On the Symbols 'Of the Essence' And 'Coessential.' (1 of 2)

Part III. On the Symbols ‘Of the Essence’ And ‘Coessential.’

We must look at the sense not the wording. The offence excited is at the sense; meaning of the Symbols; the question of their not being in Scripture. Those who hesitate only at ‘coessential,’ not to be considered Arians. Reasons why ‘coessential’ is better than ‘like-in-essence,’ yet the latter may be interpreted in a good sense. Explanation of the rejection of ‘coessential’ by the Council which condemned the Samosatene; use of the word by Dionysius of Alexandria; parallel variation in the use of Unoriginate; quotation from Ignatius and another; reasons for using ‘coessential;’ objections to it; examination of the word itself; further documents of the Council of Ariminum.

33. But since they are thus minded both towards each other and towards those who preceded them, proceed we to ascertain from them what absurdity they have seen, or what they complain of in the received phrases, that they have proved ‘disobedient to parents’ (Rom. i. 30), and contend against an Ecumenical Council? ‘The phrases “of the essence” and “coessential,”’ say they, ‘do not please us, for they are an offence to some and a trouble to many.’ This then is what they allege in their writings; but one may reasonably answer them thus: If the very words were by themselves a cause of offence to them, it must have followed, not that some only should have been offended, and many troubled, but that we also and all the rest should have been affected by them in the same way; but if on the contrary all men are well content with the words, and they who wrote them were no ordinary persons but men who came together from the whole world, and to these testify in addition the 400 Bishops and more who now met at Ariminum, does not this plainly prove against those who accuse the Council, that the terms are not in fault, but the perverseness of those who misinterpret them? How many men read divine Scripture wrongly, and as thus conceiving it, find fault with the Saints? such were the former Jews, who rejected the Lord, and the present Manichees who blaspheme the Law; yet are not the Scriptures the cause to them, but their own evil humours. If then ye can shew the terms to be actually unsound, do so and let the proof proceed, and drop the pretence of offence created, lest you come into the condition of the Pharisees of old. For when they pretended offence at the Lord’s teaching, He said, ‘Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up’ (Matt. xv. 13). By which He shewed that not the words of the Father planted by Him were really an offence to them, but that they misinterpreted what was well said, and offended themselves. And in like manner they who at that time blamed the Epistles of the Apostle, impeached, not Paul, but their own deficient learning and distorted minds.

34. For answer, what is much to the purpose, Who are they whom you pretend are offended and troubled at these terms? of those who are religious towards Christ not one; on the contrary they defend and maintain them. But if they are Arians who thus feel, what wonder they should be distressed at words which destroy their heresy? for it is not the terms which offend them, but the proscription of their irreligion which afflicts them. Therefore let us have no more murmuring against the Fathers, nor pretence of this kind; or next you will be making complaints of the Lord’s Cross, because it is ‘to Jews an offence and to Gentiles foolishness,’ as said the Apostle (1 Cor. i. 23, 24). But as the Cross is not faulty, for to us who believe it is ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,’ though Jews rave, so neither are the terms of the Fathers faulty, but profitable to those who honestly read, and subversive of all irreligion, though the Arians so often burst with rage as being condemned by them. Since then the pretence that persons are offended does not hold, tell us yourselves, why is it you are not pleased with the phrase ‘of the essence’ (this must first be enquired about), when you yourselves have written that the Son is generated from the Father? If when you name the Father, or use the word ‘God,’ you do not signify essence, or understand Him according to essence, who is that He is, but signify something else about Him, not to say inferior, then you should not have written that the Son was from the Father, but from what is about Him or in Him; and so, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making Him compound who is simple, in a material way, you will be authors of a newer blasphemy. And, with such ideas, you must needs consider the Word, and the title ‘Son,’ not as an essence but as a name only, and in consequence hold your own views as far as names only, and be talking, not of what you believe to exist, but of what you think not to exist.

