[S. ATHANASIUS — DUBIA]
it is said to fight, not indeed as something immobile or inanimate. For a natural movement of affections is implanted in it, by which it is named "flesh," as A he interpreted it even more clearly in the Epistle to the Romans, explaining the movement that is in the flesh, warring against the mind and suffering in opposition, as it is naturally not the same as the mind, but something entirely different from it: "For I delight," he says, "in the law of God according to the inner man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." This will, or soul, Paul properly called by this name, distinguishing it from the spirit, when he says: "May God sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." In these words, while explaining the spirit, soul, and body as the whole man, and praying that he be sanctified and preserved without blame, he therefore designated the spirit, which was to be sanctified, that is, the human mind. Then he calls the soul the faculty of desiring, and the body the earthly tabernacle; so that according to this distinction, the earth-born man consists of three: the intelligible, the concupiscible, and the corporeal. The will, furthermore, or soul, which is the concupiscible faculty, is united both to the mind and to the human body. Therefore, when the power of understanding grows strong, the whole man becomes intellectual, although he is entangled in carnal desires, according to the manifest dissension and battle that is in man—the rational faculty with the irrational—not indeed as the one dominating, but as the one suffering domination. But the mind is called principal, C inasmuch as it is the prince and leader of the animal body. Therefore man, according to the principality of the mind, is a partaker of divinity, since he is an intellectual animal; and for this reason he says: "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
ADMONITION ON THE CATHOLIC EPISTLE
This Epistle is not found in the ancient collections of the works of Athanasius, and we doubt whether it is a genuine work of Athanasius; for some modes of expression are found here that are not used in the true works of Athanasius, although the occasion to use them presented itself to him six hundred times; for example, the style is also more relaxed than that of Athanasius. In the title even, certain signs occur: the word *vox* [written in Greek in the original] is never used by Athanasius, who is accustomed everywhere to call fellow-bishops *sulleitourgoi* [co-ministers]. Likewise, the names of provinces are fewer than those that are usually inserted into a Catholic Epistle that is encyclical. Furthermore, Athanasius is accustomed to narrate events in his epistles more fully and clearly than they are set forth here. For this reason, it has seemed best to relegate it among the doubtful works.
CATHOLIC EPISTLE OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS
A To all the brethren in every place who contend for the faith and salvation, and to the orthodox bishops in Egypt, Syria, Cilicia, Phoenicia, and Arabia, Athanasius and the fellow-bishops send greeting in the Lord.
As many of you as see impiety raising itself against piety, through manifest empty words, and through deceitful pretenses, and dissensions, and unseemly disturbances, and blows, and wounds, and murders, you ought to flee, as if from a tempest to a harbor, and seek to save yourselves; neither mingling with the impiety of those who deny the one and true divinity of the holy Trinity, and alienate the Son from the Father, and separate the Spirit from the Son, nor mixing in their confusions and bloodguiltiness. For so do we also seek to save ourselves and those who obey us, and for a long time now we have been refuting the manifest impiety of Arius and the hypocrisy of them who seduce the simpler ones with fabricated phrases; and we separate ourselves from all their disorder, mourning for what they do, because they cause the good name to be blasphemed, and we desire that the law of faith and of seemly conduct may be preserved in us and in those with us. B Therefore we exhort you also, as many of you as have already made the same stand, and as many as have not yet risen up to this zeal. Or have you not perceived how through these things Christianity is being destroyed, and how the devil, under a deceitful guise, is warring against the Church and sinking her like a ship? But if you also wish to write to us and communicate concerning such things, we shall gladly receive your unanimity and harmony, brethren, and your communion of prayers, even if we are separated in place; making known to you that, even if the contagion of this corruption has now for a long time been spreading, yet still it remains in the greatest part of the peoples, and in the greatest part of the bishops, that the good of the apostolic faith is preserved; even though some hold the people by force and with other phrases C for the sake of the glory, and what they really think they hide, and what they do not think they profess to believe.
