Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« When the holy Fathers, whether before the controversy with the Arians or still after the Council of Nicaea, speak 1° of the relation of the Son to the Father as of an inferior to a superior; 2° of the voluntary generation of the Son; 3° of the operation of the Son ad extra as of one ministering to God the Father, and of his generation for the work of creation; 4° of the mission and apparitions of the Son even in the Old Testament, as of one visible and circumscribed in place before the invisible and immense Father: all those expressions among the orthodox Fathers can, and, considering their principles and declarations, must be understood of the real distinction of the Son proceeding by generation from the Father as from his principle, not however of a mode of distinction according to diversity of nature: in most of them, moreover, there is at the same time a regard to the human nature to be assumed or assumed by the Son, or to an apparition in a place through a subject creature ».

It cannot be denied that among the ante-Nicene Fathers there occur ways of speaking about the Son — and either expressly or by consequence about the Holy Spirit — in comparison with the Father, which taken by themselves and apart could signify, and in their obvious sense really would signify, the Son as distinct from the Father by nature and inferior. Nay, twofold expressions of this kind occur not rarely among the Fathers even after the Nicene Council, among those very men who most zealously vindicated the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father against the Arians. Whence in regard to these later ones no prudent man doubts that those harsher formulae are to be explained in an orthodox sense. But this very fact is already a most weighty presumption that the same expressions were used also by the earlier Fathers in this catholic sense alone. Yet we are not confined to this comparison alone with the Fathers of the later age; but, as we have already indicated among the general principles, of which mention was made at the end of the preceding thesis, those ante-Nicene Fathers themselves hand down a most explicit doctrine concerning the unity of the divine nature, which cannot be multiplied, and concerning the Son, who with the Father is one true God. Wherefore all those things which they bring forward concerning the distinction of the Father and the Son cannot have that sense by which the fundamental principle itself would be overturned; they cannot, I say, be understood of a distinction — and so much the less of a diversity of nature — but are necessarily understood only of the distinction of the Father and the Son, formally as the Father is the principle and the Son proceeds from the principle, i.e. of the distinction of persons, the unity of the Godhead or divine nature remaining safe and intact. Nor indeed are those more difficult expressions of such a kind that they do not admit the catholic sense, provided one attends to what the Fathers suppose to be conceded by the adversaries, namely the unity of the Godhead, and what they intend to obtain as denied by the same adversaries, namely the real distinction of the subsisting Son from the subsisting Father.

All those expressions revolve around four heads of catholic doctrine taken from the Scriptures themselves: that 1° God the Father is the principle, God the Son is begotten from the Father; 2° the Father begot the Son not by a material generation and after the manner of brute nature, but by an internal intellectual act and to that extent as a willing Father begot him; that 3° God the Father created all things and works ad extra through his Word, that is, through the Son; that 4° the Son, sent by the Father in the Incarnation and as it were in the preludes of the Incarnation, already manifested the Father in the theophanies of the Old Testament.

1. To the profession of generation and procession belongs this, that they call the Father superior to the Son, namely according to origin and personal ἀξίωμα; or that they teach the Son as derived from the Father as from a fullness, inasmuch as the Father is the principle and source of the Trinity.

1°. Sometimes by them the Father is proclaimed « God of the universe, » and under him the Son is numbered « in the second place » and « in the third » the Holy Spirit, and further, besides the « God of the universe, » the Son is called « another God ». Thus Justin: « I shall strive to persuade you (Jews) that there is another who is also called God and Lord under the creator of the universe, who is also called Angel, because he announces to men whatever the creator of the universe wills to announce to them, above whom there is no other God... Referring to the Scriptures I shall endeavor to persuade you that this very one who is said to have appeared to Abraham and Jacob and Moses, and is taught in the Scripture to be God, is another than the God who created all things — another, I say, in number but not in mind (ἀριθμῷ λέγω, ἀλλὰ οὐ γνώμῃ) » Justin, Dialog. with Tryph. n. 56. « We are not atheists, who worship the maker of this universe... But that we worship him, our teacher of these things, born for this office, Jesus Christ.... knowing him to be the Son of the very true God himself, and holding him in the second place and the prophetic Spirit in the third order, we shall show that we worship rationally » ¹ Id. Apol. I. n. 13.

