Chapter 5.
Chapter 5.
26. Now the Eusebians were at that former time examined at great length, and passed sentence on 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 wantonness of impiety, and in their wild vagaries about the truth, are full set upon accusing the Council, let them tell us, I repeat, what is the sort of Scriptures from which they have learned, or who is the Saint by whom they have been taught, to heap together their phrases, “Out of nothing,” and “He was not before His generation,” and “Once He was not,” and “Alterable,” and the “Pre-existence,” and “At God’s will;” which are their fables in mockery of the Lord. Considering then that they on their part have made use of phrases not in Scripture, and that with a view thereby of expressing impious notions, it does not become them to find fault with those who for a pious purpose go beyond Scripture. Disguise it as you will by artful terms and plausible sophisms, impiety is a sin; but represent the truth under ever so strange a formula, while it is truth, it at least is piety. That what these Christ-opposers advanced was impious falsehood, I have proved both now and formerly; that what the Council defined was pious truth is equally clear, as will be granted by any careful inquirer into the occasion of the definition. It was as follows:—
27. The Council wishing to condemn the impious phrases of the Arians, and to use instead the received terms of Scripture, namely, that the Son is not from nothing, but from God, and is the Word and Wisdom and not a creature or work, but the proper Offspring from the Father, the party of Eusebius, out of their inveterate heterodoxy, understood the phrase from God as common to Him and to us, as if in respect to it the Word of God differed nothing from us, and this, because it is written, There is One God from whom all things;[52] and again, Old things are passed away, behold all things are new, and all things are from God.[53] But the Fathers, perceiving their craft and the cunning of their impiety, were forced thereupon to express more distinctly the sense of the words from God. Accordingly, they wrote “from the substance of God,” in order that from God might not be considered common and equal in the Son and in things which are made, but that all others might be acknowledged as creatures, 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, “from God” is said of them, in that they exist not at random or spontaneously, nor come into being by chance, according to those philosophers who refer them to the combination of atoms, and to elements which are homogeneous, nor as certain heretics imagine some other Framer, nor as others again say that the constitution of all things is from certain Angels; not for these reasons, but because, whereas there is a God, it was by Him that all things were brought into being, when as yet they were not, through His Word; and as to the Word, since He is not a creature, He alone is really, as well as is called, from the Father; and this is signified, when it is said that the Son is “from the substance of the Father,” for to no creature 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,[54] by way of showing all men that the Son is other than all these things which came into being from God, (for as to the things which came from God, it was through the Son that they came); and he used the words which I have quoted with reference to the world as framed by God, and not as if all things proceeded from the Father as the Son does. For neither are other things as the Son is, nor is the Word one among those other, for He is Lord and Framer of all; and on this account did the Holy Council declare expressly that He was of the substance of the Father, that we might believe the Word to be other in nature than things which have a beginning, as being alone truly from God; and that no subterfuge should be left open to the impious. This then was the reason why the Council wrote “Of the substance.”
28. Again, when the Bishops said that the Word must be described as the True Power and image of the Father as the exact Likeness of the Father in all things, and as unalterable, and as always, and as in Him without division; (for never was the Word not in being, but He was always existing everlastingly with the Father, as the radiance of light), then the party of Eusebius endured it indeed, as not daring to contradict, being put to shame by the arguments which were urged against them; but withal they were caught whispering to each other and winking with their eyes, that “like” and “always,” and “the attribute of power,” and “in Him,” were, as before, common to us and to the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these statements. As to “like,” they said that it is written of us, Man is the image and glory of God;[55] “always,” that it was written, For we which live are always;[56] “In God,” In Him we live and move and have our being;[57] “unalterable,” that it is written, Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ;[58] as to “power,” that even the caterpillar and the locust are called power and great power,[59] and that it is often said of the people, for instance, All the power of the Lord came out of the land of Egypt;[60] and others are heavenly powers, for Scripture says, The Lord of powers is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.[61] 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 Bishops, discerning in this too their simulation, and whereas it is written, Deceit is in the heart of the impious that imagine evil,[62] were again compelled on their part to concentrate the sense of the Scriptures, and to re-say and re-write more distinctly still, what they had said before, namely, that the Son is “Consubstantial” with the Father; by way of signifying that the Son is from the Father, and not merely like, but is the same in likeness, and of showing that the Son’s likeness and unalterableness are different from such copy of the same as is ascribed to us, which we acquire from virtuous living and the observance of the commandments.
