The Words “From the Substance” and “Of One Substance,” Part 1

Since, then, this is how they treat one another and those who came before them, let us go on to learn from them what absurdity they have seen, or what fault they find in the accepted phrases, that they have turned out “disobedient to parents” and fight against an ecumenical council. “The phrases ‘from the substance’ and ‘of one substance,’” they say, “do not please us, for they are an offense to some and a trouble to many.” This, then, is what they allege in their writings. But one may reasonably answer them like this. If the words in themselves were a cause of offense to them, it would have followed, not that some only were offended and many troubled, but that we too and all the rest would have been affected by them in the same way. But if, on the contrary, everyone is well content with the words, and those who wrote them were no ordinary persons but men who came together from the whole world, and if the more than four hundred bishops who have now met at Ariminum bear witness to them besides, does this not plainly prove, against those who accuse the council, that the fault lies not in the terms but in the perversity of those who misinterpret them? [a]

How many people read divine Scripture wrongly and, taking it that way, find fault with the saints! Such were the Jews of old, who rejected the Lord, and such are the Manichaeans of today, who blaspheme the Law. Yet the Scriptures are not the cause of it for them; their own bad dispositions are. If, then, you can show that the terms are actually unsound, do so. Let the proof go ahead, and drop the pretense that they give offense, or you will end up in the condition of the Pharisees of old. For when they pretended to take offense at the Lord’s teaching, he said, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” By this he showed that it was not the words of the Father, planted by him, that were really an offense to them, but that they misinterpreted what was well said and caused their own offense. In the same way, those who at that time blamed the letters of the apostle were indicting not Paul but their own lack of learning and their distorted minds.

For answer me this, which is much to the point: who are these people you claim are offended and troubled by these terms? Not one of those who are reverent toward Christ; on the contrary, they defend and uphold them. But if it is Arians who feel this way, what wonder is it that they are distressed at words that destroy their heresy? It is not the terms that offend them; it is the condemnation of their impiety that pains them. So let us have no more grumbling against the fathers, and no pretense of this kind, or next you will be complaining about the Lord’s cross, because it is “to Jews an offense and to Gentiles foolishness,” as the apostle said. But just as the cross is not at fault, since to us who believe it is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” however the Jews may rave, so neither are the terms of the fathers at fault. They are profitable to those who read honestly and they overturn all impiety, even though the Arians so often burst with rage at being condemned by them. [d]

Since, then, the pretense that people are offended does not hold, tell us yourselves—for this must be asked first—why you are not pleased with the phrase “from the substance,” when you yourselves have written that the Son is begotten from the Father. If, when you name the Father or use the word “God,” you do not mean his substance, or understand him, who is what he is, according to his substance, but mean something else about him, not to say something inferior, then you should not have written that the Son was from the Father, but from what is around him or in him. And so, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making him who is simple into something compound, in a material way, you will be the authors of a newer blasphemy. And with such ideas you are bound to regard the Word and the title “Son” not as a substance but only as a name. In consequence you hold your own views only as far as names go, and you are talking not about what you believe exists, but about what you think does not exist.

But this is more like the crime of the Sadducees, and of those among the Greeks who were called atheists. It follows that you will deny that even creation is the handiwork of God himself, the One who is—at least if “Father” and “God” do not signify the very substance of him who is, but something else that you imagine. That is impious, and most shocking even to think of. [e]

But suppose that when we hear it said, “I am who I am,” and, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” and, “Thus says the Lord Almighty,” we understand nothing other than the very simple, blessed and incomprehensible substance itself of him who is. For though we are unable to grasp what he is, yet when we hear “Father” and “God” and “Almighty,” we understand nothing else to be meant than the very substance of him who is. And suppose you too have said that the Son is from God. Then it follows that you have said that he is from the “substance” of the Father. And since the Scriptures come before you, saying that the Lord is Son of the Father, and the Father himself comes before them, saying, “This is my beloved Son,” and a son is nothing other than the offspring of his father, is it not evident that the fathers fittingly said that the Son is from the Father’s substance? For to say rightly “from God” and to say “from the substance” are one and the same.

