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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 8
4. Are they not then committing a crime, in their very thought to gainsay so great and ecumenical a Council? are they not in transgression, when they dare to confront that good definition against Arianism, acknowledged, as it is, by those who had in the first instance taught them irreligion? And supposing, even after subscription, Eusebius and his fellows did change again, and return like dogs to their own vomit of irreligion, do not the present gain-sayers deserve still greater detestation, because they thus sacrifice [768] their souls' liberty to others; and are willing to take these persons as masters of their heresy, who are, as James [769] has said, double-minded men, and unstable in all their ways, not having one opinion, but changing to and fro, and now recommending certain statements, but soon dishonouring them, and in turn recommending what just now they were blaming? But this, as the Shepherd has said, is "the child of the devil [770] ," and the note of hucksters rather than of doctors. For, what our Fathers have delivered, this is truly doctrine; and this is truly the token of doctors, to confess the same thing with each other, and to vary neither from themselves nor from their fathers; whereas they who have not this character are to be called not true doctors but evil. Thus the Greeks, as not witnessing to the same doctrines, but quarrelling one with another, have no truth of teaching; but the holy and veritable heralds of the truth agree together, and do not differ. For though they lived in different times, yet they one and all tend the same way, being prophets of the one God, and preaching the same Word harmoniously [771] .
[768] propinontes vid. de Syn. S:14.
[769] James i. 8.
[770] Hermas, Mand. ix., who is speaking immediately, as S. James, of wavering in prayer.
[771] Thus S. Basil says the same of the Grecian Sects, "We have not the task of refuting their tenets, for they suffice for the overthrow of each other." Hexaem. i. 2. vid. also Theod. Graec. Affect. i. p. 707. &c. August. Civ. Dei, xviii. 41. and Vincentius's celebrated Commonitorium passim.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=8
