21. Therefore if they, as the others, make an excuse that the terms are strange, let them consider the sense in which the Council so wrote, and anathematize what the Council anathematized; and then if they can, let them find fault with the expressions. But I well know that, if they hold the sense of the Council, they will fully accept the terms in which it is conveyed; whereas if it be the sense which they wish to complain of, all must see that it is idle in them to discuss the word- ing, when they are but seeking handles for ir- religion. This then was the reason of these expressions; but if they still complain that such are not scriptural, that very complaint is a reason why they should be cast out, as talktext expresses it, ‘¢#e same in likeness, rabrov 7H dmoudoer, that the likeness might not be analogical. vid. the passage about gold and brass, § 23 below, Cyril in Joan. 1. iii. c. v. p. 302. [See below de Syn. 15, note 2.) 10 Gen. v. 3.
t vid. Euseb.’s Letter, supr.
ing idly and disordered in mind, And let them blame themselves in this matter, for they set the example, beginning their war against God with words not in Scripture. However, if a person is interested in the question, let him know, that, even if the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and ex- pressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine. Now this circumstance it is for thee to con- sider, and for those ill-instructed men to give ear to. It has been shewn above, and must be believed as true, that the Word is from the Father, and the only Offspring? proper to Him and natural. For whence may one con- ceive the Son to be, who is the Wisdom and the Word, in whom all things came to be, but from God Himself? However, the Scriptures also teach us this, since the Father says by David, ‘My heart uttered a good Word3,’ and, ‘From the womb before the morning star I begat Thee+;’ and the Son signifies to the Jews about Himself, ‘If God were your Father, ye would love Me; for I proceeded forth from the Fathers.’ And again; ‘Not that anyone has seen the Father, save He which is from God, He hath seen the Father®.’ And moreover, ‘I and My Father are one,’ and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me/?,’ is equivalent to saying, ‘I am from the Father, and inseparable from Him.’ And John in saying, ‘The Only- begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him,’ spoke of what He had learned from the Saviour. Be- sides, what else does ‘in the bosom’ intimate, but the Son’s genuine generation from the Father?
22. If then any man conceives God to be compound, as accident9 is in essence, or 2 yévyyua, offspring; this word is of very frequent occurrence in Athan. He speaks of it, Ovat. iv. 3. as virtually Scriptural. Yet Basil, contr. Hunom. ii. 6—8. explicitly disavows the word, as an unscriptural invention of Eunomius. ‘That the Father begat we are taught in many places: that the Son is an offspring we never heard up to this day, for Scripture says, “‘ unto us a chidd is born, unto us a soz is given.”’ c. 7. He goes on to say that ‘ it is fearful to give Him names of our own to whom God has given a name which is above every name;’ and observes that offspring is not the word which even a human father would apply to his son as for instance we read, ‘Child, (rékvov,) go into the vineyard,’ and ‘ Who art thou, my son?’ moreover that fruits of the earth are called offspring (‘I will not drink of the offspring of this vine’) rarely animated things, except indeed in such instances as, <O generation (offspring) of vipers.’ Nyssen defends his brother contr. Eunom. Orat. iii. p. 105. In the Arian formula ‘an off spring, but not as one of the offsprings,’ it is synonymous with “work” or ‘creature.’ On the other hand Epiphanius uses it e.g. Her. 76. n. 8. and Naz. Orat. 29.n. 2. Eusebius, Demonstr. Lu. iv. 2. Pseudo-Basil. adv. Eunom. iv. p. 280. fin.