35. But this is more like the crime of the Sadducees, and of those among the Greeks who had the name of Atheists. It follows that you will deny that even creation is the handy-work of God Himself that is; at least, if ‘Father’ and ‘God’ do not signify the very essence of Him that is, but something else, which you imagine: which is irreligious, and most shocking even to think of. But if, when we hear it said, ‘I am that 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 saith the Lord Almighty’ (Ex. iii. 14; Gen. i. 1; Deut. vi. 4), we understand nothing else than the very simple, and blessed, and incomprehensible essence itself of Him that is, (for though we be unable to master what He is, yet hearing ‘Father,’ and ‘God,’ and ‘Almighty,’ we understand nothing else to be meant than the very essence of Him that is); and if ye too have said, that the Son is from God, it follows that you have said that He is from the ‘essence’ of the Father. And since the Scriptures precede you which say, that the Lord is Son of the Father, and the Father Himself precedes them, who says, ‘This is My beloved Son’ (Matt. iii. 17), and a son is no other than the offspring from his father, is it not evident that the Fathers have suitably said that the Son is from the Father’s essence? considering that it is all one to say rightly ‘from God,’ and to say ‘from the essence.’ For all the creatures, though they be said to have come into being from God, yet are not from God as the Son is; for they are not offsprings in their nature, but works. Thus, it is said, ‘in the beginning God,’ not ‘generated,’ but ‘made the heaven and the earth, and all that is in them’ (Gen. i. 1). And not, ‘who generates,’ but ‘who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire’ (Ps. civ. 4). And though the Apostle has said, ‘One God, from whom all things’ (1 Cor. viii. 6), yet he says not this, as reckoning the Son with other things; but, whereas some of the Greeks consider that the creation was held together by chance, and from the combination of atoms; and spontaneously from elements of similar structure, and has no cause; and others consider that it came from a cause, but not through the Word; and each heretic has imagined things at his will, and tells his fables about the creation; on this account the Apostle was obliged to introduce ‘from God,’ that he might thereby certify the Maker, and shew that the universe was framed at His will. And accordingly he straightway proceeds: ‘And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things’ (1 Cor. viii. 6), by way of excepting the Son 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), and by way of teaching that the phrase ‘of God,’ which occurs in the passage, has a different sense in the case of the works, from what it bears when used of the Son; for He is offspring, and they are works: and therefore He, the Son, is the proper offspring of His essence, but they are the handywork of his will.

36. The Council, then, comprehending this, and aware of the different senses of the same word, that none should suppose, that the Son was said to be ‘from God’ like the creation, wrote with greater explicitness, that the Son was ‘from the essence.’ For this betokens the true genuineness of the Son towards the Father; whereas, by the simple phrase ‘from God,’ only the Creator’s will in framing is signified. If then they too had this meaning, when they wrote that the Word was ‘from the Father,’ they had nothing to complain of in the Council; but if they meant ‘of God,’ in the instance of the Son, as it is used of the creation, then as understanding it of the creation, they should not name the Son, or they will be manifestly mingling blasphemy with religiousness; but either they have to cease reckoning the Lord with the creatures, or at least to refrain from unworthy and unbecoming statements about the Son. For if He is a Son, He is not a creature; but if a creature, then not a Son. Since these are their views, perhaps they will be denying the Holy Laver also, because it is administered into Father and into Son and not into Creator and Creature, as they account it. ‘But,’ they say, ‘all this is not written: and we reject these words as unscriptural.’ But this, again, is an unblushing excuse in their mouths. For if they think everything must be rejected which is not written, wherefore, when the Arian party invent such a heap of phrases, not from Scripture, ‘Out of nothing,’ and ‘the Son was not before His generation,’ and ‘Once He was not,’ and ‘He is alterable,’ and ‘the Father is ineffable and invisible to the Son,’ and ‘the Son knows not even His own essence;’ and all that Arius has vomited in his light and irreligious Thalia, why do not they speak against these, but rather take their part, and on that account contend with their own Fathers? And, in what Scripture did they on their part find ‘Unoriginate,’ and ‘the term essence,’ and ‘there are three subsistences,’ and ‘Christ is not very God,’ and ‘He is one of the hundred sheep,’ and ‘God’s Wisdom is ingenerate and without beginning, but the created powers are many, of which Christ is one?’ Or how, when in the so-called Dedication, Acacius and Eusebius and their fellows used expressions not in Scripture, and said that ‘the First-born of the creation’ was ‘the exact Image of the essence and power and will and glory,’ do they complain of the Fathers, for making mention of unscriptural expressions, and especially of essence? For they ought either to complain of themselves, or to find no fault with the Fathers.