It would already be incredible in itself that Justin did not understand what is evident in all the Scriptures — that there is one only true God, who created all things and manifested himself to the patriarchs and to Moses — and that he wished to persuade the Jew Trypho that there are two Gods, one the creator of all things, the other distinct in deity, who in the Old Testament revealed himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moreover Justin expressly laid also this foundation of the unity of God. « Neither (he says) will there ever be another God, O Trypho, nor has there been another from the beginning besides him who created and disposed this universe. Nor do we hold that there is one God for us and another for you, but that very one who led your fathers out of the land of Egypt... Nor do we hope in any other — for there is no other — but in him in whom you also hope, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob » ibid. n. 11. Therefore Justin at the same time affirms three things as most certain in the Christian faith: first, that there is only one God, who created all things and who, the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, manifested himself to the patriarchs and to Moses; then, second, that the Father is another, who created all things through his Word, and that the Son is another, who, sent, manifested himself to the patriarchs; whence, third, the Father and the Son are one true God, creator of all things and God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

These things being established, the partitive « another, » when the Son is called « another God, » cannot be understood of a distinction of one deity and another, but is necessarily understood of a distinction of person, so that the Father is another and the Son another, who nevertheless are one God. Whence also the enumeration « under the God who created all things » and the counting « in the second place » and « in the third order » can indicate not a subordination of nature but only of persons, by reason of the principle and of the one proceeding from the principle ². See also Tertullian, contr. Prax. c. 3.

In the same sense the name « God above all » is sometimes used hypostatically to designate the Father, inasmuch as he is the principle of the Son and with the Son the principle of the Holy Spirit; and we see this to have been done not only by those ancient Fathers but also after the Council of Nicaea by those who more insistently than the rest defended the one nature of the Three, as by Athanasius (Apolog. ad Constant. n. 17.); Basil (ep. 38. n. 4.); Gregory of Nyssa (contr. Apollin. n. 77. Galland. VI. p. 575.). Basil l. c. describes the personal characters for the present matter thus: « The Son proceeds from the Father alone in the manner of the Only-begotten (μόνος μονογενῶς); the Holy Spirit depends on the Son (by procession τοῦ υἱοῦ μὲν ἤρτηται), with whom he is inseparably thought, and has his subsistence, hanging (in origin) on the Father as principle (τῆς τε τοῦ πατρὸς ἐξηρτημένον ἔχει τὸ εἶναι); but he who is the God above all things alone has the peculiar mark of his hypostasis, that he is the Father and that he subsists from no principle » ³ Basil. T. III. p. 117. (See Tract. de Incarnat. th. IX. n. II.).

To the same point could be reduced, absolutely speaking, Origen's distinction in Io. tom. 2. n. 2. 3. (Opp. T. IV. p. 50. 51.). « The Father (he says) is called God with the article (ὁ Θεός), but the Word, which was with God and which was God, is called without the article Θεός; and this for this reason, that the Father may be signified as αὐτόθεος, i.e. God without a principle from which he proceeds, and the Son may be understood in his personal property as the one who has the divinity communicated from the Father ». He explains this distinction between the name ὁ Θεός and Θεός by another example. The Word is called ὁ Λόγος with the article, but in creatures reason is λόγος without the article, because the Word (ὁ Λόγος) is the exemplar and source of every reason which in creatures is λόγος as a certain participation of him who is ὁ Λόγος, reason absolutely perfect. « Both therefore hold the place of a source — the Father indeed of divinity (inasmuch as it is communicated to the Son), the Son but of reason (participated in creatures) ». The comparison is not between the communication of divinity from the Father and of created reason from the Word as to mode, as if it were the same on both sides; but the comparison is of an only analogous communication. This doctrine — that the deity in the Father is not communicated by another and therefore the Father is called ὁ Θεός and αὐτόθεος, while in the Son the deity is communicated from the Father by generation and therefore he is called Θεός — Origen opposes to a twofold or threefold error: first, generally, of those who, predicating God of the Father and of the Son, think that two Gods are introduced; then of those who, to avoid this error of ditheism, either deny the personal distinction of the Son from the Father, or, granting the distinction, deny the divinity of the Son. « From these things (he says) that can now be solved which disturbs many, who, wishing to be lovers of God, fear lest two Gods be proclaimed, and on that account fall into false and impious dogmas — either so as to deny the property of the Son as other than the property of the Father, confessing him to be God whom they themselves call Son only in name (since they do not believe him really distinct from the Father); or so as to deny the divinity of the Son, granting his property and substance according to circumscription to be other than the Father's » ⁴ Origen. l. c.

