The Words “From the Substance” and “Of One Substance,” Part 2

So let all contention cease, and let us no longer fight among ourselves, even though the councils took the phrase “of one substance” in different ways. We have already given a sufficient defense of them, and to it the following may be added. We did not take the word “unoriginate” from Scripture, for nowhere does Scripture call God unoriginate. Yet since the word has many authorities in its favor, I looked into it with some curiosity, and found that it too has different senses. Some, for instance, call unoriginate what exists but was neither brought into being nor has any cause at all; others call the uncreated unoriginate. Now a person who has the first of these senses in view, “that which has no cause,” might say that the Son is not unoriginate. Yet he would not blame anyone whom he saw had the other meaning in view, “not a work or a creature, but an eternal offspring,” and who therefore affirmed that the Son is unoriginate; for both speak fittingly with their own aim in view. In the same way, even granting that the fathers have spoken in different ways about “of one substance,” let us not dispute about it, but take what they hand down to us in a reverent spirit, especially since their concern was for true religion. [a]

Ignatius, for instance, who was appointed bishop in Antioch after the apostles and became a martyr of Christ, writes of the Lord: “There is one physician, of flesh and of spirit, originate and unoriginate, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God.” On the other hand, some teachers who came after Ignatius write in their turn: “One is the Unoriginate, the Father, and one the genuine Son from him, true offspring, Word and Wisdom of the Father.” If, then, we have hostile feelings toward these writers, then we have the right to quarrel with the councils. But suppose we know their faith in Christ. Suppose we are convinced that the blessed Ignatius was right to write that Christ was originate because of the flesh, for he became flesh, and yet unoriginate, because he is not among the things that have been made and brought into being, but is Son from Father. And suppose we know, too, that those who said that the Unoriginate is one, meaning the Father, did not mean to lay down that the Word was brought into being and made, but that the Father has no cause, and is rather himself the Father of Wisdom, and in Wisdom has made all things that have been brought into being. Then why do we not hold all our fathers together in reverent belief, those who deposed the man from Samosata as well as those who condemned the Arian heresy, instead of setting them apart from each other and refusing to think rightly of them? I say again: the first, with the sophistry of the man from Samosata in view, wrote, “He is not of one substance”; and the second, with a meaning suited to their purpose, said that he is. For my own part, I have written these brief remarks out of my regard for men who were devout toward Christ. But if it were possible to get hold of the letter which we are told the first of them wrote, I believe we would find further grounds for what those blessed men did. For it is right and fitting to feel this way, and to keep a good conscience toward the fathers, if we are not illegitimate children but have received the traditions from them, and the lessons of true religion at their hands. [d]

Since this, as we confess and believe, is the sense of the fathers, let us go forward in their company and examine the matter once more, calmly and with kindly sympathy, in view of what has been said already: whether the bishops gathered at Nicaea did not in fact prove to have thought rightly. For if the Word is a work and foreign to the Father’s substance, so that he is separated from the Father by a difference of nature, he cannot be one in substance with him. Rather, he is of one kind by nature with the works, even though he surpasses them in grace. On the other hand, if we confess that he is not a work but the genuine offspring of the Father’s substance, it follows that he is inseparable from the Father, being of the same nature, because he is begotten from him. And being such, he is rightly called “of one substance.” [f]

Next, suppose the Son is not what he is by sharing, but is in his substance the Father’s Word and Wisdom, and this substance is the offspring of the Father’s substance and its likeness, as the radiance is of the light. And the Son says, “I and the Father are one,” and, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” How, then, must we understand these words? Or how shall we explain them so as to preserve the oneness of the Father and the Son? Now, as for the claim that this oneness consists in agreement of teaching, and in the Son’s not disagreeing with the Father, as the Arians say, that is a poor interpretation. For the saints, and still more the angels and archangels, have such agreement with God, and there is no disagreement among them. The one who disagreed, the devil, was seen to fall from heaven, as the Lord said. So if the Father and the Son are one by reason of agreement, there would be things brought into being that had this agreement with God, and each of them could say, “I and the Father are one.” But if this is absurd, as it truly is, it necessarily follows that we must think of the oneness of Son and Father as a oneness of substance. For things brought into being, though they agree with their Maker, have that agreement only by influence, by sharing, and through the mind; and to transgress it is to forfeit heaven. But the Son, being an offspring from the substance, is one in substance, himself and the Father who begot him.

