After Peter, who was bishop of Alexandria, had suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, Achillas succeeded to the episcopal office, and after Achillas, Alexander succeeded in the period of peace above referred to. Conducting himself fearlessly, he united the Church. By chance, one day, in the presence of the presbyters and the rest of his clergy, he was discussing too ambitiously the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, teaching that there was a unity in the Trinity. But Arius, one of the presbyters under his jurisdiction, a man of no inconsiderable logical acumen, imagining that the bishop was subtly introducing the doctrine of Sabellius the Libyan, from the love of controversy took the opposite opinion to that of the Libyan, and, as he thought, vigorously responded to the things said by the bishop. “If,” said he, “the Father begat the Son, He that was begotten had a beginning of existence; and from this it is evident that there was a time when the Son was not. It follows necessarily that He had His subsistence [hypostasis] from nothing.”
(b) Alexander of Alexandria. Ep. ad Alexandrum, in Theodoret, Hist. Ec., I, 3. (MSG, 88:904.)
A statement of the position of Alexander made to Alexander, bishop of Constantinople.
This extract is to be found at the end of the letter; it is evidently based upon the creed which is reproduced with somewhat free glosses. The omissions in the extract are of the less important glosses and proof-texts. [pg 301] For the position of Alexander the letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia given below ([c]) should also be examined.
We believe as the Apostolic Church teaches, In one unbegotten Father, who of His being has no cause, immutable and invariable, and who subsists always in one state of being, admitting neither of progression nor diminution; who gave the law and the prophets and the Gospel; of patriarchs and Apostles and all saints, Lord; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten not out of that which is not, but of the Father, who is; yet not after the manner of material bodies, by severance or emanation, as Sabellius and Valentinus taught, but in an inexpressible and inexplicable manner.… We have learned that the Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient and perfect, like the Father, lacking only His “unbegottenness.” He is the exact and precisely similar image of His Father.… And in accordance with this we believe that the Son always existed of the Father.… Therefore His own individual dignity must be reserved to the Father as the Unbegotten One, no one being called the cause of His existence: to the Son, likewise, must be given the honor which befits Him, there being to Him a generation from the Father which has no beginning.… And in addition to this pious belief respecting the Father and the Son, we confess as the sacred Scriptures teach us, one Holy Spirit, who moved the saints of the Old Testament, and the divine teachers of that which is called the New. We believe in one and only Catholic and Apostolic Church, which can never be destroyed even though all the world were to take counsel to fight against it, and which gains the victory over all the impious attacks of the heterodox.… After this we receive the resurrection from the dead, of which Jesus Christ our Lord became the first-fruits; who bore a body, in truth, not in semblance, derived from Mary, the mother of God [theotokos] in the fulness of time sojourning among the race, for the remission of sins: who was crucified and died, yet for all this suffered no diminution of His Godhead. He rose from [pg 302] the dead, was taken into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
(c) Arius, Ep. ad Eusebium, in Theodoret, Hist. Ec., I, 4. (MSG, 88:909.)
A statement in the words of Arius of his own position and that of Alexander addressed to Eusebius of Nicomedia.
To his very dear lord, the man of God, the faithful and orthodox Eusebius, Arius unjustly persecuted by Alexander the Pope, on account of that all-conquering truth of which you are also the champion, sendeth greeting in the Lord.