Epistle Constantine written against Eusebius & Theognis, Constantine saith that the Apud Gelasium de Actis Nicæn. Concil. par. 3.Christ the son of God the framer of all things, & giver of immortality was begotten, in respect of the faith in wchwhich we beleive: he was begotten, (or rather he came out, since he was always in the father,) to set in order those things wchwhich were made by him.

Arius & those with him in their Epistle wchwhich they sent to Alexander in the beginning of the Arian controversy before the meeting of the council of Nice, wrote thus. The Son is not a being wchwhich first existed & was afterwards begotten or formed into a man son; for your self, o blessed father, in the middle of the Church & in the session [of the Presbytery] have often confuted them who affirmed these things. And a little after: But if this,saying I came out of him from him, & out of the womb, & out from the father be understood by some as a consubstantial part or an emission: the Father will be compounded & divisible & mutable, & also a body according to those men, & so far as they can effect, the incorporeal father will suffer those things which are proper to bodies. But Alexander rejects therefore, as I find by his Epistles, for avoiding these difficulties allowed no other generation of the son of God then what was from all eternity affirming that the father was always a father & the son was always a natural son always coexisting with yethe father f by a generation wthoutwithout beginning & coequal to him in all things except the paternity, & uncapable of mutation. And they that opposed Alexander relpied that the according to this opinion the son was unbegotten ἀγενετος unbegotten meaning that the necessary & eternal existence by the necessity of nature of the father understanding & wisdom of the λογος ενδιαθετος was no generation. And this is the first instance that I meet wthwith of calling the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος of the Father the son a the father the natural son of the father by an eternal generation. For had the opinion been older the objection against it would also have been older, namely that it amounted made the son unbegotten & so amounted to a denyal of the father & the son.

But while the Council of Nice declared in their Creed that the son was begotten of the father before all worlds & ages out of the substance of the father, & called him consubstantial, wchwhich word properly signifies a substance derived from a prior former substance & anathematized them that said that before he was begotten he was not, & called him consubstantiall wchwhich word signifies a substance derived from a former substance, they seem to have established the opinion of Constantine the Emperor rather then that of Alexander.

About 22 years after the Council of Nice But that of Alexander got ground in Egypt & the west For the western bishops & those of Egypt about 22 years after meeting at Serdica, & in there in their general epistle wchwhich they sent to all the Churches to all the Churches as it is recited entire by Sozomen, they established the opinion of Alexander, excepting that Alexander made the father & son two hypos (or God & his wisdome) two hypostases & the Council of Serdica made them but one. Si quærant, say they, quænam sit hypostates filij, profitemur eam esse quæ esse omnium consensu sola est patris. And a little after Confitemur, say they, filium esse virtutem esse Patris. Confitemur illum esse λόγον Verbum Dei patris præter quod nullum est aliud: & Verbum verum Deum et sapientiam et virtutem esse. Verum autem filium esse tradimus, non sicut alij filij filij appelantur. Nam hi quidem aut regenerationis causa Dij dicuntur, aut eo quod digni habiti fuerunt filij nuncupantur: non autem ob unam substantiam quæ est Patris et Filij. Eundem confitemur unigenitum esse et primogemitum. Sed unigenitum quidem Verbum quod semper fuit et est in Patre primogenitum verò ob humanam naturam. Præcellit tamen nova creatione quia primogenitus est ex mortuis. Nec quisquam neget. The Council of Sirmium about four years after these things (A.C. 351) in condemning Photinus & anathematizing his opinions Confitemur unum esse Deum patrem unamqꝫque esse Patris et Filij deitatem. Nec quisquam negat Patrem filio majorem esse, non propter aliam hypostasin aut aliam differentiam, sed quia ipsum Patris nomen majus est vocabulo filij. And henceforward the opinion that the son was generated a little before the creation, began to vanish in the west & in Egypt & to be succeeded by the opinion that of his eternal generation.

Four years after the writing of these letters vizt A.C. 351 the Council of Sirmium in anathematizing his erroneous condemning Photinus & anathematizing declaring against his erroneous opinionionopinion, anathematized those who should say that the innascible God or any part of him was born of the Virgin or that the substance of God is contracted or dilated, or that or by dilatation made the son, or that ἐνδιάθετος οὐκ προφορικὸς λόγος ἐνδιάθετος the inherent or prolatitious word of God is the Son of God. And the decrees of this Council being universally received without opposition put an end to the opinions that the son was the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος or προφορικὸς of the father or any part of him & some time before the creation of the world, came out of the father him either as an emitted or a projected or dilated part of him, or an emitted as a word voice or power emitted or spoken or emitted. For the most zealous of those who contended for the coeternity & coequality of the Son to the father, submis submitted to the decrees of this Council even Hilary as you may see in his comment on the ☉ ☉ definitions of faith made by this Council, & Athanasius himself as you may see in in his Exposition of Faith, Athanasius himself as you may see by a Creed of his written the tomes after the reign of Constantius as I gather by his calling the father son & holy ghost three undivided hypostases, & usually printed with his works. For in this Creed he Exposition he saith of the son: Vide Tom 5. p. 99. Edit. Paris. 1699. Credo in unum unigenitum Verbum, Sapientiam, Filium, ex Patre sine initio et ab æternitate genitum & sine λόγον δὲ οὐ προφορικὸν, οὐκ ἐνδιάθετον, οὐκ ἀπό᾽ρρ῾οιαν τοῦ τεγείου Verbum οὐ τμῆσιν τῆς απαθοῦς φύσεως οὔτε προβοβλὴν Verbum vero non prolatitium, non insitum, non effluxum perfecti, nec sectionem impassibilis naturæ neqꝫque projectionem.

The Council of Nice in decreeing the son to be ὁμοούσιος consubstantial to the father, understood that the father & son were two substances. For so the word ὁμοούσιος implies. But Hosius who aa Athanas published the Nicene Creed translated it unius substantiæ, & this translation being misunderstood by gave occasion to some of the Latins to take the father & son for one single substance, & to the Greeks of this opinion to translate unius substantiæ by μιᾶς οὐσίας and μιᾶς ὑποστάσεως & to the western bishops in the Council of Serdica to declare that μίαν εἶναι ὑπόστασιν ῆν ἀντὸι ἀιρετικὸι οὐσίαν προσαγορεύουσιν, τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος,, that there is but one hypostasis of the father w of the father & son & holy Ghost: wchwhich hypostasis In the