3 Ps. xlv. 2. 4 Ib. cx. 3. 5 John viii. 42.
9 cupBeBnkds. Cf. Orat. iv. 2. also Orat. i. 36. The text em- bodies the common doctrine of the Fathers. Athenagoras, how- ever, speaks of God’s goodness as an accident, ‘as colour to the body,’ ‘as flame is ruddy and the sky blue,’ Lega#. 24. This, how- ever, is but a verbal difference, for shortly before he speaks of His DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION.
to have any external envelopement! and to be encompassed, or as if there is aught about Him which completes the essence, so that when we say ‘God,’ or name ‘ Father,’ we do not signify the invisible and incom- prehensible essence, but something about it, then let them complain of the Council’s stating that the Son was from the essence of God; but let them reflect, that in thus con- sidering they utter two blasphemies; for they make God corporeal, and they falsely say that the Lord is not Son of thé very Father, but of what is about Him. But if God be simple, as He is, it follows that in saying | ‘God’ and naming ‘ Father,’ we name nothing as if about Him, but signify his essence itself For though to comprehend what the essence of God is be impossible, yet if we only understand that God is, and if Scripture indicates Him by means of these titles, we, with the intention of indicating Him and none else, call Him God and Father and Lord. When then He says, ‘I am that I am,’ and ‘I am the Lord God?, or when Scripture says, ‘God,’ we understand nothing else by it but the intimation of His incomprehensible es- sence Itself, and that He Is, who is spoken of3. Therefore let no one be startled on hearing that the Son of God is from the Es- sence of the Father; but rather let him accept the explanation of the Fathers, who in more explicit but equivalent language have for ‘ from God’ written ‘of the essence.’ For they con- sidered it the same thing to say that the Word was ‘of God’ and ‘ of the essence of God,’ since 8, TO byTws dy, and His unity of nature, 7d povoduées, as in the number of émavu.BeByk6ra ad7@. Eusebius uses the word cupBe- Byxos in the same way [but see Ovat. iv. 2, note 8], Demonstr. Lvang. iv. 3. And hence S. Cyril, in controversy with the Arians, is led by the course of their objections to observe, ‘There are cogent reasons for considering these things as accidents ovyBe- Ayxora in God, though they be not.’ TVhesaur. p. 263. vid. the following note.
I mepiBody, and so de Syn. $34. which is very much the same passage. Some Fathers, however, seem to say the reverse. E.g. Nazianzen says that ‘neither the immateriality of God nor in- generateness, present to us His essence.’ Ovat. 28. 9. And S. Augustine, arguing on the word ingenitus, says, that ‘not every thing which is said to be in God is said according to essence.’ de Trin. vy. 6. And hence, while Athan. in the text denies that there are qualities or the like belonging to Him, mept avrov, it is still common in the Fathers to speak of qualities, as in the passage of S. Gregory just cited, in which the words mepi Ocov occur. There is no difficulty in reconciling these statements, though it would require more words than could be given to it here. Petavius has treated the subject fully in his work de Deo i. 7—1:. and especially ii. 3. When the Fathers say that there is no differ- ence between the divine ‘ proprietates’ and essence, they speak of the fact, considering the Almighty as He is; when they affirm a difference, they speak of Him as contemplated by us, who are unable to grasp the idea of Him as one and simple, but view His Divine Nature as if zz projection (if such a word may be used), and thus divided into substance and quality as man may be divided into genus and difference. 2 Ex. iii. 14, 15.
3 In like manner de Synod. § 34. Also Basil, ‘The essence is not any one of things which do not attach, but is the very being of God.’ contr. Eun. i. 10 fin. ‘The nature of God is no other than Himself, for He is simple and uncompounded.’ Cyril Thesaur. p. 59. ‘ When we say the power of the Father, we say nothing else than the essence of the Father.? August. de Trim. vil. 6. And so Numenius in Eusebius, ‘Let no one deride, if I say that the name of the Immaterial is essence and being.’ Prep. Avang.
being the word ‘God,’ as I have already said, signifies nothing but the essence of Him Who Is. If then the Word is not in such sense from God, as a son, genuine and natural, from a father, but only as creatures because they are framed, and as ‘all things are from God,’ then neither is He from the essence of the Father, nor is the Son again Son according to essence, but in consequence of virtue, as we who are called sons by grace. But if He only is from God, as a genuine Son, as He is, then the Son may reasonably be called from the essence of God.
