16. How full of irreligion this is, I consider none can doubt who has ever so little under- standing. But since they mutter something about Word and Wisdom being only names of the Son’, we must ask then, If these are only names of the Son, He must be something else beside them. And if He is higher than the names, it is not lawful from the lesser to denote the higher; but if He be less than the names, yet He surely must have in Him the principle of this more honourable appellation; and this implies his advance, which is an irreligion equal to anything that has gone before. For He who is in the Father, and in whom also the Father is, who says, ‘I and the Father are one?,’ whom he that hath seen, hath seen the Father, to say that He has been exalted? by anything external, is the extreme of mad- ness. However, when they are beaten hence, and like Eusebius and his fellows, are in these great straits, then they have this re- maining plea, which Arius too in ballads, and in his own Thalia3, fabled, as a new difficulty: ‘Many words speaketh God; which then of these are we to call Son and Word, Only-begotten of the Father+?’
8 These were among the original positions of the Arians; for the former, see above, note 1; the latter is one of those specified in the Nicene Anathema.
9 And so myn Enpd. Serap. ii. 2. Ovat. i. § 14 fin. also ii. § 2, where Athanasius speaks as if those who deny that Almighty God is Father, cannot really believe in Him asa Creator. Ifthe divine substance be not fruitful (kapmoydvos), but barren, as they say, as a light which enlightens not, and a dry fountain, are they not ashamed to maintain that He possesses the creative energy?’ Vid. also myn Oedrntos, Pseudo-Dion. Div. Nom. c. 2. myn ék anys, of the Son, Epiphan. Acor. 19. And Cyril, ‘If thou take from God His being Father, thou wilt deny the generative power (kaproydvoy) of the divine nature, so that It no longer is perfect. This then is a token of its perfection, and the Son who went forth from Him apart from time, is a pledge (cfpayis) to the Father that He is perfect.’ Thesaur. p. 37.
x0 Arius said, as the Eunomians after him, that the Son was not really, but only called, Word and Wisdom, which were simply attributes of God, and the prototypes of the Son. Vid. Socr. i. 6. Theod. H.£. i. 3, and za/r. Orat. 11. 37, 38.
4 As the Arians took the title Son in that part of its earthly sense in which it did not apply to our Lord, so they misin- terpreted the title Word also; which denoted the Son’s imma- teriality and indivisible presence in the Father, but did not express His perfecttion. Vid. Ovat. ii. § 34—36. contr. Gent. 41. ad Ep. “ig. 16. Epiph. Her. 65. 3. Nyss. ix Eun. xii. p. 349. Origen (in a passage, however, of questionable doctrine), says, ‘ As there are gods many, but to us one God the Father, and many lords, but to us one Lord Jesus Christ, so there are many words, but we pray that in us may exist the Word that was in the begin- ning, with God, and was God.’ In Joan, tom. ii. 3. ‘ Many things, it is acknowledged, does the Father speak to the Son,” say the Semiarians at Ancyra, ‘but the words which God speaks to the Son, are not sons. They are not substances of God, but vocal needing the service of the other. God should have one Word, which is the true doctrine, both shews the power of God, and the perfection of the Word that is from Him, and the religious understanding of them who thus believe.
Insensate, and anything but Christians $! for first, on using such language about God, they conceive of Him almost as a man, speaking and reversing His first words by His second, just as if one Word from God were not sufficient for the framing of all things at the Father’s will, and for His providential care of all. For His speaking many words would argue a feebleness in them all, each But that 17. O that they would consent to confess the truth from this their own statement! for if they once grant that God produces words, they plainly know Him to be a Father; and acknowledging this, let them consider that, while they are loth to ascribe one Word to God, they are imagining that He is Father of many; and while they are loth to say that there is no Word of God at. all, yet they do not confess that He is the Son of God,— which is ignorance of the truth, and inexperi- ence in divine Scripture. For if God is Father of a word at all, wherefore is not He that is begotten a Son? And again, who should be Son of God, but His Word? For there are not many words, or each would be imperfect, but one is the Word, that He only may be perfect, and because, God being one, His Image too must be one, which is the Son. For the Son of God, as may be learnt from the divine oracles themselves, is Himself the Word of God, and the Wisdom, and the Image, and the Hand, and the Power; for God’s offspring is one, and of the generation from the Father these titles are tokens®. For it you say the Son, you have declared what is from the Father by nature; and if you think of the Word, you are thinking again of what is energies; but the Son, though a Word, is not such, but, being a Son, is a substance.’ Epiph. Hey. 73. 12. The Semiarians are speaking against Sabellianism, which took the same ground here as Arianism; so did the heresy of the Samosatene, who according to Epiphanius, considered our Lord as the internal Word, or thought. Her. 65. ‘The term word in this inferior sense is often in Greek pyua. Epiph. supr. and Cyril, de Zucarn. Unig. init. t. v. i. p. 679.