Likewise, it pertains not to distinction of nature but to indicating the generation of the Son from the Father, and at the same time to declaring the dominion of the incarnate Son according to his humanity, that — not only before the Council of Nicaea, as Tertullian contra Prax. c. 13., but also the subsequent Fathers, from the very biblical usage of speech (cf. I. Cor. VIII. 6; XII. 4-6; Eph. IV. 5. 6. etc.) — they observe that in the enumeration together the Father is called God, the Son however Lord, namely in the hypostatic signification of these names, although in the absolute signification the Son is the same God as the Father, and the Father the same Lord as the Son. « The doctrine of piety, that we know one God, the unbegotten Father, and one Lord, the begotten Son, who is indeed called God when he is spoken of by himself and apart, but Lord when he is named together with the Father — the former on account of nature (because there is one deity), the latter on account of the unity of principle » (διὰ τὴν μοναρχίαν) Gregor. Naz. or. 25. al. 23. 1. 15. cf. Hilar. Trin. l. VIII. n. 35-37; Basil. ep. 8. al. 141. n. 3; Chrysost. in 1. Cor. hom. 20. n. 3; de Incomprehens. hom. 5. n. 1. 2.; Theodoret. in 1. Cor. VIII. 6.

2°. Another way of speaking pertaining to the notion of the principle and of the one proceeding from the principle needs explanation when they use words which, considered by themselves, could signify a partition of the divine nature or a communication of a nature not the same as that which is the Father's, but another inferior one. Tertullian calls the Father « the whole substance, » the Son « the derivation of the whole and a portion, » and says that the Son, compared with the Father, is « by measure other from the other » contr. Prax. c. 9.

But in truth both the immediate context of this passage and the whole doctrine defended by Tertullian in the entire book against Praxeas and elsewhere — of one substance and deity in three substantial persons, which are distinguished among themselves only by the relations of origin — is so clear that he could not have called the Father « the whole substance » as compared with the Son except by reason of principle, nor could he have understood the Son in any other sense as « the derivation of the whole » except that the « whole, » namely the very same deity which is the Father's, is derived by generation into the Son; or that he said « derivation of the whole » as a derivation from the whole, by which name of the whole the Father must be understood as the primordial principle (ἀρχὴ προκαταρκτική) and source of the Trinity. But the name « portion » is an apposite synonym, signifying the same as « derivation of the whole »; for portion is the same as partition, signifying not a division but, on account of the perfection of the thing in question, only a communication ⁵. Tertullian himself elsewhere (contr. Marc. l. III. c. 6.) explains this sense, that the Father is the fullness, the Son the portion inasmuch as he is « partaker of the fullness ». Nor does anything stand in the way of the fact that contra Prax. c. 9. he confirms that account of « the whole and the portion » with the words of Christ: « The Father is greater than I » Io. XIV. 28. For very many Fathers, even after the Council of Nicaea and in the dispute against the Arians, interpreted this saying of the Son considered according to divinity: that the Father is called greater than the Son not indeed by reason of nature, which those Doctors in their interpretation had the purpose of defending as one in the Father and in the Son, but by reason of origin and according to the ἀξίωμα of paternity, that the Father is the principle of the Son. (See the Fathers in Petav. l. II. c. 2. n. 1-9). With this interpretation of the words of Christ admitted, Tertullian could rightly appeal to them not only to demonstrate, for his principal purpose, the very thing of the distinction of the Father and the Son, but he could also derive from them his own peculiar way of speaking. He himself declares l. c., in what sense the Father is said to be greater than the Son: « while the one who begets (he says) is another, the one who is begotten is another; while the one who sends is another, the one who is sent is another; while the one who makes is another, the one through whom it is made is another ». With a wholly parallel expression he signifies the relation of origin between the Son and the Holy Spirit, calling the Son « the substantial sum, » the Holy Spirit « the portion » (contr. Marc. IV. c. 18). When then he says that the Son is « by measure other from the Father, » by the name of measure he means nothing else but the mode of subsisting or the formal reason of the Son, by which the Son, begotten, is other than the Father begetting. Just as he here calls the personal formal reason a measure and, inasmuch as it is regarded in the Son, below c. 14 calls it « the measure of derivation, » so above c. 2. he had said that the Father, the Son, the Spirit are three in degree, form, kind, but of one substance, and of one state and one power, « because one God, from whom those degrees and forms and kinds are assigned in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ».