All the creatures, though they are said to have come into being from God, are still not from God in the way the Son is. They are not offspring by nature; they are works. So it is said, “In the beginning God”—not “begot,” but—“made the heaven and the earth, and all that is in them.” And not “who begets,” but “who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” And though the apostle has said, “One God, from whom are all things,” he does not say this counting the Son among the other things. Rather, some of the Greeks hold that creation was held together by chance and by the combination of atoms, arising of its own accord from elements of like structure, and that it has no cause. Others hold that it came from a cause, but not through the Word. And each heretic has imagined what he pleases and tells his own fables about creation. For this reason the apostle had to bring in “from God,” to point out the Maker by it and to show that the universe was framed by his will. Accordingly he goes straight on: “And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” He says this to set the Son apart from that “all,” for what is called God’s work is all done through the Son, and it is not possible that the things framed should have one origin with their Framer. He says it also to teach that the phrase “from God,” which occurs in the passage, has a different sense when used of the works from the one it bears when used of the Son. For he is offspring, and they are works. And therefore he, the Son, is the offspring that belongs to the Father’s own substance, while they are the handiwork of his will.

The council, then, understanding this, and aware of the different senses of the same word, wrote more explicitly that the Son was “from the substance,” so that no one would suppose that the Son was said to be “from God” in the way creation is. For this phrase signifies the true genuineness of the Son in relation to the Father, whereas the simple phrase “from God” signifies only the Creator’s will in framing things. If, then, they too meant this when they wrote that the Word was “from the Father,” they had nothing to complain of in the council. But if they meant “from God” of the Son in the way it is used of creation, then, since they understand it of creation, they should not call him Son, or they will plainly be mixing blasphemy with reverence. Either they must stop counting the Lord among the creatures, or at least they must refrain from unworthy and unfitting statements about the Son. For if he is a Son, he is not a creature; but if he is a creature, then he is not a Son. Since these are their views, perhaps they will deny the holy washing too, because it is given into Father and into Son, and not into Creator and creature, as they reckon them. [g]

“But,” they say, “none of this is written, and we reject these words as unscriptural.” But this again is a shameless excuse in their mouths. For if they think everything that is not written must be rejected, then why, when the Arian party invents such a heap of phrases not from Scripture—“from nothing,” and “the Son did not exist before he was begotten,” and “once he was not,” and “he is changeable,” and “the Father cannot be spoken of and is invisible to the Son,” and “the Son does not even know his own substance,” and all that Arius has vomited out in his frivolous and impious Thalia—why do they not speak against these, but rather take their side, and for that reason fight against their own fathers? And in what Scripture did they for their part find “Unoriginate,” and the term “substance,” and “there are three hypostases,” and “Christ is not true God,” and “he is one of the hundred sheep,” and “God’s Wisdom is unbegotten and without beginning, but the created powers are many, of which Christ is one”? Or how is it that in the so-called Dedication, Acacius and Eusebius and their fellows used expressions not in Scripture, and said that “the firstborn of creation” was “the exact image of the substance and power and will and glory,” and yet they complain of the fathers for mentioning unscriptural expressions, and especially “substance”? They ought either to complain of themselves or to find no fault with the fathers.

Now if certain others had made excuses about the expressions of the council, it might perhaps have been put down either to ignorance or to caution. There is no question, for instance, about George of Cappadocia, who was driven out of Alexandria. He was a man without character in years past, and no Christian in any respect, but only pretending to the name to suit the times, and thinking “religion to be a means of gain.” So there is no reason to complain of his making mistakes about the faith, since he knows neither what he says nor what he affirms, but, as the text says, “goes after everything like a bird.” [j]