23. Again, the illustration of the Light and the Radiance has this meaning. For the Saints have not said that the Word was re- lated to God as fire kindled from the heat. of the sun, which is commonly put out again, for this is an external work and a creature of its author, but they all preach of Him as Radiance‘, thereby to signify His being from the essence, proper and indivisible, and His oneness with the Father. This also will secure His true unchangableness and immutability; for how can these be His, unless He be proper Offspring of the Father’s essence? for this too must be taken to confirm His identity with His own Father. Our ex- planation then having so religious an aspect, Christ’s enemies should not be startled at the ‘One in essence,’ either, since this term also has a sound sense and good reasons. Indeed, if we say that the Word is from the essence of God (for after what has been said this must be a phrase admitted by them), what does this mean but the truth and eternity of the essence from which He is begotten? for it is not different in kind, lest it be combined with the essence of God, as something foreign and unlike it. Nor is He like only outwardly, lest He seem in some respect or wholly to be other in essence, as brass shines like gold and silver like tin. For these are foreign and of other nature, are separated off from each other in nature and virtues, nor is brass proper to gold, nor is the pigeon born from the dove’; but 4 Athan.’sordinary illustration is, as here, not from ‘fire,’ but from ‘radiance,’ amavyaoma, after S. Paul [i.e. Hebrews] and the Author of the Book of AVicdone, meaning by radiance the light which a light diffuses by means of the atmosphere. On the other hand Arius in his letter to Alexander, Epiph. Her. 69. 7. speaks against the doctrine of Hieracas that the Son was from the Father as a light from a light or as a lamp divided into two, which after all was Arian doctrine. Athanasius refers to fire, Ovat. iv. §2 and 10, but still to fire and its radiance. However we find the illustration of fire from fire, Justin. 77yfh. 61. Tatian contr. Grec. 5. At this early day the illustration of radiance might have a Sabellian bear- ing, as that of fire in Athan,’s had an Arian, Hence Justin protests against those who considered the Son as ‘like the sun’s light in the heaven,’ which ‘when it sets, goes away with it,’ whereas it is as ‘fire kindled from fire.’ T7yfh. 128. Athenagoras, however, like Athanasius, says ‘as light from fire,’ using also the word améppo.a, effluence: vid. also Orig. Periarch. i. 2.n. 4. Teriull. Ap. 21. Theognostus, quoted 7z/7. $ 25.
though they are considered like, yet they differ in essence. If then it be thus with the Son, let Him be a creature as we are, and not One in essence; but if, the Son is Word, Wisdom, Image of the Father, Radiance, He must in all reason ‘be One in essence. For unless it be proved that He is not from God, but an instrument different in nature and different in essence, surely the Council was sound in its doctrine and correct in its decree®.
24. Further, let every corporeal inference be banished on this subject; and transcend- ing every imagination of sense, let us, with pure understanding and with mind alone, apprehend the genuine relation of son to father, and the Word’s proper relation to- wards God, and the unvarying likeness of the radiance towards the light: for as the words ‘Offspring’ and ‘Son’ bear, and are meant to bear, no human sense, but one suitable to God, in like manner when we hear the phrase ‘one in essence,’ let us not fall upon human senses, and imagine partitions and divisions of the Godhead, but as having our thoughts directed to things immaterial, let us preserve undivided the oneness of nature and the identity of light; for this is proper to a son as regards a father, and in this is shewn that God is truly Father of the Word. Here again, the illustration of light and its radiance is in point7. Who will presume to say that the radiance is unlike and foreign to the sun? rather who, thus considering the radiance relatively to the sun, and the identity of the light, would not say with confidence, ‘Truly the light and the radiance are one, and the one is manifested in the other, and the radiance is in the sun, so that whoso sees this, sees that also?’ but such a oneness and natural property, what should it be named by those who believe and see aright, but Offspring one in essence? and God's Offspring what should we fittingly and suitably consider, but Word, and Wisdom, and Power? which it were a sin to say was foreign to the Father, or a crime even to imagine as other than with Him everlastingly. For by this Offspring the Father made all things, and extended His Providence unto all things; by Him He exercises His love to man, and thus He and the Father are one, as has been said; unless indeed these perverse © As ‘of the essence’ declared that our Lord was uncreate, so “one in essence’ declared that He was equal with the Father; no term derived from ‘likeness,’ even ‘like in essence’ answering for this purpose, for such phrases might all be understood of vesemz- blance or representation. vid. § 20, notes 8, 9.