We have already seen above p. 154 an entirely similar way of speaking in s. Hippolytus, who in that context, where he most of all confesses the Father and the Son to be one God and one essential power, to declare the distinction of persons and the notion of the principle and of the one proceeding from the principle calls the Father « the whole » and the Word « the Power from the whole ».

3°. We will refer here the opinion of Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII. p. 702 (ed. Paris. 1641), where it is said that « the nature of the Son is most close (or most united) to the sole Almighty » ἡ τοῦ υἱοῦ φύσις, ἡ τῷ μόνῳ παντοκράτορι προσεχεστάτη.

First of all, in this very context the Son of God is described with attributes proper to the one true God. After the cited words Clement goes on to say that this nature of the Son is the highest excellence (ἡ μεγίστη ὑπεροχή), which with unwearied and inexhaustible power works all things and looks into hidden thoughts. « The Son of God is not divided, not separated (from the Father), not passing from place to place, existing everywhere, nowhere circumscribed, wholly mind, wholly paternal light, wholly eye, seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things, searching powers with power » etc. Then throughout his writings Clement celebrates the one deity, not multipliable, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. « God is the cause of all things; therefore nothing is hated by God, but neither by the Word, for both are one, namely God (ἓν γὰρ ἄμφω, Θεός); for he said: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God (ἐν τῷ Θεῷ), and God was the Word... God is both good and just... But God is one, and above the one and above the monad itself. For that reason the particle Thou (in the words: Thou, Father, in me and I in Thee), having a demonstrative emphasis, designates God, who alone essentially is, was, and will be (see Tract. de Deo th. XXII. n. II.)... For he who set these indeed at the right hand, those however at the left (good and just), inasmuch as the Father is conceived as being good, is called by that alone which he is, namely good (Matth. XIX. 17); inasmuch as the Son, however, existing as his Word, is in the Father, he is called just, from the relation to one another » Clem. Paedagog. l. I. c. 8. Therefore God is one and above unity, to which namely the addition of another unity intrinsically repugnates (Tract. de Deo l. c.), and the same one God is the Father and the Son, who are distinguished among themselves by relation to one another, not however by deity, as being one; whence while goodness is appropriated to the Father and justice to the Son the judge, he who is called good and just is the same one God. See also the doxology taken from ecclesiastical usage at the end of book III of Clement's Paedagogus. There is the prayer: « be gracious to thy little children, Son and Father, both one, O Lord! » and praise and thanksgiving is expected to be borne in heaven « to the Father and the Son alone, to the Son and the Father with the Holy Spirit, through all things one (πάντα ἑνί), through all things good, beautiful, wise, just, to whom be glory both now and forever, Amen ».

This doctrine being presupposed, it is manifest that in that saying: « the nature of the Son most close to the Almighty, » there cannot be a comparison between the nature of the Father and of the Son considered absolutely, but a relation of person to person must necessarily be understood. Wherefore « the nature of the Son » is understood as the nature formally as identified with the Son, and thus « the nature of the Son » signifies the same as the Son or the person

of the Son (see Tract. de Incarnat. th. XXXV. cf. Petav. Trin. l. IV. c. 2. n. 3. 4). But in this hypostatic signification « the nature of the Son most close (most united προσεχεστάτη) to the Almighty (the Father) » can rightly be said for a twofold reason.

a) In comparison ad extra with creatures, the nature of the Son is the closest to the Father, because the Son is by generation the consubstantial image of the Father, the splendor (ἀπαύγασμα) of His glory, and the figure (χαρακτήρ) of His substance (Heb. I. 3); creatures, angels and men are images of the image through creation. Thus the Fathers frequently speak (Petav. VI. 5), and Clement himself in Protrept. p. 62: « His Word is the image of God, and the genuine Son of His mind, the archetypal light of light; but man is the image of the Word ». This is the proper sense in which Clement calls the Son the nature closest to the Father; for in the context he compares men, angels, and the Son by reason of their nearness to the Father: « On earth the most excellent is man of the greatest piety toward God; in heaven the most excellent is the angel, who by his place more closely and already more purely partakes of the eternal and blessed life ». Then he progresses from creatures to Him who is above heaven and earth and therefore above all creatures: « For truly the most perfect and most holy and most principal and commanding and royal and most beneficent nature of the Son, which is closest to the almighty alone ».

