4 I. 1, 4. 3, 16. 204 Generation does not imply division or affection of substance. DISC. Father, is the Son; for, as partaking of the Son Himself, we are said to partake of God; and this is what Peter said, 2 Pet. that ye may be partakers1 in a divine nature; as says too ¡the Apostle, Know ye not, that ye are a temple of God? 1 Cor. and We are the temple of the Living God. And beholding , the Son, we see the Father; for the thought2 and comprehenvid. de sion of the Son, is knowledge concerning the Father, because Syn. §. 48 fin. He is His proper offspring from His substance. And since to be partaken no one of us would ever call affection or division of God's substance, (for it has been shewn and acknowledged that God is participated, and to be participated is the same thing as to beget;) therefore that which is begotten is neither affection nor division of that blessed substance. Hence it is not incredible that God should have a Son, the Offspring of His own substance; nor do we imply affection or division of God's substance, when we speak of "Son" and "Offspring;" but rather, as acknowledging the genuine, and true, and Only-begotten of God, so we believe. 3 supr. p. 27 note i. p. 41, note e. 30. 6. If then, as we have stated and are shewing, what is the Offspring of the Father's substance be the Son, we cannot hesitate, rather, we must be certain, that the same 3 is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in and through whom He creates and makes all things; and His Brightness too, in whom He enlightens all things, and is revealed to whom He will; and His Expression and Image also, in whom He is contemplated John10, and known, wherefore He and His Father are one, and whoso looketh on Him, looketh on the Father; and the Christ, in whom all things are redeemed, and the new creation wrought afresh. And on the other hand, the Son being such Offspring, it is not fitting, rather it is full of peril, to say, that He is a work out of nothing, or that He was not before His generation. For he who thus speaks of that which is proper to the Father's substance, already blasphemes the p. 3, Father Himself*; since he really thinks of Him what He falsely imagines of His offspring. note f. CHAP. VI. SUBJECT CONTINUED. Third proof of the Son's eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His consubstantiality; as the Creator; as One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son, Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father, to be immutable and ever the same. VI. §. 17. 1. THIS thought is of itself a sufficient refutation of the CHAP. Arian heresy; however, its heterodoxy will appear also from the following:-If God be Maker and Creator, and create His works through the Son, and we cannot regard things which come to be, except as being through the Word, is it not blasphemous, God being Maker, to say, that His Framing Word and His Wisdom once was not? it is the same as saying, that God is not Maker, if He had not His proper Framing Word which is from Him, but that That by which He frames, accrues to Him from without1, and is alien from 'p. 43, Him, and unlike2 in substance. note b. 4 2. Next, let them tell us this, or rather learn from it how irreligious they are in saying "Once He was not," and, "He was not before His generation ;"—for if the Word is not with the Father from everlasting, the Trinity33 rgiás is not everlasting; but a One was first, and afterwards by ovós addition it became a Three"; and so as time went on, it seems, 5 rgiás what we know concerning God grew and took shape. And vid. further, if the Son is not proper offspring of the Father's. 13. substance, but of nothing has come to be, then of nothing the Trinity consists, and once there was not a Three, but a One; and a Three once with deficiency, and then complete; deficient, before the Son was generated, complete when He had come Orat.iv. note d. 206 If the Son not eternal, the Holy Trinity not eternal. Disc. to be; and henceforth a thing generated is reckoned with I. the Creator, and what once was not has divine worship and p. 191, glory with Him who was ever'. Nay, what is more serious still, the Three is discovered to be unlike Itself, consisting of strange and alien natures and substances. And this, in other words, is saying, that the Trinity has a generated consistence. What sort of a worship then is this, which is not even like itself, but is in process of completion as time goes on, and is now not thus, and then again thus? For probably it will receive some fresh accession, and so on without limit, since at first and at starting it took its consistence by way of accessions. And so undoubtedly it may decrease on the contrary, for what is added plainly admits of being subtracted. §. 18. p. 56. 3. But this is not so: perish the thought; the Three is not generated; but there is an eternal and one Godhead in a Three, and there is one Glory of the Holy Three. And ye presume to divide it into different natures; the Father being eternal, yet ye say of the Word which is seated by Him," Once He was not ;" and, whereas the Son is seated by the Father, yet ye think to place Him far from Him. The Three is Creator and Framer, and ye fear not to degrade It to things which are from nothing; ye scruple not to equal servile beings to the nobility of the Three, and to rank the King, the Lord of Sabaoth, 2de Decr. with subjects. Cease this confusion of things unassociable, §. 31. or rather of things which are not with Him who is. Such statements do not glorify and honour the Lord, but the reverse; for he who dishonours the Son, dishonours also the Father. For if theological doctrine is now perfect in a Trinity, and this is the true and only worship of Him, and this is the good and the truth, it must have been always so, unless the good and the truth be something that came after, and theological doctrine is completed by additions. I say, it must have been eternally so; but if not eternally, not so at present either, but at present so, as you suppose was from the beginning,-I mean, not a Trinity now. But such heretics no Christian would bear; it belongs to Greeks, to introduce a generated Trinity, and to level It with things generate; for these do admit of deficiencies and additions; but the faith of Christians acknowledges the blessed Trinity as unalterable and perfect and ever what It Names "Wisdom," "Fountain," "Word," imply eternity. 