Section 502
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20 COUNCIL OF NICE. Son is called splendor, fountain, river, and figure of the substance ; and quoted the words " in thy light shall we see light," and " I and my Father are one." Finally, they explained themselves with more clearness and brevity, in declaring that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, making use of the Greek word o/zoovcrfof, which this dispute has since rendered so celebrated, as expressive of the meaning of the terms and passages which have been cited. It was understood to signify that the Son is not only like the Father, but so similar that he may be called with pro priety the same ; and implies that the resemblance and immuta bility of the Son is different from that which is affirmed of us, and which we acquire by the practice of virtue, and the observation of the divine commands. Besides, bodies which have a resem blance only, may be separate and distant ; as a father and a son, however great may be the likeness between them. But the Son of God was considered not only similar to the substance of the Father, but inseparable from it, — the Word being always in the Father, and the Father in the Word. The Arians rejected with murmurings and contempt the term consubstantial, complaining that it was not to be found in the Scriptures, and might be taken in a very exceptionable sense. For, they remarked, that which is of the same substanc/ with an other is derived from it in one of these three modes 5 by produc tion, as a plant from its root ; by nuxion, as children from their fathers ; or by division:/ as in abstracting three or four pieces from a mass, for instance, of gold.* The Catholics explained so hap pily the term consubstantial, that the emperor himself, little as we may suppose him to have been familiar, from his education and military habits of life, with theological inquiries, perceived that it did not include any corporeal idea, no division being signi fied of the substance of the Father, which is altogether immate rial and divine, and must therefore be understood only in a divine and ineffable manner. They demonstrated the injustice of their opponents, in objecting to this word, on the pretence that it is not to be found in Scripture, when they themselves scrupled not to » Basil, Epist. 300.