But when Acacius and Eudoxius and Patrophilus say this, do they not deserve the strongest condemnation? For while they themselves write what is unscriptural, and have many times accepted the term “substance” as fitting, especially on the strength of the letter of Eusebius, they now blame their predecessors for using terms of the same kind. Indeed, though they themselves say that the Son is “God from God,” and “living Word,” and “exact image of the Father’s substance,” they accuse the bishops at Nicaea of saying that he who was begotten is “from the substance” of him who begot him, and “of one substance” with him. But what wonder is it if they clash with their predecessors and their own fathers, when they are inconsistent with themselves and fall foul of one another? For after publishing, at the so-called Dedication at Antioch, that the Son is the exact image of the Father’s substance, and swearing that this was what they held, and anathematizing those who held otherwise—and even writing down in Isauria, “We do not decline the authentic faith published at the Dedication at Antioch,” where the term “substance” was brought in—as if they had forgotten all this, a little later, in the same Isauria, they put into writing the very opposite, saying, “We reject the words ‘of one substance’ and ‘like in substance’ as foreign to the Scriptures, and we abolish the term ‘substance’ as not contained in them.”

Can we, then, count such men Christians any longer? Or what sort of faith do they have, who stand by neither word nor writing, but alter and change everything to suit the times? For if, Acacius and Eudoxius, you “do not decline the faith published at the Dedication,” and in it is written that the Son is “exact image of God’s substance,” why do you write in Isauria, “We reject ‘like in substance’”? For if the Son is not like the Father in substance, how is he “exact image of the substance”? But if you are dissatisfied at having written “exact image of the substance,” how is it that you “anathematize those who say that the Son is unlike”? For if he is not like in substance, he is surely unlike, and the unlike cannot be an image. And if so, then it does not hold that “he who has seen the Son has seen the Father,” since there would then be the greatest possible difference between them, or rather the one would be wholly unlike the other. And the unlike cannot possibly be called like. [n]

By what trick, then, do you call the unlike like, and consider the like to be unlike, and pretend to say that the Son is the Father’s image? For if the Son is not like the Father in substance, something is lacking to the image, and it is not a complete image, nor a perfect radiance. How then do you read, “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and, “From his fullness we have all received”? How is it that you expel the Arian Aetius as a heretic, though you say the same as he does? For he is your companion, Acacius, and he became Eudoxius’s teacher in this great impiety. That was why Leontius the bishop made him a deacon: so that, using the name of the diaconate as sheep’s clothing, he might pour out his words of blasphemy without being punished.

What, then, has persuaded you to contradict one another and bring such great disgrace on yourselves? You cannot give any good account of it. Only this supposition remains: that everything you do is mere outward profession and pretense, to secure the patronage of Constantius and the profit that comes from it. And you think nothing of accusing the fathers, and you complain outright of the expressions as unscriptural. And, as it is written, you have “opened your legs to everyone who passed by,” so as to change as often as those who pay and keep you wish. [o]

Yet though a man uses terms not found in Scripture, it makes no difference, so long as his meaning is reverent. But the heretic, even if he uses scriptural terms, is just as dangerous and depraved, and he will be asked in the words of the Spirit, “Why do you declare my laws and take my covenant in your mouth?” So, while the devil, though he spoke from the Scriptures, was silenced by the Savior, the blessed Paul, though he speaks from secular writers—“Cretans are always liars,” and, “For we are his offspring,” and, “Bad company corrupts good character”—still has a reverent meaning, being holy. He is “a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth,” since he has “the mind of Christ,” and what he says he utters reverently.

What, then, is there that is even plausible in the Arian terms, in which the “caterpillar” and the “locust” are ranked above the Savior, and he is reviled with “once you were not,” and “you were created,” and “you are foreign to God in substance”? In a word, there is no irreverence they leave unused. But what did the fathers leave out in the way of reverence? Or rather, do they not have an exalted view, and a reverence that loves Christ? And yet of these they wrote, “We reject them,” while they put up with those others in their insults toward the Lord. So they show everyone that they resist that great council for no other reason than that it condemned the Arian heresy. It is for this reason, again, that they speak against the term “of one substance,” about which they also hold wrong opinions. For if their faith were right, and they confessed the Father as truly Father, and believed the Son to be a genuine Son, and by nature the true Word and Wisdom of the Father; and if, in saying that the Son is “from God,” they did not use the words of him as they would of themselves, but understood him to be the Father’s own offspring from his substance, as radiance is from light—then they would not each of them have found fault with the fathers. They would have been confident that the council wrote fittingly, and that this is the right faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

