A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

330 A Source Book for Ancient Church History(b) Alexander of Alexandria. Ep. ad Alexandrum, in Theodoret,Hist. Ec., I, 3. (MSG, 88:904.)A statement of the position of Alexander made to Alexander,bishop of Constantinople.[301]This extract is to be found at the end of the letter; it is evidentlybased upon the creed which is reproduced with somewhat freeglosses. The omissions in the extract are of the less importantglosses and proof-texts. For the position of Alexander theletter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia given below (c)should also be examined.We believe as the Apostolic Church teaches, In one unbegottenFather, who of His being has no cause, immutable and invariable,and who subsists always in one state of being, admittingneither of progression nor diminution; who gave the law andthe prophets and the Gospel; of patriarchs and Apostles and allsaints, Lord; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begottenSon of God, begotten not out of that which is not, but of theFather, who is; yet not after the manner of material bodies, byseverance or emanation, as Sabellius and Valentinus taught, butin an inexpressible and inexplicable manner.… We have learnedthat the Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient andperfect, like the Father, lacking only His “unbegottenness.” Heis the exact and precisely similar image of His Father.… Andin accordance with this we believe that the Son always existedof the Father.… Therefore His own individual dignity must bereserved to the Father as the Unbegotten One, no one being calledthe cause of His existence: to the Son, likewise, must be giventhe honor which befits Him, there being to Him a generationfrom the Father which has no beginning.… And in addition tothis pious belief respecting the Father and the Son, we confess asthe sacred Scriptures teach us, one Holy Spirit, who moved thesaints of the Old Testament, and the divine teachers of that which