7 Athan. has just used the illustration of radiance in reference to ‘of the essence:’ and now he says that it equally illustrates ‘one in essence;’ the light diffused from the sun being at once contemporaneous and homogeneous with its original.
DE DECRETIS, OR men make a fresh attempt, and say that the essence of the Word is not the same as the Light which is in Him from the Father, as if the Light in the Son were one with the Father, but He Himself foreign in essence as being a creature. Yet this is simply the belief of Caiaphas and the Samosatene, which the Church cast out, but these now are disguising; and. by this they fell from the truth, and were declared to be heretics. For if He partakes in fulness the light from the Father, why is He not rather that which others partake®, that there be no medium introduced between Him and the Father? Otherwise, it is no longer clear that all things were generated by the Son, but by Him, of whom He too par- takes9. And if this is the Word, the Wisdom of the Father, in whom the Father is revealed and known, and frames the world, and _ with- out whom the Father doth nothing, evidently He it is who is from the Father: for all things originated partake of Him, as partaking of the Holy Ghost. And being such, He cannot be from nothing, nor a creature at all, but rather a proper Offspring from the Father, as the radiance from light.
CHAPTER, VI. AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT OF THE COUNCIL.
Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome, Origen.
25. Tuis then is the sense in which they who met at Niceea made use of these expres- sions. But next that they did not invent them for themselves (since this is one of their excuses), but spoke what they had received from their predecessors, proceed we to prove this also, to cut off even this excuse from them. Know then, O Arians, foes of Christ, that Theognostus?, a learned man, did not decline the phrase ‘of the essence,’ for in the second book of his Hypotyposes, he writes thus of the Son:— “The essence of the Son is not one procured 9 The point in which perhaps all the ancient heresies concerning our Lord’s divine nature agreed, was in considering His different titles to be those of different beings or subjects, or not really and properly to belong to one and the same person; so that the Word was not the Son, or the Radiance not the Word, or our Lord was the Son, but only improperly the Word, not the true Word, Wisdom, or Radiance. Paul of Samosata, Sabellius [?], and Arius, agreed in considering that the Son was a creature, and that He was called, made after, or inhabited by the impersonal attribute called the Word or Wisdom. When the Word or Wisdom was held to be personal, it became the doctrine of Nestorius.
t Athanasius elsewhere calls him ‘ the admirable and excellent.’ ad Serap. iv. 9. He was Master of the Catechetical school of Alexandria towards the end of the third century, being a scholar, or at least a follower of Origen. His seven books of Hypotyposes treated of the Holy Trimity, of angels, and evil spirits, of the Incarnation, and the Creation, Photius, who gives this account, Cod. 106, accuses him of heterodoxy on these points; which Athanasius in a measure admits, as far as the wording of his treatise went, when he speaks of his ‘investigating by way of exercise.’ Eusebius does not mention him at all. [His remains in Routh, Re?Z, iil. 4oo—414.]
DEFENCE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION.
from without, nor accruing out of nothing’, but it sprang from the Father’s essence, as the radiance of light, as the vapour3 of water; for neither the radiance, nor the vapour, is the water itself or the sun itself, nor is it alien; but it is an effluence of the Father’s essence, which, however, suffers no parti- tion. For as the sun remains the same, and is not impaired by the rays poured forth by it, so neither does the Father’s essence suffer change, though it has the Son as an Image of Itself 4.””