b) Even in the comparison ad intra according to the origin of the persons — since the Son proceeds from the Father alone, the Spirit from the Father and the Son or from the Father through the Son — the Son can be said, in preference to the Holy Spirit, to be « προσεχέστατος » to the Father. Thus St. Gregory of Nyssa: « Confessing, he says, the indifference of nature, we do not deny the difference by reason of principle and of that which is from the principle, in which alone we understand one to be distinguished from the other, because we believe one to be the principle, the other to be from the principle. And in this, that it is from the principle, we again understand another difference: for one (the Son) is proximately from the first, the other (the Holy Spirit) is through the proximate from the first (τὸ μὲν προσεχῶς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου, τὸ δὲ διὰ τοῦ προσεχοῦς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου), so that the character of the Only-begotten (τὸ μονογενές, who is the only one from the Father alone) may remain undoubted in the Son, and it may not be doubted that the Holy Spirit is from the Father with the Son as the medium (καὶ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ προσεχοῦς αὐτὸν εἶναι τῆς τοῦ υἱοῦ μεσιτείας) — which order of the medium (of the Son between the Father and the Holy Spirit) both preserves the character of the Only-begotten for the Son and does not separate the Holy Spirit from His natural relation to the Father » Nyssen, l. Quod non tres Dii ad Ablav. T. II. p. 459. (cf. Petav. VII. 11.).

II. Further, there is to be examined here a doctrine which recurs not only among the earlier Fathers (as e. g. in Hippolytus contr. Noet. n. 15.), but also often in the disputations against the Arians. The Fathers concede this proposition: the Father begot the Son by will. Most of them were brought to treat this question of voluntary generation by the perpetual sophism of the adversaries. The Arians asked whether the Father begot the Son willing or unwilling. If Catholics affirmed the latter, they said that it would follow that the Father begot the Son coerced or unwilling, or that the generation is not such as befits a spirit, but after the manner of a natural procession, such as is found in bodies lacking cognition and will — both of which are repugnant in God. If the other were conceded, namely that the Son was begotten by the Father by will, they inferred by this very fact that the Son was made, when previously He was not, and that He is not consubstantial with the Father.

The Fathers answer in different ways according to their diverse purpose; for sometimes they concede in one sense, sometimes they deny in another, that the Son was begotten by the Father by will. In order to exclude the absurd calumny, as if the Son were said to be begotten against the Father's will or after the manner of a brute nature, they say that the Son was assuredly begotten with the will — where they signify not the free efficient will, which the Arians had in mind, but the natural concomitant will, namely that from the very notion of the infinite spirit the generation of the Word is indeed through the intellect and with the will of the Father; just as God is God by will, not because the will is the efficient cause of God, but because God, existing from His own inner perfection, certainly wills to be God, nor is He unwillingly God ⁶. « Since the Son was taught to subsist not from will, as the rest of things, lest He have His essence according to will only and not also according to nature, occasion seemed to be given to the heretics to ascribe to God the Father a necessity of begetting the Son from Himself (i. e. they would falsely charge that this follows from the Catholics' view), as if, with the law of nature compelling Him, He had brought Him forth unwillingly. But this is not the condition of passions in God the Father.... Before all times the Father, willing impassibly from the essence of His nature, gave to the Son the essence of natural nativity (al. the nativity of the natural essence) » s. Hilar. de Synod. n. 69. « Because the Son is from nature and not from will, is He therefore also apart from the will of the Father, and with the Father unwilling? By no means, but rather the Father wills the Son... For as He did not begin to be good from will, yet neither is He good against His judgment and will; for what He is, He Himself wills to be... so since the Son is proper to His nature, He is not apart from His will. Let the Son therefore be willed and beloved by the Father, and in this manner let one piously think that God wills and does not will the contrary » s. Athanas. contr. Arian. orat. III. n. 66.

But in the direct attack on the Arian dogma, by which they said that the Son was made or begotten by the free will of the Father, the holy Doctors deny that the Son was begotten by the will of the Father. Nor, however, does it follow from this that the Father begot the Son unwillingly; for what proceeds from the internal exigency and necessity of a perfect spiritual nature is neither from the free choice of the will nor against the will, but from a principle of nature that is intelligent and willing, that is, with a concomitant will. « Therefore I would call Him neither unwilling nor willing.... For just as the good Father is not from will or from necessity (unwilling and coerced) but above both, that is, by nature; so the Father does not beget from will or necessity » Ambros. de Fid. l. IV. c. 9. n. 103. See Augustin. Trin. XV. c. 20. n. 38.

