Tomus ad Antiochenos
Among Constantine's successors, it was above all Constantius II, the first emperor in the East and from 353 sole ruler of the entire empire, who sought new compromise formulas, distancing himself from the Nicene Confession, which led, among other things, to the banishment of the uncompromising Athanasius and the implementation of the so-called Homoousian imperial dogma in the early 360s.
[9] On the other hand, there was a larger community around Bishop Meletius, who held a Homoean creed and thus the Eastern Origenist doctrine of the three hypostases.
An understanding with the third group around Bishop Euzoius, a close friend of Arius and representative of the Homoean imperial dogma, was out of the question from the beginning.
[11] The Tomus is a written mediation proposal by Athanasius on behalf of the participants in the Synod of Alexandria (362) to a five-member commission of bishops who were working to resolve the "Antiochian" or "Meletian" schism.
[12] Eusebius of Vercelli and Lucifer of Calaris, Cymatius of Paltus, Asterius of Petra, and Anatolius of Euboea, both otherwise unknown, are named (Tom pr., "Introduction").
The title Tomus ad Antiochenos is not entirely accurate; the letter was addressed only indirectly to the communities of Antioch through the episcopal commission.
[13] With particular reference to the situation in Antioch, the letter deals with the Christians' desire for peace, the unity of the Church and the rejection of Arianism, the Nicene Creed and its meaning and the question of whether it needs to be supplemented, the question of one or three hypostases in the doctrine of the Trinity, the human nature of Christ and the difficulties involved, and the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
The explicit dissociation from Sabellianism in the Tomus ad Antiochenos was also intended to rid the Nicene Confession of any modalistic "taint".
The dispute remains as to whether to speak of the one hypostasis of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the West did after the Council of Nicea, or of three hypostases, as the East did after Origen.
In a fictional dialogue in the Tomus, supporters of the three-hypostasis position were asked whether they did not perhaps understand it in an Arian way: "(The hypostases) are a strange and estranged thing, different from one another;[17] or in a tritheistic sense, "as other heretics speak of three powers and three gods" (Tom 5,3).
They did not see this as compromising their commitment to the unity of God; on the contrary, the Tomus reports that they subscribed to the Nicene formula that the Son is "of the same nature as the Father" (homousios) (Tom 5:4).
In doing so, they also express the anti-modalist concern that had already guided Origen in his formulation of the "immanent" and gradated Trinity of Father and Son existing in God, both united in unity by the harmony and identity of the will, and of the Holy Spirit, and which was certainly shared by Western Roman theology in the tradition of Tertullian.
[19] Conversely, the representatives of the Nicene doctrine of the one hypostasis were asked in a fictitious dialogue whether they did not understand it in the sense of Sabellius, i.e., modalistically.
Beyond the Trinitarian theological issues, the Tomus takes up the Christological question of the human nature of Christ in a comparatively short section in a rather simple way.
After the arrival of the Tomus in Antioch, Paulinus testified in an approving text, including his signature, that he accepted the statements made in it, especially the way of speaking of the three hypostases, which he had previously rejected.
[27] The Antiochian schism is said to have persisted primarily because of differences in church policy: Lucifer of Calaris is said to have consecrated Paulinus as bishop before the episcopal commission could begin its mediation.
Moreover, Athanasius immediately recognized his old Nicene companion Paulinus as bishop and wanted to see the united Antiochian community under his leadership, not that of Meletius.
[30] Even if the immediate concern of an ecclesial community in Antioch failed, the "liquefaction of entrenched argumentative strategies ... released considerable theological creativity in the long run.
Athanasius and the Synod of Alexandria had realized that there could be not one, but several theological doctrines and Trinitarian language options based on the Nicene Creed.
[33] Since 2006, a critical edition of the Greek text of the Tomus ad Antiochenos has been available with an introduction that reflects the current state of research.
Innocent of Maronea, Severus of Antioch, Timotheus Aelurus, and the Armenian Seal of Faith all contain an excerpt from Tom 7, 2–3.
[26] Paulinus' assent is otherwise preserved in isolation in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, a work refuting eighty heretical doctrinal systems.
The context suggests that Epiphanius did not have this statement as part of the Tomus ad Antiochenos, but as a separate document, so his version should be considered an independent textual witness.
[48] In the 1930s, Hans-Georg Opitz worked on the second and third volumes of the critical edition of the writings of Athanasius on behalf of the Church Fathers Commission of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
[50] As part of a working group at the University of Erlangen and on behalf of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Brennecke was able to complete the edition of Volume II in 2006.
An English translation was made by W. Bright, Later Treatises of St. Athanasius, Oxford 1881 (volume 46 of the series Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church).
In the series A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (reprint Grand Rapids 1980–1991) an English translation was published by H. Ellershaw (vol.
[56] Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina[57] and Changseon Yeum[58] also offer a German translation of the Tomus ad Antiochenos as part of the secondary literature on church history.