37. Now, if certain others made excuses of the expressions of the Council, it might perhaps have been set down, either to ignorance or to caution. There is no question, for instance, about George of Cappadocia, who was expelled from Alexandria; a man, without character in years past, nor a Christian in any respect; but only pretending to the name to suit the times, and thinking ‘religion to be a’ means of ‘gain’ (1 Tim. vi. 5). And therefore there is no reason to complain of his making mistakes about the faith, considering he knows neither what he says, nor whereof he affirms; but, according to the text, ‘goeth after all, as a bird’ (1 Tim. i. 7; Prov. vii. 22, 23, not LXX.?) But when Acacius, and Eudoxius, and Patrophilus say this, do not they deserve the strongest reprobation? for while they write what is unscriptural themselves, and have accepted many times the term ‘essence’ as suitable, especially on the ground of the letter of Eusebius, they now blame their predecessors for using terms of the same kind. Nay, though they say themselves, that the Son is ‘God from God,’ and ‘Living Word,’ ‘Exact Image of the Father’s essence;’ they accuse the Nicene Bishops of saying, that He who was begotten is ‘of the essence’ of Him who begat Him, and ‘Coessential’ with Him. But what marvel if they conflict with their predecessors and their own Fathers, when they are inconsistent with themselves, and fall foul of each other? For after publishing, in the so-called Dedication at Antioch, that the Son is exact Image of the Father’s essence, and swearing that so they held and anathematizing those who held otherwise, nay, in Isauria, writing down, ‘We do not decline the authentic faith published in the Dedication at Antioch,’ where the term ‘essence’ was introduced, as if forgetting all this, shortly after, in the same Isauria, they put into writing the very contrary, saying, We reject the words ‘coessential,’ and ‘like-in-essence,’ as alien to the Scriptures, and abolish the term ‘essence,’ as not contained therein.

38. Can we then any more account such men Christians? or what sort of faith have they who stand neither to word nor writing, but alter and change every thing according to the times? For if, O 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 essence,’ why is it ye write in Isauria, ‘we reject the Like in essence?’ for if the Son is not like the Father according to essence, how is He ‘exact image of the essence?’ But if you are dissatisfied at having written ‘Exact Image of the essence,’ how is it that ye ‘anathematize those who say that the Son is Unlike?’ for if He be not according to essence like, He is surely unlike: and the Unlike cannot be an Image. And if so, then it does not hold that ‘he that hath seen the Son, hath seen the Father’ (John xiv. 9), there being then the greatest possible difference between Them, or rather the One being wholly Unlike the Other. And Unlike cannot possibly be called Like. By what artifice then do you call Unlike like, and consider Like to be unlike, and pretend to say that the Son is the Father’s Image? for if the Son be not like the Father in essence, something is wanting to the Image, and it is not a complete Image, nor a perfect radiance. How then read you, ‘In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily?’ and, ‘from His fulness all we received’ (Coloss. ii. 9; John i. 16)? how is it that you expel the Arian Aetius as an heretic, though ye say the same with him? for he is your companion, O Acacius, and he became Eudoxius’s master in this so great irreligion; which was the reason why Leontius the Bishop made him deacon, that using the name of the diaconate as sheep’s clothing, he might be able with impunity to pour forth the words of blasphemy.

