Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book II/Chapter 18
Chapter XVIII.—The Emperor of the West requests his Brother to send him Three Persons who could give an Account of the Deposition of Athanasius and Paul. Those who are sent publish Another Form of the Creed.
When the Western emperor[1]
was informed of their affairs, he sympathized with their sufferings;
and wrote to his brother [Constantius], begging him to send three
bishops who should explain to him the reason for the deposition of
Athanasius and Paul. In compliance with this request, Narcissus the
Cilician, Theodore the Thracian, Maris of Chalcedon, and Mark the
Syrian, were deputed to execute this commission; who on their arrival
refused to hold any communication with Athanasius or his friends, but
suppressing the creed which had been promulgated at Antioch, presented
to the Emperor Constans another declaration of faith composed by
themselves, in the following terms:
Another Exposition of the Faith.
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Maker of all things, of whom the whole family in heaven and upon earth is named;[2]
and in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten
of the Father before all ages; God of God; Light of Light; through whom
all things in the heavens and upon the earth, both visible and
invisible, were made: who is the Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Life,
and true Light: who in the last days for our sake was made man, and was
born of the holy virgin; was crucified, and died; was buried, arose
again from the dead on the third day, ascended into the heavens, is
seated at the right hand of the Father, and shall come at the
consummation of the ages, to judge the living and the dead, and to
render to every one according to his works: whose kingdom being
perpetual, shall continue to infinite ages; for he shall sit at the
right hand of the Father, not only in this age, but also in that which
is to come. [We believe] in the Holy Spirit, that is, in the Comforter,
whom the Lord, according to his promise, sent to his apostles after his
ascension into the heavens, to teach them, and bring all things to
their remembrance: by whom also the souls of those who have sincerely
believed on him shall be sanctified; and those who assert that the Son
was made of things which are not, or of another substance, and not of
God, or that there was a time when he did not exist, the Catholic
Church accounts as aliens.
Having delivered this creed to the emperor, and exhibited it to many others also, they departed without attending to anything besides. But while there was yet an inseparable communion between the Western and Eastern churches, there sprang up another heresy at Sirmium, a city of Illyricum; for Photinus, who presided over the churches in that district, a native of the Lesser Galatia, and a disciple of that Marcellus who had been deposed, adopting his master’s sentiments, asserted that the Son of God was a mere man. We shall, however, enter into this matter more fully in its proper place.[3]