This is why he has equality with the Father by titles that express unity, and why what is said of the Father is said in Scripture of the Son too, all except his being called Father. For the Son himself said, “All things that the Father has are mine,” and he says to the Father, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” Take, for instance, the name God, for “the Word was God.” Take Almighty: “Thus says he who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Take being Light: “I am,” he says, “the Light.” Take being the cause that works: “All things were made through him,” and, “Whatever I see the Father do, I do also.” Take being everlasting: “His eternal power and Godhead,” and, “In the beginning was the Word,” and, “He was the true Light, which gives light to every man who comes into the world.” Take being Lord: for “the Lord rained fire and sulfur from the Lord,” and the Father says, “I am the Lord,” and, “Thus says the Lord, the Almighty God,” and of the Son Paul speaks thus: “One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” [h]

Angels wait on the Father, and again the Son too is worshiped by them: “And let all the angels of God worship him.” He is said to be Lord of the angels, for “the angels ministered to him,” and “the Son of Man will send his angels.” He is honored as the Father is: “that they may honor the Son,” he says, “as they honor the Father.” He is equal to God: “He did not count it a prize to be equal with God.” He is Truth from the True and Life from the Living, as coming truly from the fountain, that is, the Father. He gives life to the dead and raises them as the Father does, for so it is written in the Gospel. Of the Father it is written, “The Lord your God is one Lord,” and, “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, and has called the earth”; and of the Son, “The Lord God has shone upon us,” and, “The God of gods will be seen in Zion.” Again, of God Isaiah says, “Who is a God like you, taking away iniquities and passing over unrighteousness?” But the Son said to whom he would, “Your sins are forgiven you”; for instance, when the Jews murmured, he showed the forgiveness by his action, saying to the paralyzed man, “Rise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Of God Paul says, “To the King eternal”; and again of the Son, David says in the Psalm, “Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come in.” And Daniel heard it said, “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his kingdom will not be destroyed.” In a word, all that you find said of the Father you will find said of the Son, all except his being Father, as has been said.

If, then, anyone, considering that these attributes are equal, imagines another source and another Father, that is a mad thought. But if, since the Son is from the Father, all that is the Father’s is the Son’s, as in an image and an exact expression, let it be considered calmly whether a substance foreign to the Father’s substance can admit of such attributes, and whether such a one is other in nature and alien in substance, and not of one substance with the Father. For we must take reverent care that we do not transfer what belongs to the Father to what is unlike him in substance, and express the Father’s Godhead by what is unlike in kind and alien in substance, and so bring in another substance foreign to him, yet capable of the properties of the first substance. We must take care that we are not silenced by God himself, saying, “My glory I will not give to another,” and found worshiping this alien God, and counted with the Jews of that day, who said, “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God?”, all the while referring the things of the Spirit to another source and blasphemously saying, “He casts out demons through Beelzebub.” But if this is shocking, plainly the Son is not unlike in substance, but of one substance with the Father. For if what the Father has is by nature the Son’s, and the Son himself is from the Father, and because of this oneness of Godhead and of nature he and the Father are one, and he who has seen the Son has seen the Father, then the fathers have good reason to call him “of one substance.” For it does not belong to what is other in substance to possess such prerogatives. [k]

And again, if, as we have said before, the Son is not what he is by sharing, but, while all things brought into being have the grace of God by sharing in it, he is the Father’s Wisdom and Word, in which all things share, it follows that he, being the deifying and enlightening power of the Father, in which all things are deified and given life, is not alien in substance from the Father, but of one substance with him. For by sharing in him we share in the Father, because the Word is the Father’s own. So if he too were what he is by sharing, and not from the Father as the Father’s own Godhead and image by substance, he would not deify others, being himself deified. For it is impossible that one who merely possesses something by sharing should give others a share of it, since what he has is not his own but the giver’s, and what he has received is barely the grace sufficient for himself. [l]