39. What then has persuaded you to contradict each other, and to procure to yourselves so great a disgrace? You cannot give any good account of it; this supposition only remains, that all you do is but outward profession and pretence, to secure the patronage of Constantius and the gain from thence accruing. And ye make nothing of accusing the Fathers, and ye complain outright of the expressions as being unscriptural; and, as it is written, ‘opened your legs to every one that passed by’ (Ez. xvi. 25); so as to change as often as they wish, in whose pay and keep you are. Yet, though a man use terms not in Scripture, it makes no difference so that his meaning be religious. But the heretic, though he use scriptural terms, yet, as being equally dangerous and depraved, shall be asked in the words of the Spirit, ‘Why dost thou preach My laws, and takest My covenant in thy mouth’ (Ps. l. 16)? Thus whereas the devil, though speaking from the Scriptures, is silenced by the Saviour, the blessed Paul, though he speaks from profane writers, ‘The Cretans are always liars,’ and, ‘For we are His offspring,’ and, ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners,’ yet has a religious meaning, as being holy,—is ‘doctor of the nations, in faith and verity,’ as having ‘the mind of Christ’ (Tit. i. 12; Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 33; 1 Tim. ii. 7; 1 Cor. ii. 16), and what he speaks, he utters religiously. What then is there even plausible, in the Arian terms, in which the ‘caterpillar’ (Joel ii. 25) and the ‘locust’ are preferred to the Saviour, and He is reviled with ‘Once Thou wast not,’ and ‘Thou wast created,’ and ‘Thou art foreign to God in essence,’ and, in a word, no irreverence is unused among them? But what did the Fathers omit in the way of reverence? or rather, have they not a lofty view and a Christ-loving religiousness? And yet these, they wrote, ‘We reject;’ while those others they endure in their insults towards the Lord, and betray to all men, that for no other cause do they resist that great Council but that it condemned the Arian heresy. For it is on this account again that they speak against the term Coessential, about which they also entertain wrong sentiments. For if their faith was right, and they confessed the Father as truly Father, believed the Son to be genuine Son, and by nature true Word and Wisdom of the Father, and as to saying that the Son is ‘from God,’ if they did not use the words of Him, as of themselves, but understood Him to be the proper offspring of the Father’s essence, as the radiance is from light, they would not every one of them have found fault with the Fathers; but would have been confident that the Council wrote suitably; and that this is the right faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

40. ‘But,’ say they, ‘the sense of such expressions is obscure to us;’ for this is another of their pretences,—‘We reject them,’ say they, ‘because we cannot master their meaning.’ But if they were true in this profession, instead of saying, ‘We reject them,’ they should ask instruction from the well informed; else ought they to reject whatever they cannot understand in divine Scripture, and to find fault with the writers. But this were the venture of heretics rather than of us Christians; for what we do not understand in the sacred oracles, instead of rejecting, we seek from persons to whom the Lord has revealed it, and from them we ask for instruction. But since they thus make a pretence of the obscurity of such expressions, let them at least confess what is annexed to the Creed, and anathematize those who hold that ‘the Son is from nothing,’ and ‘He was not before His generation,’ and ‘the Word of God is a creature and work,’ and ‘He is alterable by nature,’ and ‘from another subsistence;’ and in a word let them anathematize the Arian heresy, which has originated such irreligion. Nor let them say any more, ‘We reject the terms,’ but that ‘we do not yet understand them;’ by way of having some reason to shew 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 on this account it was that the Fathers, after declaring that the Son was begotten from the Father’s essence, and Co-essential with Him, thereupon added, ‘But those who say’—what has just been quoted, the symbols of the Arian heresy,—‘we anathematize;’ I mean, in order to shew that the statements are parallel, and that the terms in the Creed imply the disclaimers subjoined, and that all who confess the terms, will certainly understand the disclaimers. But those who both dissent from the latter and impugn the former, such men are proved on every side to be foes of Christ.