What the Fathers frequently answer to the Arians in this manner, in order to defend the equality of the Son with the Father, is also to be understood in a right sense. If the Son is less than the Father, they say, either the Father could not beget one equal to Himself, and He is not omnipotent: or He would not, and He is not good but envious (Basilius, Gregor. Nyssenus, Augustinus). The true notion of the Son and the true generation through the communication of nature is presupposed; whence omnipotence and goodness, from which they deduce the fullness of the communicated nature, cannot be understood as efficient, as in the order toward creatures, but must be understood as the intimate perfection of the fecundity and communicability of nature, inasmuch as it is identified with the Father. For since the Arians said that the Son was made by the omnipotence and goodness of God, the Fathers inflected omnipotence and goodness as befits not effecting but generation; and in this sense paternal omnipotence and goodness, formally as paternal and hypostatic, is the power of fecundity and the goodness of the communication of nature, by which the Son is begotten. Wherefore that statement: « if the Father could not or would not beget a Son equal to Himself, He is either not omnipotent or not good, » is reduced to this other one: if He could not or would not, there is not in the Father the highest perfection of the communicability of nature. It is evident, however, that arguments of this kind are not adduced by the Fathers as a demonstration of the fact, whether the thing is; but, the revelation of the truth being presupposed, they are proposed as arguments ad hominem, or for some declaration of the manner in which the thing is.

III. Another head of doctrine, in which we said that ambiguous and sometimes more obscure locutions of the ancient Fathers occur, is this: that the Father creates and operates through the Word. Although the operation ad extra in God is not really anything other than the divine essence itself, with the respect to and connotation of the external term, and by this very fact the operation of the three persons is so one without distinction, just as the divine essence is one and undivided; nevertheless the essence, and consequently the operation, is communicated from the Father to the Son, and from the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, in whom the communication of nature, as it were, comes to rest and is completed, nor is any further procession given than that of the Word through the intellect and of the Holy Spirit through the will, that is, through love. This order of communication and of relations is expressed by the biblical and ecclesiastical locution by which the Father is said to operate through the Son in the Holy Spirit. But if not the relation of the persons but the nature is regarded, the locution: God made all things through the Word and the Holy Spirit, is equivalent to the other: God made all things through Himself. (See Irenaeus above, p. 152).

Now 1°. this same relation of origin of the Son from the Father is expressed when not only the ante-Nicene Fathers but very frequently also the subsequent ones say that the Son ministers to the Father in the creation of the world and in the works ad extra. There is noted by Petavius among the sayings of the ancients which seem to diverge from the rule of faith also this, that Irenaeus (l. IV. c. 17. al. c. 7. n. 4. et l. III. c. 8. n. 3.) said that the Son ministers to the Father (Petav. l. I. c. 3. n. 7.), in which manner also Theophilus Antiochenus (ad Autolyc. l. II. n. 10), Clemens Alex. (Strom. VII. p. 703.) and others speak.

But Irenaeus himself in the cited place declares that the ministry of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, to which all angels are subject, is altogether different from the ministry of a creature. « God does not need the ministry (of angels) for the fabrication of the things that were made, but He has a copious and ineffable ministry. For His offspring and His formation, that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom, minister to Him for all things, to which all angels serve and are subject ». In the same sense we have heard Irenaeus (p. 151) teaching that God had no need of angels as ministers for creation: for He has His own hands, the Word and Wisdom (the Holy Spirit), and thus not through created ministers but through Himself, i. e. through the Word and Wisdom, He made all things.

The Fathers after the Council of Nicaea, disputing against the Arians themselves, speak no differently. Thus St. Basil: « The Word is that which in the beginning was with God, and was God; but the Spirit of the mouth of God is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. And so you understand three things: the Lord commanding, the Word creating, and the Spirit confirming ». He declares that by these things the unity of action in the three persons is not only not excluded but even included: « let no one believe that I posit three original (ἀρχικάς, i. e. not proceeding from another as from a principle) hypostases, or that the operation of the Son is imperfect. For the principle of all things that exist is one, creating through the Son and perfecting in the Spirit ». Finally the holy Doctor explains the manner in which, just as the nature is one, so the operation of the three should be understood as one, and in the internal relations themselves he shows the reason why the commanding Father and the ministering Son are distinguished. « The Word, he says, full of the Father's goods, shining forth from the Father (τοῦ Πατρὸς ἀπαύγασμα), does all things in the likeness of Him who begot Him. For His essence in no way differs from the Father, nor does His power differ. But those whose power is equal also have an entirely equal operation; for Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so all things were made through Him, and all things were created through Him and in Him, not because He fulfills an instrumental and servile ministry, but because as a creator (δημιουργικῶς) He perfects the paternal will... Wherefore, that which is said to be a commandment — let us not understand an imperious speech uttered through vocal organs, prescribing to the Son as to a subject what He ought to do; but, as befits God, let us think of a communication of will, like the irradiation of a certain form in a mirror, flowing from the Father into the Son eternally »⁷ Basil. de Spiritu Sancto n. 19. 20. 38.