207 VI. was, neither adding to It what is more, nor imputing to It CHAP. any loss, (for both ideas are irreligious,) and therefore it dissociates it from all things generated, and it guards as indivisible and worships the unity of the Godhead Itself; and shuns the Arian blasphemies, and confesses and acknowledges that the Son was ever; for He is eternal, as is the Father, of whom He is the Eternal Word,-to which subject let us now return again. 13. 12. παρκτα Prov. 3, 4. If God be, and be called, the Fountain of wisdom and §. 19. life, as He says by Jeremiah, They have forsaken Me the Foun- Jer. 2, tain of living waters; and again, A glorious high throne from Jer. 17, the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary; O Lord, the 12. Hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters; and in the book of Baruch it is written, Thou hast Bar. 3, forsaken the Fountain of wisdom,—this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the Substance of the Fountain, but are proper to It, nor were at any time without existence1, but1 ¿vúwere always. Now the Son is all this, who says, I am the Life, John and, I Wisdom dwell with prudence. Is it not then irreligious 14, 6. to say," Once the Son was not?" for it is all one with saying, 12. "Once the Fountain was dry, destitute of Life and Wisdom." But a fountain it would then cease to be; for what begetteth not from itself, is not a fountain2. What a load of extra-2 p. 202, vagance! for God promises that those who do His will shall be as a fountain which the water fails not, saying by Isaiah the prophet, And the Lord shall satisfy thy soul in drought, Isa. 58, and make thy bones fat; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And yet these, whereas God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to insult Him as barren3 and void of His proper Wisdom. 3 yovov But their doctrine is false; truth witnessing that God is the eternal Fountain of His proper Wisdom; and, if the Fountain be eternal, the Wisdom also must needs be eternal. For in It were all things made, as David says in the Psalm, In Ps. 104, Wisdom hast Thou made them all; and Solomon says, The Prov. 3, Lord by Wisdom hath formed the earth, by understanding 19. hath He established the heavens. 5. And this Wisdom is the Word, and by Him, as John says, ref. 2. 12. 24. I. John 1, 8, 6. 1 vid. Petav. ii. 12. §. 4. DrSc. all things were made, and without Him was made not one thing". And this Word is Christ; for there is One God, the 3. Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and 1 Cor. One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him. And if all things are through Him, He Himself is not to be reckoned with that "all." For he who dares to call Him, through whom are all things, one of that de Trin." all," surely will have like speculations concerning God, from whom are all. But if he shrinks from this as extravagant, and excludes God from that all, it is but consistent that he should also exclude from that all the Only-Begotten Son, as being proper to the Father's substance. And, if He be not one of the all, it is sin to say concerning Him, "He was not," and "He was not before His generation." Such words be may used of the creatures; but as to the Son, He is such as the Father is, of whose substance He is proper Offspring, Word, 3de Decr. and Wisdom3. For this is proper to the Son, as regards the §. 17. Father, and this shews that the Father is proper to the Son; that we may neither say that God was ever without His Rational Word", nor that the Son was non-existing. For wherefore a 2 de Decr. §. 30. supr. p. 54. P. 28. 4 ἀνύπαρκτον a The words "that was made" which end this verse were omitted by the ancient citers of it, as Irenæus, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian, nay, Augustine; but because it was abused by the Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. as if derogatory to the divinity of the Holy Spirit, it was quoted in full, as by Epiphanius, Ancor. 75. who goes so far as to speak severely of the ancient mode of citation. vid. Fabric. and Routh, ad Hippol. contr. Noet. 12. boyov. vid. supr. p. 25, note c, where other instances are given from Athan. and Dionysius of Rome; also p. 2, note e. vid. also Orat. iv. 2. 4. Sent. D. 23. Origen, supr. p. 48. Athenag. Leg. 10. Tat. contr. Græc. 5. Theoph. ad Autol. ii. 10. Hipp. contr. Noet. 10. Nyssen. cóntr. Eunom. vii. p. 215. viii. pp. 230, 240. Orat. Catech. 1. Naz. Orat. 29. 17 fin. Cyril. Thesaur. xiv. p. 145. (vid. Petav. de Trin. vi. 9.) It must not be supposed from these instances that the Fathers meant that our Lord was literally what is called the attribute of reason or wisdom in the Divine Essence, or in other words that He was God merely viewed as He is wise; which would be a kind of Sabellianism. But, whereas their opponents said that He was but called Word and Wisdom after the attribute,(vid.supr. p. 95, note c,) they said that such titles marked, not only a typical resemblance to the attribute, but so full a correspondence and (as it were) coincidence in nature with it, that whatever relation that attribute had to God, such in kind had the Son;-that the attribute was His symbol, and not His mere archetype; that our Lord was eternal and proper to God, because that attribute was, which was His title, vid. Athan. Ep. Æg. 14. that our Lord was that Essential Reason and Wisdom,not by which the Father is wise, but without which the Father was not wise;not, that is, in the way of a formal cause, but in fact. Or, whereas the Father Himself is Reason and Wisdom, the Son is the necessary result of that Reason and Wisdom, so that, to say that there was no Word, would imply there was no Divine Reason; just as a radiance implies a light; or, as Petavius remarks, 1. c. quoting the words which follow shortly after in the text, the eternity of the Original implies the |