41. Those who deny the Council altogether, are sufficiently exposed by these brief remarks; those, however, who accept everything else that was defined at Nicæa, and doubt only about the Coessential, must not be treated as enemies; nor do we here attack them as Ario-maniacs, nor as opponents of the Fathers, but we discuss the matter with them as brothers with brothers, who mean what we mean, and dispute only about the word. For, confessing that the Son is from the essence of the Father, and not from other subsistence, and that He is not a creature nor work, but His genuine and natural offspring, and that He is eternally with the Father as being His Word and Wisdom, they are not far from accepting even the phrase, ‘Coessential.’ Now such is Basil, who wrote from Ancyra concerning the faith. For only to say ‘like according to essence,’ is very far from signifying ‘of the essence,’ by which, rather, as they say themselves, the genuineness of the Son to the Father is signified. Thus tin is only like to silver, a wolf to a dog, and gilt brass to the true metal; but tin is not from silver, nor could a wolf be accounted the offspring of a dog. But since they say that He is ‘of the essence’ and ‘Like-in-essence,’ what do they signify by these but ‘Coessential?’ For, while to say only ‘Like-in-essence,’ does not necessarily convey ‘of the essence,’ on the contrary, to say ‘Coessential,’ is to signify the meaning of both terms, ‘Like-in-essence,’ and ‘of the essence.’ And accordingly they themselves in controversy with those who say that the Word is a creature, instead of allowing Him to be genuine Son, have taken their proofs against them from human illustrations of son and father, with this exception that God is not as man, nor the generation of the Son as issue of man, but such as may be ascribed to God, and is fit for us to think. Thus they have called the Father the Fount 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’ (John xiv. 6; Prov. viii. 12). But the Radiance from the Light, and Offspring from Fountain, and Son from Father, how can these be so fitly expressed as by ‘Coessential?’ And is there any cause of fear, lest, because the offspring from men are coessential, the Son, by being called Coessential, be Himself considered as a human offspring too? perish the thought! not so; but the explanation is easy. For the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom; whence we learn the impassibility and indivisibility of such a generation from the Father. For not even man’s word is part of him, nor proceeds from him according to passion; much less God’s Word; whom the Father has declared to be His own Son, lest, on the other hand, if we merely heard of ‘Word,’ we should suppose Him, such as is the word of man, impersonal; but that, hearing that He is Son, we may acknowledge Him to be living Word and substantive Wisdom.

42. Accordingly, as in saying ‘offspring,’ we have no human thoughts, and, though we know God to be a Father, we entertain no material ideas concerning Him, but while we listen to these illustrations and terms, we think suitably of God, for He is not as man, so in like manner, when we hear of ‘coessential,’ we ought to transcend all sense, and, according to the Proverb, ‘understand by the understanding what is set before us’ (Prov. xxiii. 1); so as to know, that not by will, but in truth, is He genuine from the Father, as Life from Fountain, and Radiance from Light. Else why should we understand ‘offspring’ and ‘son,’ in no corporeal way, while we conceive of ‘coessential’ as after the manner of bodies? especially since these terms are not here used about different subjects, but of whom ‘offspring’ is predicated, of Him is ‘coessential’ also. And it is but consistent to attach the same sense to both expressions as applied to the Saviour, and not to interpret ‘offspring’ in a good sense, and ‘coessential’ otherwise; since to be consistent, ye who are thus minded and who say that the Son is Word and Wisdom of the Father, should entertain a different view of these terms also, and understand Word in another sense, and Wisdom in yet another. But, as this would be absurd (for the Son is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, and the Offspring from the Father is one and proper to His essence), so the sense of ‘Offspring’ and ‘Coessential’ is one, and whoso considers the Son an offspring, rightly considers Him also as ‘coessential.’