5 ‘If they understood and acknowledged the characteristic idea (xapaxryjpa) of Christianity, they would not have said that the Lord of glory was a creature.’ Ad Seraf. ii. 7. In Orat. i. § 2, he says, Arians are not Christians decause they are Arians, for Christians are called, not from Arius, but from Christ, who is their only Master. Vid. also de Syx. § 38. init. Seat. D. fin. Ad Afros. 4. Their cruelty and co-operation with the heathen populace was another reason. Greg. Naz. Orat. 25. 12.
© All the titles of the Son of God are consistent with each other, and variously represent one and the same Person. ‘Son’ and ‘Word,’ denote His derivation; ‘Word’ and ‘Image,’ His Similitude; ‘Word’ and ‘Wisdom,’ His immateriality; ‘Wisdom’ and ‘ Hand,’ His co-existence. ‘If He is not Son, neither is He Image.’ Ovat. ii. §2. ‘How is there Word and Wisdom, unless He be a proper offspring of His substance? ii. § 22, Vid. also Orat. i. § 20. 21. and at great length Ovaz. iv. § 20, &c. vid. also Naz. Orvat. 30. n. 20. Basil. contr. Eunom. i. 18. Hilar. de Trin. vii. rr. August. in Joan. xlviii. 6, and iz Psalm. xliv. (xlv.) 5.
DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION.
from Him, and what is inseparable; and, speaking of Wisdom, again you mean just as much, what is not from without, but from Him and in Him; and if you name the Power and the Hand, again you speak of what is proper to essence; and, speaking of the Image, you signify the Son; for what else is like God but the offspring from Him? Doubtless the things, which came to be through the Word, these are ‘founded in Wisdom’ and what are ‘founded in Wisdom,’ these are all made by the Hand, and came to be through the Son. And we have proof of this, not from external sources, but from the Scriptures; for God Himself, says by Isaiah the Prophet; ‘My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand hath spanned the heavens’.’ And again, ‘And I will cover thee in the shadow of My Hand, by which I planted the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth8.’ And David being taught this, and knowing that the Lord’s Hand was nothing else than Wisdom, says in the Psalm, ‘In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy creaticn 9.’ Solomon also received the same from God, and said, ‘The Lord by wisdom founded the earth’, and John, knowing that the Word was the Hand and the Wisdom, thus preached, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything madet.’ And the Apostle, seeing that the Hand and the Wisdom and the Word was nothing else than the Son, says, ‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the ages*.’ And again, ‘There is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him3,’ And knowing also that the Word, the Wisdom, the Son Himself was the Image of the Father, he says in the Epistle to the Colossians, ‘Giving thanks to God and the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son; in whom we have redemption, even the remission of sins; who is the Image of the Invisible God, the First-born of every creature; for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, 3 x Cor. vill. 6.
7 Is. xlviii. 13. ee ili eDs 1. D; 2.
zo Prov. iii. 19.
VOL. IV.
or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.’ For as all things are created by the Word, so, because He is the Image, are they also created in Hims. And thus anyone who directs his thoughts to the Lord, will avoid stumbling upon the stone of offence, but rather will go forward to the brightness in the light of truth; for this is really the doctrine of truth, though these contentious men _ burst with spite®, neither religious toward God, nor abashed at their confutation.
CHAPTER’ V; DEFENCE OF THE COUNCIL’S PHRASES, ‘‘ FROM THE ESSENCE,” AND “ ONE IN ESSENCE.”
Objection that the phrases are not scriptural; we ought to look at the sense more than the wording; evaston of the Arians as to the phrase “of God” which is in Scripture; thety evasion of all explanations but those which the Council selected, which were in- tended to negative the Arian formule; protest against their conveying any material sense.
