Monologion: Chapter 45
MONOLOGION
so by begetting the Son he grants the Son to have essence and wisdom and life in himself,53 so that it is not through someone else's essence, wisdom, and life but through his own that he subsists, is wise, and lives. Otherwise the being of the Father and the Son would not be the same,nor would the Son be equal to the Father. And we saw above54 quite clearly how false that is.
Therefore, it is not contradictory that the Son both subsists through himself and exists from the Father, since this very power of subsisting through himself is necessarily something he has from the Father. For if some wise man teaches me his wisdom, which I formerly lacked, we would rightly say that he had taught me by means of that very wisdom of his. But although my wisdom would have its being and its wisdom from his wisdom, nonetheless, once it existed it would exist only through its own essence and be wise only through itself. So it is all the more true that the eternal Father's coeternal
Son—who has being from the Father in such a way that they are not two essences—subsists, is wise, and lives through himself.
So if we say that the Father is the essence of the Son and the Son is the essence of the Father, this cannot be understood as meaning that either of them can subsist only through the other and not through himself. Rather, in order to indicate that they share the supremely simple and supremely unitary essence, it can be fittingly said and understood that each is the very same as the other in such a way that each has the essence of the other. Now for each of them there is no difference between having an essence and being an essence. And so by this argument, just as each has the essence of the other, each is the essence of the other; that is, one has the same being as the other.
Chapter 45 That the Son can more appropriately be called the essence of the Father than the Father can be called the essence of the Son; and that similarly the Son is the power and wisdom of the Father, and so on But although this is true according to the argument we have examined, it is far more fitting to call the Son the essence of the Father than to call the Father the essence of the Son. For since the Father has his essence from no one but himself, it is not completely appropriate to say that he has anyone's essence but his own. By contrast, since the Son has his essence from the Father, and indeed the very same essence that the Father has, he can be most appropriately said to have the essence of the Father.
53 Cf. John 5:26:"For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself."
54 In Chapters 29 and 43.