3. Consider well, my excellent friend, that
the falsifiers of the truth, who have introduced the Arian schism as an
innovation on the sound faith of the Fathers, advance no other reason
for refusing to accept the pious opinion of the Fathers than the
meaning of the homoousion which they hold in their wickedness, and to
the slander of the whole faith, alleging our contention to be that the
Son is consubstantial in hypostasis. If we give them any
opportunity by our being carried away by men who propound these
sentiments and their like, rather from simplicity than from
malevolence, there is nothing to prevent our giving them an
unanswerable ground of argument against ourselves and confirming the
heresy of those whose one end is in all their utterances about the
Church, not so much to establish their own position as to calumniate
mine. What more serious calumny could there be? What better
calculated to disturb the faith of the majority than that some of us
could be shewn to assert that there is one hypostasis of Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost? We distinctly lay down that there is a difference
of Persons; but this statement was anticipated by Sabellius, who
affirms that God is one by hypostasis, but is described by Scripture in
different Persons, according to the requirements of each individual
case; sometimes under the name of Father, when there is occasion for
this Person; sometimes under the name of Son when there is a descent to
human interests or any of the operations of the
œconomy; Vide
notes, pp. 7 and 12. On Sabellius, cf. note on
Letter ccxxxvi. and sometimes
under the Person of Spirit when the occasion demands such
phraseology. If, then, any among us are shewn to assert that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in substance, τὸ
ὑποκείμενον. while we maintain the three perfect
Persons, how shall we escape giving clear and incontrovertible proof
of the truth of what is being asserted about us?