For if they were not preoccupied by these passions, and recognized the truth simply stated in these few words—namely, that God and the Son of God cannot be a thing made by God, nor is the Holy Spirit numbered among made things—they would also have accepted the advent of God, and not A a visit from a creature; nor would we have believed in the advent of a servant, but we would have accepted the grace of the divine Spirit, through whom we are also made gods and become temples of God. For these things, even though stated thus briefly, are manifest to every Christian, as we, adhering to the exact truth from the beginning, await eternal hope. Therefore, the Symbol of our faith is B the consubstantial Trinity; and let him who does not agree that God is not composed be anathema. For this is what the document of the great synod of Nicaea intends: that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and that the Spirit is glorified together with the Father and the Son, that the true Son of God was made flesh, suffered, rose again, ascended into heaven, and will come as judge of the living and the dead; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
ADMONITION REGARDING THE REFUTATION OF THE HYPOCRISY OF MELETIUS, ETC.
I. In the interpretation of Nannius, the title reads: *Refutation against the hypocrisy of Meletius, Eusebius, and Paul of Samosata*. Indeed, he followed a corrupted English codex—or rather, by a slip of some scribe, it was placed first, as read in the earlier editions. Hence, another amanuensis, deeming that Samosatene to be Paul the heresiarch, rashly inserted it, as it appears in the English codex. But that it should be read as it is in almost all the manuscripts, and as is clear from the correct sequence of history, is certain. For that the letter of Meletius, Eusebius of Samosata, and the other bishops gathered at Antioch to the Emperor Jovian, written in the year 363, is here being criticized will be ambiguous to no one who inspects that letter in Socrates: a part of which it has seemed good to set down here: "We admit and hold the faith of the holy synod formerly gathered at Nicaea; since the term which seems novel to some in it, namely 'consubstantial,' has received a safe interpretation from the Fathers, signifying that the Son was begotten from the substance of the Father, and that he is like the Father in substance; and neither is any passion conceived concerning that ineffable generation, nor is the name of 'substance' taken by the Fathers in any Greek usage, but for the overturning of the statement, 'From things that are not.'" These words, truly Catholic as they are, so that no one can deny it, that writer tries in vain to twist toward a suspicious and depraved sense. This is indeed the reason why it is ascribed by learned men to Paulinus, who then occupied part of the Church of Antioch, or to some one of his followers. Which is quite likely to be true, since it is otherwise certain that the Paulinians were torn away from the communion of Meletius because they held his faith to be suspect.
II. Whoever, however, may be the author of this little work, he does not seem to be Athanasius; since he approves this doctrine in the book *De Synodis*, no. 41, where he clearly implies that the word—which the editor of this little work attacks—is pious, yet not sufficient to explain Christ's generation, for which reason it is necessary to add the word...
REFUTATION OF THE HYPOCRISY OF MELETIUS AND OF EUSEBIUS OF SAMOSATA, AGAINST THE CONSUBSTANTIALITY
A Man was made to the likeness of God, yet man is not God; for that which is like to something is by no means that very thing to which it is like. Thus, for example, the kingdom of heaven is like a net and a seed, yet the kingdom of heaven is none of these things; and one who is instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is a householder, yet he is by no means the householder himself, and there are many other such instances. Likewise in bodies, a wolf is like a dog, yet it is not a dog; tin is like silver, yet it is not silver; brass is like gold, yet it is not gold; scarlet is like blood, yet it is not blood; and gypsum is like snow, yet it is not snow; and other various things of this sort may be observed. Therefore, the Son is by no means merely “like” to God, seeing as He is God; rather, they are one, as it is written: “I and the Father are one.” And He interpreted “deity” as the unity; not, however, a deity such as that of those who have been made gods—for indeed, He contrasts this with that, as the utterance of the Lord holds. For He is God, not as B man who was made to the likeness of God and is called God by likeness, not by nature; he indeed has an essence that has been rendered similar to God, in which likeness he admits of progress, according to which nature we are already “children of God,” and “if He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” But where the essence is the same, no essence progresses toward something more or less, but man...