However, let us fairly examine the reason why some, as is said, decline “of one substance,” and see whether it does not rather show that the Son is of one substance with the Father. They say, then, as you have written, that it is not right to say the Son is of one substance with the Father, because whoever speaks of “of one substance” speaks of three: one substance existing beforehand, and those generated from it, which are of one substance. And they add: “If, then, the Son is of one substance with the Father, a substance must be supposed to exist beforehand, from which they were generated; and then the one is not Father and the other Son, but they are brothers together.” As to all this, though it is a Greek interpretation, and what comes from the Greeks does not bind us, still let us see whether things that are called of one substance and stand side by side, as derived from one substance existing beforehand, are of one substance with each other, or with the substance from which they are generated. If only with each other, then they are other in substance and unlike when compared with the substance that generated them, for “other in substance” is the opposite of “of one substance.” But if each is of one substance with the substance that generated them, it is thereby admitted that whatever is generated from anything is of one substance with what generated it. Then there is no need to look for three substances, but only to ask whether it is true that this one is from that one. For suppose there were not two brothers, but only one had come from that substance. The one generated would not be called alien in substance merely because no one but he came from the substance; though alone, he must be of one substance with the one who begot him.

What shall we say about Jephthah’s daughter? She was an only child: “He had,” says Scripture, “no other child.” And what about the widow’s son, whom the Lord raised from the dead? He too had no brother, but was an only son. Was neither of these, on that account, of one substance with the one who begot them? Surely they were, for they were children, and this is a property of children in relation to their parents. In the same way, when the fathers said that the Son of God was from the Father’s substance, they reasonably spoke of him as of one substance. For the radiance has the same property in relation to the light. Otherwise it follows that not even the creation came out of nothing. For just as men beget with passion, so too they work on matter that already exists, and cannot make anything otherwise. But if we do not understand creation in a human way when we attribute it to God, much less is it fitting to understand generation in a human way, or to give a bodily sense to “of one substance.” Instead we should withdraw from things brought into being, cast away human images, indeed all things of the senses, and rise up to the Father, so that we do not, through ignorance, rob the Father of the Son and rank the Son among his own creatures.

Further, if in confessing Father and Son we spoke of two first principles or two Gods, as Marcion and Valentinus did, or said that the Son had some other kind of godhead and was not the image and exact imprint of the Father, as born from him by nature, then he might be thought unlike, for such substances are altogether unlike each other. But we acknowledge that the Father’s Godhead is one and alone, and that the Son is his Word and Wisdom. Believing this, we are far from speaking of two Gods. We understand the oneness of the Son with the Father to be not in the likeness of their teaching, but according to substance and in truth, and so we speak not of two Gods but of one God, since there is but one Form of Godhead, as the light and the radiance are one. For this was what the patriarch Jacob saw, as Scripture says: “The sun rose upon him when the Form of God passed by.” Beholding this, and understanding whose Son and image he was, the holy prophets say, “The word of the Lord came to me.” And recognizing the Father, who was seen and revealed in him, they were bold to say, “The God of our fathers has appeared to me, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.” This being so, why do we hesitate to call him of one substance who is one with the Father, and appears as the Father does, according to likeness and oneness of Godhead? [o]

For if, as has been said many times, it is not his to belong to the Father’s substance, nor to resemble him as a Son, we may well hesitate. But if he is the enlightening and creating Power, the Father’s very own, without whom the Father neither frames anything nor is known, for all things hold together through him and in him, why, when we see the fact, do we decline to use the phrase that conveys it? For what is it to be of the same nature as the Father in this way, but to be one in substance with him? God did not attach the Son to himself from outside, as though he needed a servant; nor are the works on a level with the Creator, honored as he is, or to be thought one with the Father. Or else let someone venture to make the distinction that the sun and its radiance are two lights, or different substances; or to say that the radiance was added to the sun over and above it, and is not a simple and pure offspring from the sun, of such a kind that sun and radiance are two, but the light is one, because the radiance is an offspring from the sun. But the nature of the Son is not more divisible from the Father; it is rather less divisible. And the Godhead is not something added to the Son; rather the Father’s Godhead is in the Son, so that he who has seen the Son has seen the Father in him. Why, then, should such a one not be called of one substance?

