Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

and makes the hypostasis of the three one, 2776 what is this but to deny the everlasting preexistence
of the Only begotten? He denies too the Lord’s sojourn among men in the incarnation,
2777 the going down into hell, the resurrection, the judgment; he denies also the
proper operations of the Spirit. And I hear that even rasher innovations than those of the
foolish Sabellius are now ventured on among you. It is said, and that on the evidence of ear
witnesses, that your clever men go to such an extreme as to say that there is no tradition of
the name of the Only-begotten, while of the name of the adversary there is; and at this they
are highly delighted and elated, as though it were a discovery of their own. For it is said, “I
came in my Father’s name and ye received me not; if another shall come in his own name,
him ye will receive.” 2778 And because it is said, “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” 2779 it is obvious, they
urge, that the name is one, for it is not “in the names,” but “in the name.”
4. I blush so to write to you, for the men thus guilty are of my own blood; 2780 and I
groan for my own soul, in that, like boxers fighting two men at once, I can only give the
truth its proper force by hitting with my proofs, and knocking down, the errors of doctrine
on the right and on the left. On one side I am attacked by the Anomœan: on the other by
the Sabellian. Do not, I implore you, pay any attention to these abominable and impotent
sophisms. Know that the name of Christ which is above every name is His being called Son
of God, as Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby
we must be saved.” 2781 And as to the words “I came in my Father’s name,” it is to be understood
that He so says describing His Father as origin and cause of Himself. 2782 And if it is
said “Go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” we
must not suppose that here one name is delivered to us. For just as he who said Paul and
Silvanus and Timothy mentioned three names, and coupled them one to the other by the
word “and,” so He who spoke of the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, mentioned three,
and united them by the conjunction, teaching that with each name must be understood its
own proper meaning; for the names mean things. And no one gifted with even the smallest
particle of intelligence doubts that the existence belonging to the things is peculiar and
complete in itself. For of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost there is the same nature and one
Godhead; but these are different names, setting forth to a us the circumscription and ex-
2776 cf. note on p. 195.
2777 οἰκονομικήν.
2778 John v. 43. Slightly varied.
2779 Matt. xxviii. 19.
2780 The allusion is supposed to be to Atarbius. cf. Letter lxv.
2781 Acts iv. 12.
2782 cf. De Sp. S. § 44, p. 27.
To the notables of Neocæsarea.
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