“But,” they say, “the sense of such expressions is obscure to us.” This is another of their pretenses. “We reject them,” they say, “because we cannot grasp their meaning.” But if they were sincere in this claim, then instead of saying, “We reject them,” they should ask for instruction from those who are well informed. Otherwise they ought to reject whatever they cannot understand in divine Scripture, and find fault with its writers. But that would be the daring of heretics rather than of us Christians. For what we do not understand in the sacred oracles, we do not reject; we seek it from those to whom the Lord has revealed it, and we ask them for instruction. [r]

But since they make a pretext of the obscurity of such expressions, let them at least confess what is attached to the creed. Let them anathematize those who hold that “the Son is from nothing,” and “he did not exist before he was begotten,” and “the Word of God is a creature and a work,” and “he is changeable by nature,” and “he is from another hypostasis.” In a word, let them anathematize the Arian heresy, which gave rise to such impiety. And let them no longer say, “We reject the terms,” but, “We do not yet understand them,” so as to have some reason to show for declining them. But I know well, and am sure, and they know it too, that if they could confess all this and anathematize the Arian heresy, they would no longer deny those terms of the council. For this is why the fathers, after declaring that the Son was begotten from the Father’s substance and was of one substance with him, then added, “But those who say”—what has just been quoted, the watchwords of the Arian heresy—“we anathematize.” They did it, I mean, to show that the statements run parallel, that the terms in the creed imply the denials attached to them, and that all who confess the terms will certainly understand the denials. But those who both dissent from the denials and attack the terms are proved on every side to be enemies of Christ.

Those who deny the council altogether are sufficiently exposed by these brief remarks. But those who accept everything else that was defined at Nicaea, and are in doubt only about “of one substance,” must not be treated as enemies. We do not attack them here as Ario-maniacs, nor as opponents of the fathers. We discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean and dispute only about the word. For since they confess that the Son is from the substance of the Father and not from another hypostasis, and that he is not a creature or a work but the Father’s genuine and natural offspring, and that he is eternally with the Father as his Word and Wisdom, they are not far from accepting even the phrase “of one substance.” Such a man is Basil, who wrote from Ancyra about the faith. [s]

For merely to say “like in substance” falls far short of signifying “from the substance,” by which rather, as they say themselves, the genuineness of the Son in relation to the Father is signified. Tin, for instance, is only like silver, a wolf like a dog, and gilded brass like the real metal; but tin is not from silver, nor could a wolf be counted the offspring of a dog. But since they say that he is “from the substance” and “like in substance,” what do they mean by these but “of one substance”? For while saying only “like in substance” does not necessarily convey “from the substance,” saying “of one substance,” on the contrary, conveys the meaning of both terms, “like in substance” and “from the substance.” And accordingly they themselves, in controversy with those who say that the Word is a creature instead of allowing him to be a genuine Son, have drawn their proofs against them from human examples of son and father—with this exception, that God is not as man, nor is the begetting of the Son like human offspring, but such as may be ascribed to God and is fitting for us to think. So they have called the Father the Fountain of Wisdom and Life, and the Son the Radiance of the Eternal Light and the Offspring from the Fountain, as he says, “I am the Life,” and, “I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence.” But the Radiance from the Light, and the Offspring from the Fountain, and the Son from the Father—how can these be expressed so fittingly as by “of one substance”?

And is there any reason to fear that, because human offspring are of one substance with those who beget them, the Son, by being called of one substance, might himself be thought a human offspring too? Perish the thought! Not at all; the explanation is easy. For the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, and from this we learn that such a begetting from the Father is free of suffering and of division. For not even a man’s word is a part of him, nor does it come from him through any suffering; much less does God’s Word. And the Father has declared him to be his own Son so that, on the other hand, if we heard only of “Word,” we should not suppose him to be, like a human word, without existence of his own; but that, hearing that he is Son, we may acknowledge him to be a living Word and a Wisdom that truly exists.

