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A43990
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An historical narration concerning heresie and the punishment thereof by Thomas Hobbes.
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Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing H2238; ESTC R30774
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11,947
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20
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of St. Thomas My Lord and my God This Controversie presently amongst the Inhabitants and Souldiers of Alexandria became a Quarrel and was the cause of much Bloudshed in and about the City and was likely then to spread further as afterwards it did This so far concerned the Emperours Civil Government that he thought it necessary to call a General Council of all the Bishops and other eminent Divines throughout the Roman Empire to meet at the City of Nice When they were assembled they presented the Emperour with Libels of Accusation one against another When he had received these Libels into his hands he made an Oration to the Fathers assembled exhorting them to agree and to fall in hand with the settlement of the Articles of Faith for which cause he had assembled them saying Whatsoever they should decree therein he would cause to be observed This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency than would in these days be approved of But so it is in the History and the Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome When Constantine had ended his Oration he caused the aforesaid Libels to be cast into the fire as became a wise King and a charitable Christian. This done the Fathers fell in hand with their business and following the method of a former Creed called now The Apostles Creed made a Confession of Faith viz. I believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible in which is condemned the Polytheism of the Gentiles And in one Lord Iesus Christ the onely begotten Son of God against the many sons of the many gods of the Heathen Begotten of his Father before all worlds God of God against the Arians Uery God of very God against the Valentinians and against the Heresie of Apelles and others who made Christ a meer Phantasm Light of Light This was put in for explication and used before to that purpose by Tertullian Begotten not made being of one substance with the Father In this again they condemn the Doctrine of Arius for this word Of one substance in Latine Consubstantialis but in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Of one Essence was put as a Touchstone to discern an Arian from a Catholick And much ado there was about it Constantine himself at the passing of this Creed took notice of it for a hard word but yet approved of it saying That in a divine Mystery it was fit to use divina arcana Verba that is divine words and hidden from humane understanding calling that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divine not because it was in the divine Scripture for it is not there but because it was to him Arcanum that is not sufficiently understood And in this again appeared the indifferency of the Emperour and that he had for his end in the calling of the Synod not so much the Truth as the Uniformity of the Doctrine and peace of his People that depended on it The cause of the obscurity of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman Dialect in the Philosophy of the Peripateticks The first Principle of Religion in all Nations is That God is that is to say that God really is Something and not a meer fancy but that which is really something is considerable alone by it self as being somewhere In which sence a man is a thing real for I can consider him to be without considering any other thing to be besides him And for the same reason the Earth the Air the Stars Heaven and their parts are all of them things real And because whatsoever is real here or there or in any place has Dimensions that is to say Magnitude and that which hath Magnitude whether it be visible or invisible is called by all the Learned a Body if it be finite and Body or Corporeal if it be infinite it followeth that all real things in that they are somewhere are Corporeal On the contrary Essence Deity Humanity and such-like names signifie nothing that can be considered without first considering there is an Ens a God a Man c. So also if there be any real thing that is white or black hot or cold the same may be considered by it self but whiteness blackness heat coldness cannot be considered unless it be first supposed that there is some real thing to which they are attributed These real things are called by the Latine Philosophers Entia subjecta substantiae and by the Greek Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other which are Incorporeal are called by the Greek Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but most of the Latine Philosophers use to convert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into substantia and so confound real and corpororeal things with incorporeal which is not well for Essence and substance signifie divers things And this mistake is received and continues still in these parts in all Disputes both of Philosophy and Divinity for in truth Essentia signifies no more than if we should talk ridiculously of the Isness of the thing that Is. By whom all things were made This is proved out of St. John cap. 1. vers 1 2 3. and Heb. cap. 1. vers 3. and that again out of Gen. 1. where God is said to create every thing by his sole Word as when he said Let there be Light and there was Light And then that Christ was that Word and in the beginning with God may be gathered out of divers places of Moses David and other of the Prophets Nor was it ever questioned amongst Christians except by the Arians but that Christ was God Eternal and his Incarnation eternally decreed But the Fathers all that write Expositions on this Creed could not forbear to philosophize upon it and most of them out of the Principles of Aristotle which are the same the School-men now use as may partly appear by this that many of them amongst their Treatises of Religion have affected to publish Logick and Physick Principles according to the sense of Aristotle as Athanasius and Damascene And so some later Divines of Note as Zanchius still confounding the Concret with the Abstract Deus with Deitas Ens with Essentia Sapiens with Sapientia Aeternus with Aeternitas If it be for exact and rigid Truth sake why do they not say also that Holiness is a Holy man Covetousness a Covetous man Hypocrisie an Hypocrite and Drunkenness a Drunkard and the like but that it is an Error The Fathers agree that the Wisdome of God is the eternal Son of God by whom all things were made and that he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost if they meant it in the Abstract For if Deitas abstracted be Deus we make two Gods of one This was well understood by Damascene in his Treatise De Fide Orthodoxâ which is an Exposition of the Nicene