10. You remember that in the
Blasphemia, lately written at Sirmium, the object of the authors
was to proclaim the Father to be the one and only God of all things,
and deny the Son to be God: and while they determined that men
should hold their peace about ὁμοούσιον and
ὁμοιούσιον,
they determined that God the Son should be asserted to be born not of
God the Father, but of nothing, as the first creatures were, or of
another essence than God, as the later creatures. And further
that in saying the Father was greater in honour, dignity, splendour and
majesty, they implied that the Son lacked those things which constitute
the Father’s superiority. Lastly, that while it is affirmed
that His birth is unknowable, we were commanded by this Compulsory
Ignorance Act not to know that He is of God: just as if it could
be commanded or decreed that a man should know what in future he is to
be ignorant of, or be ignorant of what he already knows. I have
subjoined in full this pestilent and godless blasphemy, though against
my will, to facilitate a more complete knowledge of the worth and
reason of the replies made on the opposite side by those Easterns who
endeavoured to counteract all the wiles of the heretics according to
their understanding and comprehension.