18. Now Eusebius and his fellows were at the former period examined at great length, and convicted themselves, as I said before; on this they subscribed; and after this change of mind they kept in quiet and retirement?; but since the present party, in the fresh arrogance of irreligion, and in dizziness about the truth, are full set upon accusing the Council, let them tell us what are the sort of Scriptures from which they have learned, or who is the Saint? by whom they have been taught, that they have heaped together the phrases, ‘ out of nothing 3,’ and ‘He was not before His generation,’ and ‘once He was not,’ and ‘alterable,’ and ‘pre-existence,’ and ‘at the will;’ which are their fables in mockery of the Lord. For the blessed Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews says, ‘ By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the Word of God, so that that which is seen was not made of things which do appear+.’ But nothing is common to the Word with the ages 5; for He it is who is in existence before 5 Vid. a beautiful passage, contr. Gent. 42, &c. Again, of men, de Incarn. 3. 33 also Orat. ti, 78. where he speaks of Wisdom as being infused into the world on its creation, that it might possess ‘a type and semblance of its Image.’ es 6 dvappayGouv, and so Servap. ii, fin. Svappnyvdwvra. de Syn. 34. duappyyvd¥wouy cavtovs. Orat. il. § 23. omapartérwoay éav- tous. Ovrat. li. § 64. Tpigérw rods oddvras. Sent. D. 16.
3 €& ovK OyTwr. 4 Heb. xi. 3.
5 By alwy, age, seems to be meant duration, or the measure of duration, before or independent of the existence of motion, which is in measure of time. As motion, and therefore time, are creatures, so are the ages, Considered as the measure of duration, an age has a sort of positive existence, though not an ovata or M the ages, by whom also the ages came to be. And in the Shepherd © it is written (since they allege this book also, though it is not of the Canon7), ‘First of all believe, that God is one, who created all things, and arranged them, and brought all things from nothing into being;’ but this again does not relate to the Son, for it speaks concerning all things which came to be through Him, from whom He is distinct; for it is not possible to reckon the Framer of all with the things made by Him, unless a man is so beside himself as to say that the architect also is the same as the build- ings which he rears.
Why then, when they have invented on their part unscriptural phrases, for the purposes of irreligion, do they accuse those who are re- ligious in their use of them ®? For irreligious- ness is utterly forbidden, though it be at- tempted to disguise it with artful expressions and plausible sophisms; but religiousness is confessed by all to be lawful, even though pre- sented in strange phrases 9, provided only they are used with a religious view, and a wish to make them the expression of religious thoughts. Now the aforesaid grovelling phrases of Christ’s enemies have been shewn in these remarks to substance, and means the same as ‘ world,’ or an existing system of things viewed apart from time and motion. Vid. Theodt. in Hebr. i, 2. Our Lord then is the Maker of the ages thus con- sidered, as the Apostle also tells us, Hebr. xi. 3. and God is the King of the ages, r Tim. rz. 17. or is before all ages, as being eternal, or mpoatwyvios. However, sometimes the word is synony- mous with eternity; ‘as time is to things which are under time, so ages to things which are everlasting.’ Damasc. fzd. Orth. li. r, and ‘ ages of ages’ stands for eternity; and then the ‘ages’ or measures of duration may be supposed to stand for the iSea or ideas in the Divine Mind, which seems to have been a Platonic or Gnostic notion. Hence Synesius, Hymn iii. addresses the Al- mighty as atwvdrtoke, parent of the ages. Hence sometimes God Himself is called the Age, Clem. Alex. Hymn. Ped. iii. fin. or, the Age of ages, Pseudo-Dion. de Div. Now. 5. p. 580, or again, aiwvios. Theodoret sums up what has been said thus: ‘Age is not any subsisting substance, but is an interval indicative of time, now infinite, when God is spoken of, now commensurate with creation, now with human life.’ Ar. v. 6. If then, as Athan. says in the text, the Word is Maker of the ages, He is independent of duration altogether; He does not come to be in time, but is above and beyond it, or eternal. Elsewhere he says, ‘The words addressed to the Son in the r4q4th Psalm, ‘ Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages,’ forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval is measured by ages, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, there- fore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him, it were mad- ness to say, ‘‘ There was once when the Everlasting (aisvcos) was not.”’ Ovat. i. 12. And so Alexander; ‘Is it not unreason- able that He who made times, and ages, and seasons, to all of which belongs ‘ was not,’ should be said not to be? for, if so, that interval in which they say the Son was not yet begotten by the Father, precedes that Wisdom of God which framed ad/ things.’ Theod. H7zsz. i. 4. vid also Basil de Sf. S.n. 14. Hilar. de Trin.
