since the whole world holds the apostolic faith.

2For those men, having been harmed over a long time by the Arian heresy, now oppose true religion more contentiously. And so that your piety may know it—though it already does—I have been eager to set down the faith confessed at Nicaea by the bishops. The faith confessed by the Fathers at Nicaea is this: 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 from 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 being with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both in heaven and on earth; who for us human beings and for our salvation came down, became flesh, became human, suffered, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, 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 being begotten he was not,' and that he came to be from nothing, or who say that the Son of God is from another substance or essence, or that he is created, or changeable, or alterable—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes. It is necessary, Augustus, for all to hold fast to this faith as divine and apostolic, and for no one to shift it by persuasive arguments and word-battles, which is what the followers of Arius have done, saying that the Son of God is from nothing, and that there was a time when he was not, and that he is created, a thing made, and changeable. For this reason, as I said before, the council at Nicaea anathematized that heresy and confessed the faith of the truth. They did not simply say that the Son is like the Father, so that he would not be believed to be merely like God but true God from God; rather, they wrote 'of one being,' which is proper to a genuine and true Son, true and by nature from the Father. Nor did they alienate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but rather glorified it with the Father and the Son in the one faith of the Holy Trinity, because there is one divinity in the Holy Trinity.