to a creature, and we would be foreign to the divine nature, as having nothing in
common with it...But if by participation in the Spirit we are made partakers in the
divine nature, it is insanity for anyone to say that the Spirit has a created nature
and not the nature of God.”
Letter on the Councils of Rimini and Seleucia (361-362 AD):
5
“Without prefixing Consulate, month, and day, (the Fathers) wrote concerning
Easter, ‘It seemed good as follows,’ for it did then seem good that there should be
a general compliance; but about the faith they wrote not, ‘It seemed good,’ but,
‘thus believes the Catholic Church’; and thereupon they confessed how they
believed, in order to show that their own sentiments were not novel, but Apostolic;
and what they wrote down was no discovery of theirs, but is the same as was
taught by the Apostles.”
On the Incarnation of the Word of God Against the Arians (C. 365 AD):
21
“And when (Christ) says, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me;
yet, not My will be done, but Yours’; and ‘the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak,’
He gives evidence therein of two wills, the one human, which is of the flesh, and
the one divine, which is of God. That which is human, because of the weakness of
the flesh, shrinks from suffering. That, however, which is divine, is ready.”
Festal Letter 39 (367 AD):
7
“But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other
books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers
to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of
godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and
Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the
Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being
[merely] read; nor is there in any place a mention of apocryphal writings. But they
are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon
them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as
ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple.”
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