43. This is sufficient to shew that the meaning of the beloved ones is not foreign nor far from the ‘Coessential.’ But since, as they allege (for I have not the Epistle in question), the Bishops who condemned the Samosatene have said in writing that the Son is not coessential with the Father, and so it comes to pass that they, for caution and honour towards those who have so said, thus feel about that expression, it will be to the purpose cautiously to argue with them this point also. Certainly it is unbecoming to make the one conflict with the others; for all are fathers; nor is it religious to settle, that these have spoken well, and those ill; for all of them fell asleep in Christ. Nor is it right to be disputatious, and to compare the respective numbers of those who met in the Councils, lest the three hundred seem to throw the lesser into the shade; nor to compare the dates, lest those who preceded seem to eclipse those that came after. For all, I say, are fathers; and yet not even the three hundred laid down nothing new, nor was it in any self-confidence that they became champions of words not in Scripture, but they fell back upon fathers, as did the others, and used their words. For there have been two of the name of Dionysius, much older than the seventy who deposed the Samosatene, of whom one was of Rome, and the other of Alexandria. But a charge had been laid by some persons against the Bishop of Alexandria before the Bishop of Rome, as if he had said that the Son was made, and not coessential with the Father. And, the synod at Rome being indignant, the Bishop of Rome expressed their united sentiments in a letter to his namesake. And so the latter, in defence, wrote a book with the title ‘of Refutation and Defence;’ and thus he writes to the other:

44. And I wrote in another Letter a refutation of the false charge which they bring against me, that I deny that Christ is coessential with God. For though I say that I have not found or read this term anywhere in holy Scripture, yet my remarks which follow, and which they have not noticed, are not inconsistent with that belief. For I instanced a human production, which is evidently homogeneous, and I observed that undeniably fathers differed from their children, only in not being the same individuals; otherwise there could be neither parents nor children. And my Letter, as I said before, owing to present circumstances, I am unable to produce, or I would have sent you the very words I used, or rather a copy of it all; which, if I have an opportunity, I will do still. But I am sure from recollection, that I adduced many parallels of things kindred with each other, for instance, that a plant grown from seed or from 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, changed its appearance and its name, for that neither the fountain was called stream, nor the stream fountain, but both existed, and that the fountain was as it were father, but the stream was what was generated from the fountain.