6 Herm. Mand. x. vid. ad Afr. 5.
7 [Letter 39, and Prolegg. ch. iv. § 4.] He calls it elsewhere a most profitable book. Jucarn. 3.
8 Athan. here retorts, as it was obvious to do, the charge brought against the Council which gave occasion for this Treatise. If the Council went beyond Scripture in the use of the word ‘es- sence’ (which however can hardly be granted), who made this necessary, but they who had already introduced the phrases, ‘ the Son was out of nothing,’ &c., &c.? ‘Of the essence,’ and ‘one in essence,’ were directly intended to contradict and supplant the Arian unscriptural innovations, as he says below, § 20. fin. 21. init. vid. also ad A/ros. 6. de Synod. § 36, 37. He observes in like manner that the Arian ayévytos, though allowable as used by religious men, de Syz. § 40. was unscriptural, Orat. i. § 30, 34. Also Epiph. Her. 76. p. 941. Basil. contr. Hunom. i. 5. Hilar. contr. Const. 16. Ambros. /ucarn. 80, 9 Vid. § ro, note 3.
DE sDE CRESS, Ol be both formerly and now replete with irre- ligion; whereas the definition of the Council against them, if accurately examined, will be found to be altogether a representation of the truth, and especially if diligent attention be paid to the occasion which gave rise to these expressions, which was reasonable, and was as follows:— 19. The Council © wishing to do away with the irreligious phrases of the Arians, and to use instead the acknowledged words of the Scrip- tures, that the Son is not from nothing but ‘from God,’ and is ‘Word’ and‘ Wisdom,’ and not creature or work, but a proper offspring from the Father, Eusebius and his fellows, led by their inveterate heterodoxy, understood the phrase ‘from God’ as belonging to us, as if in respect to it the Word of God differed nothing from us, and that because it is written, ‘ There is one God, from whom all things?;’ and again, ‘ Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, and all things are from God 2.’ But the Fathers, perceiving their craft and the cunning of their irreligion, were forced to express more distinctly the sense of the words ‘from God.’ Accordingly, they wrote ‘from the essence of God3,’ in order that ‘from God’ might not be considered common and equal in the Son and in things originate, but that all others might be acknowledged as crea- tures, and the Word alone as from the Father. For though all things be said to be from God, yet this is not in the sense in which the Son is from Him; for as to the creatures, ‘ of God’ is said of them on this account, in that they exist not at random or spontaneously, nor come to be by chance‘, according to those philosophers who refer them to the combina- tion of atoms, and to elements of similar struc- ture,—nor as certain heretics speak of a distinct Framer,—nor as others again say that the 3 Hence it stands in the Creed, ‘from the Father, ¢/a¢ 7s, from the essence of the Father.’ vid. Eusebius’s Letter, zz/+. Accord- ing to the received doctrine of the Church all rational beings, and in one sense all beings whatever, are ‘from God,’ over and above the fact of their creation; and of this truth the Arians made use to deny our Lord’s proper divinity. Athan. lays down else- where that nothing remains in consistence and life, except from a participation of the Word, which is to be considered a gift from Him, additional to that of creation, and separable in idea from it; vid. above, § 17, note 5. contr. Gent. 42, de Incarn. 5. Man thus considered is, in his first estate, a son of God and born of God, or, to use the term which occurs so frequently in the Arian controversy, in the number, not only of the creatures, but of ¢hizgs generate, yevvyta. This was the sense in which the Arians said that our Lord was Son of God; whereas, as Athan. says, ‘things originate, dezwg works, cannot be called generate, except so far as, after their making, they partake of the begotten Son, and are therefore sazd to have been generated also; not at all in their own nature, but because of their participation of the Son in the Spirit.’ Orat. i. 56. The question then was, as to the distinction of the Son’s divine generation over that of holy men; and the Catholics answered that He was é& ovoias, from the essence of God; not by participation of grace, not by resemblance, not in a limited sense, but really and simply, and therefore by an internal divine act. vid. below, $ 22. and zz/ry. $31. [The above note has been modified so as to eliminate the erroneous identification of yevyytds and yevnros. J 4 Cf. de Syn. § 35.
DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION.
constitution of all things is from certain Angels;—but in that (whereas God is), it was by Him that all things were brought into being, not being before, through His Word; but as to the Word, since He is not a crea- ture, He alone is both called and is ‘from the Father;’ and it is significant of this sense to say that the Son is ‘from the essence of the Father,’ for to nothing originate does this attach. In truth, when Paul says that ‘all things are from God,’ he immediately adds, ‘and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things 5,’ in order to shew all men, that the Son is other than all these things which came to be from God (for the things which came to be from God, came to be through His Son); and that he had used his foregoing words with reference to the world as framed by God °, and not as if all things were from the Father as the Son is. For neither are other things as the Son, nor is the Word one among others, for He is Lord and Framer of all; and on this account did the Holy Council declare expressly that He was of the essence” of the Father, that we might believe the Word to be other than the nature of things originate, being alone truly from God; and that no subterfuge should be left open to the irreligious. This then was the reason why the Council wrote ‘of the essence.’
20. Again, when the Bishops said that the Word must be described as the True Power and Image of the Father, in all things exact ® and like the Father, and as_ unalterable, and as always, and as in Him without divi- sion (for never was the Word not, but He was always, existing everlastingly with the Father, as the radiance of light), Eusebius and 6 When characteristic attributes and prerogatives are ascribed to God, or to the Father, this is done only to the exclusion of creatures, or of false gods, nct to the exclusion of His Son who is implied in the mention of Himself. Thus when God is called only wise, or the Father the only God, or God is said to be unoriginate, ayévyros, this is not in contrast to the Son, but to all things which are distinct from God. vid. Orat. il. 8. Naz. Orat. 30; 13. Cyril. Thesaur. p.142. ‘The words “one” and only ” ascribed to God in Scripture,’ says S. Basil, ‘are not used in contrast to the Son or the Holy Spirit, but with reference to those who are not God, and falsely called so.’ £/. 8. n. 3. On the other hand, when the Father is mentioned, the other Divine Persons are implied in Him, ‘The Blessed and Holy Trinity,’ says S. Athan. “is indivisible and one in itself; and when the Father is mentioned, His Word is added, and the Spirit in the Son; and if the Son is named, in the Son is the Father, and the Spirit is not external to the Word.’ ad Serap.i. 14. M 2 ae 7 Vid. alsoad Afros. 4. Again, ‘“‘I am,” 76 6», is really proper to God and is a whole, bounded or mutilated neither by aught before Him, nor after Him, for He neither was, nor shall be. Naz. Orat. 30. 18 fin. Also Cyril Dial. 1. p- 392. Damasc. Fid. Orth. i. 9. and the Semiarians at Ancyra, Epiph. Her. 73, 12 init. By the ‘essence,’ however, or, ‘substance’ of God, the Council did not mean any thing distinct from God, vid. note 3 infr. but God Himself viewed in His self-existing nature (vid. Tert. in Hermog, 3-), nay, it expressly meant to negative the contrary notion of the Arians, that our Lord was from something distinct from God, and in consequence of created substance. Moreover the term expresses the idea of God positively, in contradistinction to negative epithets, such as infinite, immense, eternal, &c. Damasc. Fid. Orthod. i. 4. and as little implies any thing distinct from God'as those epithets do. 8 amapaddaxtor: his fellows endured indeed, as not daring to contradict, being put to shame by the argu- ments which were urged against them; but withal they were caught whispering to each other and winking with their eyes, that ‘like,’ and ‘always,’ and ‘power,’ and ‘in Hin,’ were, as before, common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these. As to ‘like,’ they said that it is written of us, ‘Man is the image and glory of God9;’ ‘always,’ that it was written, ‘For we which live are alway?°:’ ‘in Him,’ ‘In Him we live and move and have our being?:’ ‘unal- terable,’ that it is written, ‘Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ?:’ as to ‘power,’ that the caterpillar and the locust are called ‘power’ and ‘great power3,’ and that it is often said of the people, for instance, ‘ All the power of the Lord came out of the land of Egypt¢:’ and there are others also, heavenly ones, for Scripture says, ‘The Lord of powers is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge 5.’ Indeed Asterius, by title the sophist, had said the like in writing, having learned it from them, and before him Arius® having learned it also, as has been said. But the Bi- shops discerning in this too their dissimulation, and whereas it is written, ‘Deceit is in the heart of the irreligious that imagine evil7,’ were again compelled on their part to collect the sense of the Scriptures, and to re-say and re-write what they had said before, more dis- tinctly still, namely, that the Son is ‘one in essence 8’ with the Father; by way of signify- ing, that the Son was from the Father, and not merely like, but the same in likeness9, and 2 Rom. viii. 35, who shall separate.