Theognostus then, after previously investi- gating in the way of an exercise 5, proceeds to lay down his sentiments in the foregoing words. Next, Dionysius, who was Bishop of Alex- andria, upon his writing against Sabellius and expounding at large the Saviour’s Economy according to the flesh, and thence proving against the Sabellians that not the Father but His Word became flesh, as John has said, was suspected of saying that the Son was a thing made and originated, and not one in essence with the Father; on this he writes to his namesake Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, to allege in his defence that this was a slander upon him. And he assured him that he had not called the Son made, nay, did confess Him to be even one in essence. And his words ran thus:— ‘* And I have written in another letter a refutation of the false charge they bring against me, that I deny that Christ was one in essence with God. For though I say that I have not found this term anywhere in Holy Scrip- ture, yet my remarks which follow, and which they have not noticed, are not inconsistent with that belief. For I instanced human birth as being evidently homogeneous, and I observed that undeniably parents differed from their children only in not being the same individuals, otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. And my letter, as I said before, owing to pre- sent circumstances I am unable to produce; or I would have sent you the very words I used, or rather a copy of it all, which, if I have an opportunity, I will do still. But I am sure from recollection that I adduced parallels 2 Vid. above § 15. fin. ‘God was alone,’ says Tertullian, ‘because there was nothing external to Him, extrinsecus; yet not even then alone, for He had with Him, what He had in Him- self, His Reason.’ in Prax. 5. Non per adoptionem spiritus filius fit extrinsecus, sed natur4 filius est. Origen. Periarch. i. 2. n. 4.
3 From Wisdom vii. 25. and so Origen, Pervtarch. i. 2. n. 5. and g. and Athan. de Sent. Diosys. 15.
4 It is sometimes erroneously supposed that such illustrations as this are intended to explain how the Sacred Mystery in ques- tion is possible, whereas they are merely intended to shew that the words we use concerning it are not sedf-contradictory, which is the objection most commonly brought against them. To say that the doctrine of the Son’s generation does not intrench upon the Father’s perfection and immutability, or negative the Son’s eternity, seems at first sight inconsistent with what the words Father and Son mean, till another image is adduced, such as the sun and radiance, in which that alleged inconsistency is seen to exist in fact. Here one image corrects another; and the accumulation of images is not, as is often thought, the restless and fruitless effort of the mind to exter into the Mystery, but is asafeguard against any one image, nay, any collection of images being supposed sufficient. If it be said that the language used concerning the sun and its radiance is but popular not philosophical, so again the Catholic language concerning the Holy Trinity may, nay must be, eco- nomical, not adequate, conveying the truth, not in the tongues of angels, but under human modes of thought and speech.
5 ev yuuvacia €€€racas. And so § 27. of Origen, nt@v Kai yupvdgwv. Constantine too, writing to Alexander and Arius, speaks of altercation, puatkys twv0s yupvactas evexa. Socr. i. 7. In somewhat a similar way, Athanasius speaks of Dionysius writing xar’ olkovoutav, economically, or with reference to certain persons addressed or objects contemplated, de Sent. D. 6. and 26.
of things kindred with each other; for instance, that a plant grown from seed or from root, was other than that from which it sprang, yet was altogether one in na- ture with it®: and that a stream flowing from a foun- tain, gained a new name, for that neither the fountain was called stream, nor the stream fountain, and both existed, and the stream was the water from the foun- tain.
26. And that the Word of God is not a work or creature, but an offspring proper to the Father’s essence and indivisible, as the great Council wrote, here you may see in the words of Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, who, while writing against the Sabellians, thus in- veighs against those who dared to say so:— “Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy7, making it as it were three powers and partitive subsistences7* and god- headsthree. I am toldthat some among you who are cate- chists and teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius’s opinions; for he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred Monad into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the Universe, the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose® and habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the Universe, must the Divine Triad? be gathered up and brought together.
6 The Arians at Niczea objected to this image, Socv. i. 8. as implying that the Son was a mpoBody, issue or development, as Valentinus taught. Epiph. Her. 69. 7. Athanasius elsewhere uses it himself.