Accordingly, when we say “offspring,” we have no human thoughts; and though we know God to be a Father, we hold no material ideas about him. While we listen to these comparisons and terms, we think of God fittingly, for he is not as man. In the same way, when we hear “of one substance,” we ought to rise above everything the senses suggest and, as it says in Proverbs, “understand by the understanding what is set before us,” so as to know that he is genuinely from the Father not by will but in truth, as Life from the Fountain and Radiance from the Light. Otherwise, why should we understand “offspring” and “son” in no bodily way, while we conceive of “of one substance” after the manner of bodies? Especially since these terms are not used here about different subjects: the one of whom “offspring” is said is the one of whom “of one substance” is said too. It is only consistent to attach the same sense to both expressions as applied to the Savior, and not to interpret “offspring” in a good sense and “of one substance” otherwise. For, to be consistent, you who think this way, and who say that the Son is the Word and Wisdom of the Father, should take a different view of these terms too, and understand Word in one sense and Wisdom in yet another. But that would be absurd, for the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, and the Offspring from the Father is one and belongs to his substance. So the sense of “offspring” and “of one substance” is one, and whoever considers the Son an offspring rightly considers him also as “of one substance.” [v]

This is enough to show that the meaning of these beloved men is not foreign to “of one substance,” nor far from it. But they allege—for I do not have the letter in question—that the bishops who condemned the man from Samosata said in writing that the Son is not of one substance with the Father. So it happens that, out of caution and honor toward those who said this, they feel as they do about that expression. It will therefore be to the purpose to reason with them carefully on this point too. Certainly it is unfitting to set the one group against the other, for all are fathers. Nor is it reverent to decide that these spoke well and those badly, for all of them fell asleep in Christ. Nor is it right to be quarrelsome and compare the numbers of those who met in the councils, so that the three hundred should not seem to overshadow the smaller number; nor to compare the dates, so that those who came first should not seem to eclipse those who came after. For all, I say, are fathers. And yet even the three hundred laid down nothing new, nor was it out of any self-confidence that they became champions of words not in Scripture. They fell back on fathers, as the others did, and used their words. [w]

For there were two men named Dionysius, much older than the seventy who deposed the man from Samosata, one of Rome and the other of Alexandria. Some people had brought a charge against the bishop of Alexandria before the bishop of Rome, claiming that he had said the Son was made, and was not of one substance with the Father. The synod at Rome was indignant, and the bishop of Rome set out their common judgment in a letter to his namesake. So the bishop of Alexandria, in his defense, wrote a book titled Refutation and Defense, and in it he writes to the other as follows:

“And I wrote in another letter a refutation of the false charge they bring against me, that I deny that Christ is of one substance with God. For though I say that I have not found or read this term anywhere in Holy Scripture, yet my remarks that follow, which they have not noticed, are not inconsistent with that belief. For I gave the example of human offspring, which is plainly of the same kind, and I observed that fathers undeniably differ from their children only in not being the same individuals; otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. “And because of present circumstances, as I said before, I am unable to produce my letter, or I would have sent you the very words I used, or rather a copy of the whole of it; and if I have the opportunity, I will still do so. But I am sure from memory that I offered many comparisons of things related to one another. For example, I said that a plant grown from seed or from a root was other than that from which it sprang, and yet altogether one in nature with it; and that a stream flowing from a fountain took on a different appearance and name, for the fountain was not called stream, nor the stream fountain, but both existed, and the fountain was, as it were, father, while the stream was what was begotten from the fountain.”

