On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (De Synodis)

Athanasius of AlexandriaAD 359, with additions after 361

Athanasius’s account, written in exile in 359, of the twin councils held that year in Italy and Isauria. It copies out the creeds drawn up by eastern councils since 341, extracts from Arius’s own writings, and a defence of the Nicene word homoousios.

Athanasius wrote this work while in hiding during his third exile, in the year of the councils it describes. It has three parts: a narrative of the councils of Ariminum and Seleucia; a dossier of the statements of Arius and of the creeds that councils had issued in place of the Nicene one, from Antioch in 341 to Constantinople in 360 (15–30); and an argument addressed to those who accepted the Nicene faith but hesitated over its wording.

The value of the work is in the documents. The extracts from the Thalia of Arius (15) are among the few passages of his own writing to survive, and several of the creeds are preserved here in their earliest form. The selection and the commentary are those of an opponent, whose purpose is to show that the other side could not agree on what it believed.

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