And in the life eternal.
(c) Epiphanius, Ancoratus, chs. 119 f. (MSG, 43:252.) Cf. Hahn, § 125.
Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, was the most important of the hereseologists of the Fathers, gathering to form his work on heresies some scores of heterodox systems of teachings. His passion for orthodoxy was taken advantage of by Theophilus of Antioch to cause trouble for Chrysostom and others; see Origenistic controversy, [§ 87]. The Ancoratus, from which the following creed is taken, is a statement of the Catholic faith which, amidst the storms of the Arian controversy, should serve as an anchor of salvation for the Christians. The date of the following creed, which has come to be known as the Salaminium, is 374. It is evidently based upon that of Jerusalem given by Cyril.
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, that is, of the substance of the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance [homoousios] with the Father; by whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered [pg 356] and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets; and in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
But those who say there was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten, or He was made of nothing, or of another substance or essence [hypostasis or ousia], saying that the Son of God is effluent or variable—these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.
Chapter IV. The Empire And The Imperial State Church
In the period extending from the accession of Constantine (311 or 324) to the death of Theodosius the Great (395), the characteristic features of the Church's organization took definite form, and its relations to the secular authorities and the social order of the Empire were defined. Its constitution with its hierarchical organization of clergy, of courts, and synods, together with its intimate union, at least in the East, with the imperial authority, became fixed ([§ 72]). As the Church of the Empire, it was under the control and patronage of the State; all other forms of religion, whether pagan or Christian, schismatical or heretical, were severely repressed ([§ 73]). The Christian clergy, as officials in this State Church, became a class by themselves in the society of the Empire, not only as the recipients of privileges, but as having special functions in the administration of justice, and eventually in the superintendence of secular officials and secular business ([§ 74]). By degrees the Christian spirit influenced the spirit of the [pg 357] laws and the popular customs, though less than at first sight might have been expected; the rigors of slavery were mitigated and cruel gladiatorial sports abandoned ([§ 75]). Meanwhile popular piety was by no means raised by the influx of vast numbers of heathen into the Church; bringing with them no little of their previous modes of thought and feeling, and lacking the testing of faith and character furnished by the persecutions, they lowered the general moral tone of the Church, so that Christians everywhere were affected by these alien ideas and feelings ([§ 76]). The Church, however, endeavored to raise the moral tone and ideals and to work effectively in society by care for the poor and other works of benevolence, and in its regulation of marriage, which began in this period to be a favorite subject of legislation for the Church's councils ([§ 76]). In monasticism this striving against the lowering forces in Christian society and for a higher type of life most clearly manifested itself, and, beginning in Egypt, organized forms of asceticism spread throughout the East and toward the end of the period to the West as well ([§ 78]). But monasticism was not confined to the private ascetic. The priesthood, as necessarily presenting an example of higher moral life, began to be touched by the ascetic spirit, and in the West this took the form of enforced clerical celibacy, though the custom of the East remained far less rigorous ([§ 79]). In presenting these lines of development, it is at times convenient to pass beyond the exact bounds of the period, so that the whole subject may be brought together at this point of the history.