29. For bodies which are like each other admit of separation and of becoming far off from each other, as are human sons relatively to their parents, (as it is written concerning 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 He is not only like but also inseparable from the substance 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 is the radiance relatively to the light, (for this the very term indicates,) therefore the Council, as understanding this, suitably wrote “Consubstantial,” that they might both defeat the perverseness of the heretics, and show that the Word was other than created 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 substance, these the Holy Catholic Church anathematises.” And in saying this, they showed clearly that “Of the substance,” and “Consubstantial,” do condemn those impious words, “created,” and “work,” and “brought into being,” 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 enter into the decisions of the Council, suitably regarding them to imply the relation of the radiance to the light, and from thence gaining an image of the sacred truth.
30. Therefore if these men, as their predecessors, make it an excuse that the terms are strange, let them consider the sense in which the Council so wrote, and anathematise what the Council anathematised; and then, if they can, let them find fault with those very terms. For 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 wording, when they are but seeking for themselves excuses for a doctrine which is impious.
31. This then was the reason of these words; but if they still complain that such are not scriptural, I observe first, that they have to blame themselves, and no one else in this matter, for it was they who set the example, beginning their war against God with statements not in Scripture; and next, as any one who cares to inquire may easily ascertain, granting that the terms employed by the Council are not absolutely in Scripture, still, as I have said before, they contain the sense of Scripture. Moreover, should they object that to speak of the substance of God is to teach that He is of a compound nature, (substance implying accidents, and divinity, fatherhood and the like being therefore in the number of certain accidents by which His substance is clad or supplemented,) I reply that the blasphemy, for such it is, is theirs, not ours. For we hold nothing of the kind. This would be to hold that God is material, and that His Son is after all not from His substance, but from a certain attribute or power which is attached to Him. But no; on the contrary, God is transcendently simple, and being such, it follows that in saying “God” and naming “Father,” we name nothing besides Him, but we signify His substance or essence Itself. For though to comprehend what the substance of God is be impossible, yet let us only understand of God that He is a Being or Essence, and then, if Scripture indicates Him by means of these names, we too, with the intention of indicating Him and none else, call Him God, and Father, and Lord.
32. When then He says, I am He that is, and I am the Lord God, or when Scripture says, God, we understand nothing else by the words but an intimation of His incomprehensible substance Itself, and that He Is, who is spoken of. Therefore let no one be startled on hearing that the Son of God is from the substance of the Father; rather let him accept the explanation of the Bishops, who in more explicit but equivalent language have for from God written “Of the substance.” For they considered it the same thing to say that the Word was of God and “of the substance of God,” since the word “God,” as I have already said, signifies nothing but the substance or essence of Him who is. If then the Word is not in such sense from God, as to be Son, genuine and natural, from the Father, but only as creatures are from Him, as being framed, and as all things are from God, then neither is He from the substance of the Father, nor again is the Son according to substance Son, but in consequence of virtue, as we who are called sons by grace. But if only He is from God, as a genuine Son, as He is, then let the Son, as is reasonable, be called from the substance of God. And the illustration of Light and its Radiance bears the same way. For the sacred writers have not said that the Word was related to God as fire kindled from the heat of the sun, which after a while goes out, 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 Divine substance, proper and indivisible, and to express His oneness with the Father. This also will secure His true unalterableness and immutability; for how can these be His, unless He be proper Offspring of the Father’s substance? For this too must be taken to confirm His identity with His own Father. And so again, if He be the Word, the Wisdom, the Father’s Image, as well as Radiance, on these accounts He plainly must be consubstantial. For unless it be proved that He is not an offspring from God, but an instrument different both in nature and in substance, surely the Council was happy in its wording as well as orthodox in its sense.
33. By this Offspring the Father made all things, and by Him, who is His radiance, diffusing His universal Providence, He exercises His love to men; not as if Light were a simple property lodged in the Son (as perhaps they will say) and only acted through Him, for it is Itself one with the Father, no channel foreign in substance to the Light and to its Fountain, no mere creation; no, this is the belief of Caiaphas and Samosatene, but the Light which is from the Father He possesses in fulness, and of Him others receive according to the measure of each, no intermediate existing between the Father and Him by whom all things have been brought into being. And in Him is the Father revealed and known, and with Him frames the world, and does all things, and is partaken by all things, for all things partake of the Son, as partaking of the Holy Ghost. And these prerogatives of the Son show beyond cavil that He is no creature, but a proper offspring from the Father, as radiance is from light.