Excellent, and in the same sense, the Fathers of the Council of Antioch speak against Paul of Samosata: « The Son, who is always with the Father, we believe fulfilled the paternal will in the creation of the universe. For He (Pater) Himself said and they were made: He Himself commanded and they were created. But he who commands, commands another, whom we are persuaded is none other than the only-begotten Son of God, God... inasmuch as He truly is and operates, as being at once the Word and God, through whom the Father makes all things, not as through an instrument nor as through a knowledge not subsisting by itself: for the Father begot the Son as a living act subsisting by itself, operating all things in all » γεννήσαντος μὲν τοῦ Πατρὸς τὸν Υἱὸν ὡς ἐνεργὸν καὶ ἐνυπόστατον, ἐνεργοῦντα τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσι (Mansi Conc. T. I. p. 1035.). Thus also Athenagoras (Legat. n. 10.) says that the Son came forth, so that He might be the idea and act of all created things, ἰδέα καὶ ἐνέργεια. And Augustinus frequently calls the Son Himself « a commandment not given from time, but a commandment born »; « for the Father's command that all things be made, he says, is nothing other than the Word, through which all things were made » Aug. serm. 120. n. 6; l. contr. serm. Arian. c. 3; Trin. l. I. c. 12. n. 26.; contr. Faust. l. II. c. 5.; in Io. tract. XXI. n. 4.

2°. A certain singular manner of speaking of those ancient Fathers about the generation of the Son in relation to the work of creation requires a somewhat more diligent consideration. For they seem to say that the Word was brought forth or begotten by God the Father for the creation of the world, and that in such a way that this generation of the Word seems to have been free for the Father, and the co-eternity of the Word with the Father is not sufficiently understood. Thus Theophilus Antiochenus speaks. « Nothing is coeval with God, but since He Himself is a place for Himself, and needs nothing and is older than the ages, He willed to make man, to whom He might make Himself known... Having therefore God His own Word implanted in His own bowels (τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόγον ἐνδιάθετον ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις σπλάγχνοις), He begot it together with His Wisdom⁸ bringing it forth before this universe. This Word He had as the minister of His works, and through it He founded all things... The prophets did not yet exist, when the world was being founded, but the Wisdom of God was in Him and His holy Word, which is always with Him » Theoph. ad Autolyc. l. II. n. 10.

A little later, more clearly, he calls it « the Word of God, which is also His Son — not as the poets feign the sons of the gods, but as the truth declares — the Word which always exists implanted in the heart of God (τὸν λόγον τὸν ὄντα διὰ παντὸς ἐνδιάθετον ἐν καρδίᾳ Θεοῦ). For before anything was made, that Word had a consort of counsels (σύμβουλον), inasmuch as it is His mind and His intelligence. But when God willed to make what He had determined, He begot this Word as uttered (προφορικόν), the firstborn of every creature — not that He Himself would become empty of the Word, but begetting the Word and always conversing with His Word (in Himself). These things the holy Scriptures teach us, and all who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, among whom John, saying thus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. With these words he shows that in the beginning God alone was, and the Word in Him. Then he adds: and the Word was God, all things were made through Him. The Word therefore, since it is God and begotten from God, the Father of all sends it, when it has seemed good to Him, into some place, etc. » ibid. n. 22.

The same doctrine, and for the most part in almost the same formulas of speech, other Fathers set forth: Iustinus dial. cum Tryph. n. 61; Tatianus contr. Graec. n. 5; Athenagoras Legat. n. 10; Hippolytus contr. Noet. n. 10; Tertullianus contra Prax. c. 5. 6; Novatianus c. 31.