45. Thus the Bishop. If then any one finds fault with those who met at Nicæa, as if 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; but such were the Dionysii and the Bishops assembled on that occasion at Rome. But neither these nor those is it pious to blame; for all were charged with the embassy of Christ, and all have given diligence against the heretics, and the one party condemned the Samosatene, while the other condemned the Arian heresy. And rightly have both these and those written, and suitably to the matter in hand. And as the blessed Apostle, writing to the Romans, said, ‘The Law is spiritual, the Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good’ (Rom. vii. 14, 12); and soon after, ‘What the Law could not do, in that it was weak’ (ib. viii. 3), but wrote to the Hebrews, ‘The Law has made no one perfect’ (Heb. vii. 19); and to the Galatians, ‘By the Law no one is justified’ (Gal. iii. 11), but to Timothy, ‘The Law is good, if a man use it lawfully’ (1 Tim. i. 8); and no one would accuse the Saint of inconsistency and variation in writing, but rather would admire how suitably he wrote to each, to teach the Romans and the others to turn from the letter to the spirit, but to instruct the Hebrews and Galatians to place their hopes, not in the Law, but in the Lord who had given the Law;—so, if the Fathers of the two Councils made different mention of the Coessential, we ought not in any respect to differ from them, but to investigate their meaning, and this will fully show us the agreement of both the Councils. For they who deposed the Samosatene took Coessential in a bodily sense, because Paul had attempted sophistry and said, ‘Unless Christ has of man become God, it follows that He is Coessential with the Father; and if so, of necessity there are three essences, one the previous essence, and the other two from it;’ and therefore guarding against this they said with good reason, that Christ was not Coessential. For the Son is not related to the Father as he imagined. But the Bishops who anathematized the Arian heresy, understanding Paul’s craft, and reflecting that the word ‘Coessential’ has not this meaning when used of things immaterial, and especially of God, and acknowledging that the Word was not a creature, but an offspring from the essence, and that the Father’s essence was the origin and root and fountain of the Son, and that he was of very truth His Father’s likeness, and not of different nature, as we are, and separate from the Father, but that, as being from Him, He exists as Son indivisible, as radiance is with respect to Light, and knowing too the illustrations used in Dionysius’s case, the ‘fountain,’ and the defence of ‘Coessential’ and before this the Saviour’s saying, symbolical of unity, ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’ (John x. 30; xiv. 9), on these grounds reasonably asserted on their part, that the Son was Coessential. And as, according to a former remark, 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 like manner, neither would the present Bishops find fault with the ancient, having regard to their interpretation, nor again in view of theirs and of the need of their so writing about the Lord, would the ancient censure their successors. Yes surely, each Council has a sufficient reason for its own language; for since the Samosatene held that the Son was not before Mary, but received from her the origin of His being, therefore those who then met deposed him and pronounced him heretic; but concerning the Son’s Godhead writing in simplicity, they arrived not at accuracy concerning the Coessential, but, as they understood the word, so spoke they about it. For they directed all their thoughts to destroy the device of the Samosatene, and to shew that the Son was before all things, and that, instead of becoming God from man, He, being God, had put on a servant’s form, and being Word, had become flesh, as John says (Phil. ii. 7; Joh. i. 14). This is how they dealt with the blasphemies of Paul; but when Eusebius, Arius, and their fellows said that though the Son was before time, yet was He made and one of the creatures, and as to the phrase ‘from God,’ they did not believe it in the sense of His being genuine Son from Father, but maintained it as it is said of the creatures, and as to the oneness of likeness between the Son and the Father, did not confess that the Son is like the Father according to essence, or according to nature as a son resembles his father, but because of Their agreement of doctrines and of teaching; nay, when they drew a line and an utter distinction between the Son’s essence and the Father, ascribing to Him an origin of being, other than the Father, and degrading Him to the creatures, on this account the Bishops assembled at Nicæa, with a view to the craft of the parties so thinking, and as bringing together the sense from the Scriptures, cleared up the point, by affirming the ‘Coessential;’ that both the true genuineness of the Son might thereby be known, and that to things originate might be ascribed nothing in common with Him. For the precision of this phrase detects their pretence, whenever they use the phrase ‘from God,’ and gets rid of all the subtleties with which they seduce the simple. For whereas they contrive to put a sophistical construction on all other words at their will, this phrase only, as detecting their heresy, do they dread; which the Fathers set down as a bulwark against their irreligious notions one and all.

46. Let then all contention cease, nor let us any longer conflict, though the Councils have differently taken the phrase ‘Coessential,’ for we have already assigned a sufficient defence of them; and to it the following may be added:—We have not derived the word ‘Unoriginate’ from Scripture, (for no where does Scripture call God Unoriginate,) yet since it has many authorities in its favour, I was curious about the term, and found that it too has different senses. Some, for instance, call what is, but is neither generated, nor has any personal cause at all, unoriginate; and others, the uncreate. As then a person, having in view the former of these senses, viz. ‘that which has no personal cause,’ might say that the Son was not unoriginate, yet would not blame any one whom he perceived to have in view the other meaning, ‘not a work or creature but an eternal offspring,’ and to affirm accordingly that the Son was unoriginate, (for both speak suitably with a view to their own object); so, even granting that the Fathers have spoken variously concerning the Coessential, let us not dispute about it, but take what they deliver to us in a religious way, when especially their anxiety was directed in behalf of religion.