7 By the Monarchy is meant the doctrine that the Se- cond and Third Persons in the Ever-blessed Trinity are ever to be referred in our thougnts to the First as the Fountain of Godhead, vid. § 15. note 9, and § 19, note 6. It is one of the especial senses in which God is said to be one. Cf. Ovat. iii. § 15. vid. also iv. §1. ‘The Father is uation, évwots,’ says S. Greg. Naz. ‘from whom and unto whom are the others.’ Ovat. 42. 15. also Orat. 20. 7. and Epiph. Her.57.5. Tertullian, before Dionysius, uses the word Monarchia, which Praxeas had perverted into a kind of Unitarianism or Sabellianism, in Prax. 3. Irenzeus too wrote on the Monarchy, i.e. against the doctrine that God is the author of evil. Eus. “7st. v. 20. [see S. Iren. fragment 33, Ante-Nic. Lib.] And before him was Justin’s work de Alonarchia, where the word is used in opposition to Polytheism. The Mar- cionites, whom Dionysius presently mentions, are also specified in the above extract by Athan. vid. also Cyril. Hier. Cat. xvi. 3. Epiphanius says that their three origins were God, the Creator, and the evil spirit. er. 42, 3. or as Augustine says, the good, the just, and the wicked, which may be taken to mean nearly the same thing. Her. 22. The Apostolical Canons denounce those who baptize into Three Unoriginate; vid. also Athan. Tom. ad Antioch. 5. Naz. Orat. 20.6. Basil denies tpets apxukat vroara- ces, de SP. S. 38. which is a Platonic phrase.: 7% And so Dionysius Alex. in a fragment preserved by S. Basil, “If because the subsistences are three, they say that they are partitive, wenepropuévas, still three there are, though these persons dissent, or they utterly destroy the Divine Trinity.’ de SZ. S. n. 72. Athan. expresses the same more distinctly, ov rpets ¥roora.- cers pepeptopévas, Expos. “id. ¢2. In S. Greg. Naz. we find Gpépiatos év meyepropevors 7 Oed7ys. Ovrat. 31. 14. Elsewhere for ze. he substitutes ameppnywévas. Ovrat. 20. 6. dmesevenmevas addkjrov Kai Sueaomacpévas. Ovat. 23. 6. as infr. févas addjdwv navtdémac. Kexwpropevas. The passage in the text comes into question in the controversy about the é& vmocrdgews 7 ovoias of the Nicene Creed, of which infr. on the Creed itself in Euse- bius’s Letter. 8 éurdoxwpetv.
9 The word tpras, usually translated Trinity, is first used by Theophilus, ad Axfol. ii. 15. Gibbon remarks that the doctrine of ‘a numerical rather than a generical unity,’ which has been explicitly put forth by the Latin Church, is favoured by the Latin language; tpvas seems to excite the idea of substance, trinitas of qualities.’ ch. 21. note 74. It is certain that the Latin view of the sacred truth, when perverted, becomes Sabel- lianism; and that the Greek, when perverted, becomes Arian- ism; and we find Arius arising in the East, Sabellius in the West. It is also certain that the word Trinitas is properly ab- stract; and expresses tptds or ‘a three,’ only in an ecclesiastical For it is the doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine Monarchy into three origins,—a devil’s teaching, not that of Christ’s true disciples and lovers of the Saviour’s lessons. For they know well that a. Triad is preached by divine Scripture, but that neither Old Testament nor New preaches three Gods, Equally must one censure those who hold the Son to be a work, and consider that the Lord has come into being, as one of things which really came to be; whereas the divine oracles witness to a genera- tion suitable to Him and becoming, but not to any fashioning or making. A blasphemy then is it, not ordinary, but even the highest, to say that the Lord is in any sort a handiwork. For if He came to be Son, once He was not; but He was always, if (that is) He be in the Father, as He says Himself, and if the Christ be Word and Wisdom and Power (which, as ye know, divine Scripture says), and these attributes be powers of God. If then the Son came into being, once these at- tributes were not; consequently there was a time, when God was without them; which is most absurd. And why say more on these points to you, men full of the Spirit and well aware of the absurdities which come to view from saying that the Son is a work? Not attending, as I consider, to this circumstance, the authors of this opinion have entirely missed the truth, in explaining, contrary to the sense of divine and pro- phetic Scripture in the passage, the words, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works*.’ For the sense of ‘He created,’ as ye know, is not one, for we must understand ‘He created’ in this place, as ‘ He set over the works made by Him,’ that is, ‘made by the Son Himself.’ And ‘He created’ here must not be taken for ‘made,’ for creating differs from making. ‘Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee and created thee??’ says Moses in his great song in Deuteronomy. And one may say to them, O reckless men, is He a work, who is ‘the First-born of every creature, who is born from the womb before the morning star 3,’ who said, as Wis- dom, ‘ Before all the hills He begets me4?’ And in many passages of the divine oracles is the Son said to have been5 generated, but nowhere to have © come into being; which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s generation, who presume to call His divine and ineffable generation a making®. Neither then may we divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with the name of ‘work’ the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united?, For ‘I,’ says He, ‘and the Father are one; ’ sense. But Gibbon does not seem to observe that Unitas is ab- stract as well as Trinitas; and that we might just as well say in consequence, that the Latins held an abstract unity or a unity of qualities, while the Greeks by povas taught the doctrine of “a one’ or a numerical unity. ‘Singularitatem hance dico (says S. Ambrose), quod Greece povdrys dicitur; singularitas ad per- sonam pertinet, unitas ad naturam. de Hid. vy. 1. It is important, however, to understand, that ‘Trinity’ does not mean the state or condition of being three, as humanity is the condition of being man, but is synonymous with ‘three persons.’ Humanity does not exist and cannot be addressed, but the Holy Trinity is a three, or a unity which exists in three. Apparently from not considering this, Luther and Calvin objected to the word Trinity, ‘It is a common prayer,’ says Calvin: ‘Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us. It displeases me, and savours throughout of bar- barism.’ 4%. ad Polon. p. 796.
7 This extract discloses to us (in connexion with the passages from Dionysius Alex. here and in the de Sent. D.) a remarkable anticipation of the Arian controversy in the third century. 1. It appears that the very symbol of jv ore ov« jv, ‘once He was not,’ was asserted or implied; vid. also the following extract from Origen, § 27. and Origen Peviarchon, iv. 28. where mention is also made of the é& ov« dvrwy, ‘ out of nothing,’ which was the Arian symbol in opposition to ‘of the substance.’ Allusions are made DE DECRETIS, OR and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ For thus both the Divine Triad, and the holy preaching of the Monarchy, will be preserved.”
27. And concerning the everlasting co-ex- istence of the Word with the Father, and that He is not of another essence or subsistence, but proper to the Father’s, as the Bishops in the Council said, you may hear again from the labour-loving® Origen also. For what he has written as if inquiring and by way of exercise, that let no one take as expressive of his own sentiments, but of parties who are contending in investigation, but what he? definitely de- clares, that is the sentiment of the labour-lov- ing man. After his prolusions then (so to speak) against the heretics, straightway he in- troduces his personal belief, thus:— “If there be an Image of the Invisible God, it is an invisible Image; nay, I will be bold to add, that, as being the likeness of the Father, never was it not. For when was that God, who, according to John, is called Light (for ‘God is Light’), without a radiance of His proper glory, that a man should presume to assert the Son’s origin of existence, as if be- fore He was not? But when was not that Image of the Father’s Ineffable and Nameless and Unutterable sub- sistence, that Expression and Word, and He that knows the Father? for let him understand well who dares to say, ‘Once the Son was not,’ that he is saying, ‘Once Wisdom was not,’ and ‘ Word was not,’ and ‘ Life was Motu And again elsewhere he says:— ‘* But it is not innocent nor without peril, if because of our weakness of understanding we deprive God, as far as in us lies, of the Only-begotten Word ever co-existing with Him; and the Wisdom in which He rejoiced; else He must be conceived as not always possessed of joy.”
See, we are proving that this view has been transmitted from father to father; but ye, O modern Jews and disciples of Caiaphas, how many fathers can ye assign to your phrases? Not one of the understanding and wise; for all abhor you, but the devil alone #; none but he is your father in this apostasy, who both in the beginning sowed you with the seed of this