6. Now this is the declaration of our Faith, that we say that God is One, neither dividing His Son from Him, as do the heathen, Lit. “the nations”—gentes, τὰ ἔθνη. The Romans of the Republic used to speak of foreign peoples—especially if subject to kings—as gentes exteræ, in contradistinction to the Populus Romanus. St. Ambrose of course means those who still clung to the ancient religions, who were foreigners to the commonwealth (res publica) of the Church. nor denying, with the Jews, that He was begotten of the Father before all worlds, The original is ante tempora—“before the ages”—“before time was.” Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6; Phil. ii. 6–8; Col. i. 15 (πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως—“first-born of all creation,” which Justin Martyr interprets as meaning πρὸ πὰντων τῶν κτισμάτων—“before all created things.”) Hebrews i. 1–12; Rev. i. 8, 18; John i. 1–3. Justin Martyr, Apology, II. 6; Dialogue with Tryphon, 61. Tempora answers to the Greek αἰῶνες, rendered “worlds” in Heb. i. 2. and afterwards born of the Virgin; nor yet, like Sabellius, Sabellius was a presbyter in the Libyan Pentapolis (Barca), who came to Rome and there ventilated his heretical teaching, early in the third century, a.d. (about 210). He appears to have maintained that there was no real distinction of Persons in the Godhead. God, he said, was one individual Person: when different divine Persons were spoken of, no more was meant than different aspects of, or the assumption of different parts by, the same subject. Sabellius thus started from the ordinary usages of the term πρόσωπον as denoting (1) a mask, (2) a character or part in a drama. The Latin persona was used in the same way. Sabellianism never counted many adherents; its professors were called Patripassians, because their doctrine was tantamount to asserting that God the Father was crucified. confounding the Father with the Word, and so maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same Person; nor again, as doth Photinus, Photinus was a Galatian, who became Bishop of Sirmium (Mitrovitz in Slavonia) in the fourth century. He taught that Jesus Christ did not exist before His mother Mary, but was begotten of her by Joseph. The man Jesus, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, was enlightened and guided by the influence of the Logos, or Divine Reason, whereby He became the Son of God, preeminent over all other prophets and teachers. holding that the Son first came into existence in the Virgin’s womb: nor believing, with Arius, Arius was a presbyter of Alexandria; the origin of his heresy, however, is, as Cardinal Newman has shown, to be sought in Syria rather than in Egypt, in the sophistic method of the Antiochene schools more than in the mysticism of the Alexandrian. It was in the year 319 that Arius began to attract attention by his heterodox teaching, which led eventually to his excommunication. He found favour, however, with men of considerable importance in the Church, such as Eusebius of Cæsarea in Palestine, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Athanasius of Anazarbus, and others. The question was finally discussed in a synod of bishops convened, on the summons of the Emperor Constantine, at Nicæa in Bithynia. The acts of that Council condemned Arianism—notwithstanding which, the heresy prevailed in the East till the reign of Theodosius the Great (379–395 a.d.); and having won the acceptance of the Goths, it was predominant in Gaul and Italy during the fifth century, and in Spain till the Council of Toledo (589 a.d.), and its influence affected Christian thought for centuries afterwards—possibly it is not even yet dead. Arius urged the following dilemma: “Either the Son is an original Divine Essence; if so we must acknowledge two Gods. Or He was created, formed, begotten; if so, He is not God in the same sense as the Father is God.” Arius himself chose the latter alternative, which St. Ambrose regarded as a lapse into paganism, with its “gods many and lords many,” dii majores and dii minores, and divinities begotten of gods and goddesses. Arius’s errors are summarized in the anathema appended to the original Nicene Creed. “But those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that He had no existence before He was begotten, or that He was formed of things non-existent, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different substance or essence, or is created, mutable, or variable, these men the Catholic and Apostolic Church of God holds accursed.” in a number of diverse Powers, Compare Eph. i. 21; Col. i. 16. Hierarchies of “Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,” were characteristic features of the Gnostic systems of the second century. The Gnostics generally thought that the world had been created by an inferior, secondary, limitary power, identified with the God of the Old Testament, whom they distinguished from the true Supreme God. and so, like the benighted heathen, making out more than one God. For it is written: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.” The A.V. of 1611 runs thus: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” (Jahveh our God is one Jahveh).