3 Joel ii. 25. 4 Ex, xil. 41. 5 Ps, xlvi. 7.
8 vid. ad Afros. 5. 6. ad Serap. ii. 5. S. Ambrose tells us, that a Letter written by Eusebius of Nicomedia, in which he said, ‘ If we call Him true Son of the Father and uncreate, then are we granting that He is one in essence, ofoovavov,’ determined the Council on the adoption of the term. de Fd. iii. n. 125. He had disclaimed ‘of the essence,’ in his Letter to Paulinus. Theod. Hist. i. 4. Arius, however, had disclaimed opoovovoy already Epiph. Her. 69.7. It was a word of old usage in the Church, as Eusebius of Czesarea confesses in his Letter, infr. ‘Tertullian in Prax. 13 fin. has the translation ‘unius substantias’ (vid. Lucifer de non Pare. p. 218.) as he has ‘de substantia Patris,’ in Prax. 4. and Origen perhaps used the word, vid. Pamph. AZo/. 5. and Theognostus and the two Dionysii, infr. § 25, 26. And before them Clement had spoken of the évwous Tijs povaduxns ovatas, “ the union of the single essence,’ vid. Le Quien in Damase. Hid, Orth. i. 8 Novatian too has ‘ per substantize communionem,’ de Tvinit.
31. 9 The Arians allowed that our Lord was like and the image of the Father, but in the sense in which a picture is like the original, differing from it in substance and in fact. In this sense they even allowed the strong word amapaéAdaxros unvarying [or rather exact] image, vid. beginning of § 20. which had been used by the Catho- lics (vid. Alexander, ap. Theod. A/zsz. i. 3. p. 740.) sas. by the Semiarians afterwards, who even added the words kar’ ovoiav, or “according to substance.” Even this strong phrase, however, kar ovoiay dmapé\AakTos sikav, Or amapahAdKTws Ouovos, did not appear to the Council an adequate safeguard of the doctrine. Athan. notices de Syz. that ‘like’ applies to qualities rather than to essence, § 53. Also Basil. ZZ. 8. n. 3. while in itself,’ says the same Father, ‘it is frequently used of faint similitudes, anc falling very far short of the original.’ Ep. 9. Ns 3. Accordingly, the Council determined on the word éuoovovor as implying, as th t Acts xvii. 28, DE!) DEGRETIS,“OR of shewing that the Son’s likeness and unalter- ableness was different from such copy of the same as is ascribed to us, which we acquire from virtue on the ground of observance of the com- mandments. For bodies which are like each other may be separated and become at dis- tances from each other, as are human sons re- latively to their parents (as it is written concern- ing Adam and Seth, who was begotten of him, that he was like him after. his own pattern’); but since the generation of the Son from the Father is not according to the nature of men, and not only like, but also inseparable from the essence of the Father, and He and the Father are one, as He has said Himself, and the Word is ever in the Father and the Father in the Word, as the radiance stands towards the light (for this the phrase itself indicates), therefore the Council, as understanding this, suitably wrote ‘one in essence,’ that they might both defeat the perverseness of the heretics, and shew that the Word was other than originated things. For, after thus writing, they at once added, ‘But they who say that the Son of God is from nothing, or created, or alterable, or a work, or from other essence, these the Holy Catholic Church anathe- matizes.’? And by saying this, they shewed clearly that ‘of the essence,’ and ‘one in essence,’ are destructive of those catchwords of irreligion, such as ‘created,’ and ‘work,’ and ‘originated,’ and ‘alterable,’ and ‘He was not before His generation.’ And he who holds these, contradicts the Council; but he who does not hold with Arius, must needs hold and intend the decisions of the Council, suitably regarding them to signify the relation of the radiance to the light, and from thence gaining the illustration of the truth.