Even this is enough to dissuade you from blaming those who said that the Son is of one substance with the Father. Still, let us examine the very term “of one substance” in itself, to see whether we ought to use it at all, whether it is a proper term, and whether it is suitable to apply to the Son. For you know yourselves, and no one can dispute it, that “like” is said not of substances but of habits and qualities; in the case of substances we speak not of likeness but of identity. A man, for instance, is said to be like a man, not in substance but in habit and character, for in substance men are of one nature. Again, a man is not said to be unlike a dog, but of a different nature. So while men are of one nature and of one substance with each other, man and dog are different in both. Therefore, when we speak of “like according to substance,” we mean like by sharing, for likeness is a quality which may be added to a substance. And this would be proper to creatures, for they are made like God by sharing in him. For “when he appears,” says Scripture, “we shall be like him”: like, that is, not in substance but in sonship, which we shall share from him. If, then, you speak of the Son as being what he is by sharing, then indeed call him “like in substance.” But spoken of that way, he is not Truth, nor Light at all, nor God by nature. For things that are what they are by sharing are called like not in reality but by resemblance to reality, so that they may fall away, or be taken from those who share them. And this, again, is proper to creatures and works. So if that is out of place, he must be Son, Light, Wisdom and God, not by sharing but by nature and in truth. And being so by nature and not by sharing, he would properly be called not “like in substance” but “of one substance.” And what would not be asserted even of other things, since “like” has been shown not to apply to substances, is it not folly, not to say violence, to put that forward in the case of the Son instead of “of one substance”? [q]

This is why the Council of Nicaea was correct in writing what it was fitting to say: that the Son, begotten from the Father’s substance, is of one substance with him. And if we too have been taught the same thing, let us not fight with shadows, especially since we know that those who made this definition made this confession of faith not to misrepresent the truth, but to vindicate the truth and true religion toward Christ, and to destroy the blasphemies of the Ario-maniacs against him. For this must be considered and carefully noted: when we use “unlike in substance” and “other in substance,” we mean not the true Son but one of the creatures, a Son brought in from outside and adopted, which pleases the heretics. But when we speak of “of one substance” without controversy, we mean a genuine Son born of the Father, though Christ’s enemies often burst with rage at this. What I have learned myself, and have heard men of judgment say, I have written in a few words. But you, remaining on the foundation of the apostles and holding fast the traditions of the fathers, pray that now at last all strife and rivalry may cease, that the futile questions of the heretics may be condemned, and all fighting over words; that the guilty and murderous heresy of the Arians may disappear, and the truth shine again in the hearts of all, so that everyone everywhere may “say the same thing” and think the same thing; and that, with no Arian insults remaining, it may be said and confessed in every church, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism,” in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom be the glory and the strength to the Father, to ages of ages. Amen. [r]

After I had written my account of the councils, I learned that the most impious Constantius had sent letters to the bishops remaining at Ariminum. I have taken pains to get copies of them from true brothers and to send them to you, together with what the bishops answered, so that you may know the impious craft of the emperor, and the firm and unswerving purpose of the bishops toward the truth.

The emperor’s letter, in translation: Constantius, Victorious and Triumphant, Augustus, to all the bishops assembled at Ariminum. Your excellencies are not unaware that the divine and adorable law is our chief care. But so far we have been unable to receive the twenty bishops sent by your wisdom and charged with the embassy from you, for we are pressed by a necessary campaign against the barbarians; and, as you know, it is fitting to have the soul clear of every care when one handles the matters of the divine law. We have therefore ordered the bishops to await our return at Adrianople, so that when all public affairs are well arranged, we may at last hear and weigh their proposals. Let it not, then, be a burden to your constancy to await their return, so that when they come back to you with our answer, you may be able to bring to a close matters that so deeply affect the well-being of the catholic church. This was what the bishops received at the hands of three messengers.

The bishops’ reply: Most God-beloved Lord Emperor, we have received the letter of your humanity, which reports that because of the pressure of public affairs you have so far been unable to attend to our deputies, and in which you command us to await their return, until your godliness has been informed by them of what we have defined in agreement with our forefathers. However, we now declare and affirm at once by this letter that we will not depart from our purpose, as we also instructed our deputies. We ask, then, that you will with a calm countenance order this letter of our lowliness to be read, and also that you will graciously receive the letter with which we charged our deputies. Your gentleness understands as well as we do that great grief and sadness prevail at present, because in these most happy days of yours so many churches are without bishops. On this account we again ask your humanity, most God-beloved Lord Emperor, that, if it pleases your religiousness, you would command us to return to our churches before the severe winter weather sets in, so that, together with our flocks, we may offer to God Almighty and to our Lord and Savior Christ, his only Son, our accustomed prayers on behalf of your imperial rule, as indeed we have always offered them and are offering them at this time.