So writes the bishop. If, then, anyone finds fault with those who met at Nicaea, as though they contradicted the decisions of their predecessors, he might reasonably find fault also with the seventy, because they did not keep to the statements of their own predecessors—and such were the two men named Dionysius and the bishops assembled on that occasion at Rome. But it is not reverent to blame either these or those. For all were entrusted with Christ’s embassy, and all took pains against the heretics: the one party condemned the man from Samosata, while the other condemned the Arian heresy. And both these and those wrote rightly, and fittingly for the matter in hand. [y]

Consider the blessed apostle. Writing to the Romans he said, “The Law is spiritual; the Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good,” and soon after, “What the Law could not do, in that it was weak.” But to the Hebrews he wrote, “The Law made no one perfect,” and to the Galatians, “By the Law no one is justified,” but to Timothy, “The Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.” Yet no one would accuse the saint of inconsistency and change in his writing. Rather, one would admire how fittingly he wrote to each: teaching the Romans and the others to turn from the letter to the spirit, but instructing the Hebrews and Galatians to place their hopes not in the Law but in the Lord who had given the Law. So too, if the fathers of the two councils spoke differently of “of one substance,” we ought not to differ from them in any respect, but to look into their meaning, and this will fully show us the agreement of both councils.

For those who deposed the man from Samosata took “of one substance” in a bodily sense, because Paul had attempted a sophistry and said, “Unless Christ became God out of man, it follows that he is of one substance with the Father; and if so, there must of necessity be three substances, one the prior substance and the other two from it.” And so, guarding against this, they said with good reason that Christ was not of one substance. For the Son is not related to the Father as Paul imagined. But the bishops who anathematized the Arian heresy understood Paul’s craft. They reflected that the word “of one substance” does not have this meaning when used of immaterial things, and especially of God. They acknowledged that the Word was not a creature but an offspring from the substance; that the Father’s substance was the origin and root and fountain of the Son; and that he was in very truth his Father’s likeness, not of a different nature as we are, nor separate from the Father, but that, being from him, he exists as an undivided Son, as radiance is in relation to light. They also knew the comparisons used in the case of Dionysius, the “fountain,” and the defense of “of one substance,” and before this the Savior’s saying, which signifies unity, “I and the Father are one,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” On these grounds they reasonably affirmed, for their part, that the Son was of one substance.

And just as, according to what was said before, no one would blame the apostle if he wrote to the Romans about the Law in one way and to the Hebrews in another, in the same way the present bishops would not find fault with the ancient ones, when they look at their interpretation; nor, again, would the ancient ones censure their successors, when they consider the successors’ interpretation and their need to write as they did about the Lord. Yes, surely, each council has a sufficient reason for its own language. For since the man from Samosata held that the Son did not exist before Mary, but received from her the beginning of his being, those who met at that time deposed him and declared him a heretic. But writing about the Son’s Godhead in simplicity, they did not arrive at precision about “of one substance”; as they understood the word, so they spoke about it. For they directed all their thoughts to destroying the scheme of the man from Samosata, and to showing that the Son was before all things, and that instead of becoming God from man, he, being God, had put on the form of a servant, and being Word, had become flesh, as John says. That is how they dealt with the blasphemies of Paul.

But Eusebius, Arius and their fellows said that, though the Son was before time, yet he was made and was one of the creatures. As for the phrase “from God,” they did not believe it in the sense of his being a genuine Son from a Father, but held it as it is said of the creatures. And as for the unity of likeness between the Son and the Father, they did not confess that the Son is like the Father in substance, or by nature as a son resembles his father, but only because of their agreement in doctrine and in teaching. Indeed, they drew a line and an utter distinction between the Son’s substance and the Father, ascribing to him an origin of being other than the Father, and lowering him to the creatures. On this account the bishops assembled at Nicaea, with an eye to the craft of those who thought this way, and gathering the sense from the Scriptures, cleared up the point by affirming “of one substance.” They did so that by it the true genuineness of the Son might be known, and that nothing in common with him might be ascribed to things that have a beginning. For the precision of this phrase exposes their pretense whenever they use the phrase “from God,” and it gets rid of all the subtleties by which they lead the simple astray. For while they contrive to twist every other word sophistically as they please, this phrase alone they dread, because it exposes their heresy. The fathers set it down as a bulwark against their impious notions, one and all.