Evidently in these passages the Word is regarded in two ways: a) in itself and in its internal relation to the Father, as it is described in the first two verses of the Gospel of John; b) in its relation ad extra, i. e. inasmuch as in the Word there is considered either the idea and counsel of creation communicated from eternity by the Father to the Son, or the very manifestation in time and the operation ad extra and the mission from the Father, as it is exhibited in the third verse of the same Gospel.

In the former consideration the eternity of the Word and the unity of essence with the Father are described most explicitly; for it is the Word, of which John says: In the beginning it was, and it was God, which is the mind and intelligence of the Father (νοῦς καὶ φρόνησις), which therefore is necessarily always the Word implanted in God the Father. But lest it be held as an absolute attribute of God, the distinction of the Word from Him whose Word it is is expressed no less explicitly. It is the Word which, on John's testimony, was with God, which is the counselor or consort of the Father's counsels, which is begotten by the Father with an eternal generation; for it is said to be from eternity in the bowels, in the heart of the Father, so that it is the Son of the Father, as John calls « the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father ». The Word therefore ἐνδιάθετον for these Fathers is not an absolute attribute of wisdom, as the Sabellians and afterwards also the Arians interpreted λόγον ἐνδιάθετον (Petav. VI. c. 3. n. 3; c. 4. n. 2.); but it is the hypostatic Word, the Son distinct from the Father. It is, however, called ἐνδιάθετον in comparison to λόγον προφορικόν, not because the Fathers, like the Arians, thought the uttered Word προφορικόν to be different from the implanted Word; but one and the same Word, which considered in itself and in its relation to the Father is the implanted Word, they called uttered, inasmuch as it operates and is manifested ad extra. For in this latter consideration, already from the manner in which they describe the Word in the heart of the Father and the Word brought forth to the divine works, it manifestly appears that not one thing and another but one Word is exhibited under a diverse aspect. Indeed they explicitly enunciate this unity of the Word: « The Father, when He willed, begot as uttered this Word which He always had implanted in His heart ».

The Fathers therefore distinguish by the name of generation two very different things: the eternal generation, by which the Son in Himself is a person distinct from the Father, like a counselor in the bowels and in the heart of the Father; and then the manifestation of the Son ad extra, which is neither from eternity nor necessary but free, and which, as a mission of the begotten One, is called the generation ad extra. Hence Theophilus does not say simply: « when He willed, He begot the Word, » but: « He begot the Word as uttered, » namely so that what was from eternity the begotten implanted Word should now also be uttered, that is, manifested ad extra. Most clearly Hippolytus in the cited place says that this generation ad extra is a showing forth of the Word, so that what was previously visible to the Father alone might become knowable to creatures: « when He willed and as He willed, He showed His Word (ἔδειξεν τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ) at the times defined by Him, through which He made all things.... But of the things that were made He was begetting the Word as leader and counselor and maker; which Word, since He had it in Himself, and it was invisible to the created world (i. e. to creatures not yet existing), He made visible, sending forth the first voice, and begetting light from light He sent forth to the creature the Lord; His own proper intellect, previously visible to Himself alone but invisible to the created world, this He made visible, so that the world, seeing Him when He appeared, might be saved »⁹.

No less lucidly does Methodius define this manner of generation, Conv. Virgin. or. VIII. n. 9 (Galland. T. II. p. 719): « Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. For it must be observed that he pronounced him to be indeed his own Son, indefinitely and without any determination of time: for he says to him, thou art, not thou hast been made... But what he adds, this day have I begotten thee, means this: him who preexisted in the heavens before the ages I willed to beget also for the world, that is, to make known him who was previously unknown (ἔστι τὸ πρότερον ἀγνοούμενον γνωρίσαι).

So also Tertullian, contr. Prax. c. 5-7, considers the Word first as begotten from eternity by God the Father ad intra, and in this way calls it the Reason; then as manifested ad extra, and in this way names it the Speech, both of which, he says, the Greeks comprehend under the name τοῦ λόγου (cf. Aug. l. 44. 83. q. 63). To the eternal generation he refers Prov. VIII. 22-26: « before he made anything, before the hills I was brought forth »; to the generation ad extra he applies the sentences of v. 27 sq.: « with him I was composing all things » etc.

But since there he refutes Praxeas, who admitted the Reason or the Wisdom or the inborn Word in no other way than as absolute wisdom, and acknowledged as the uttered Word only a transient and vocal word; therefore Tertullian contends that the very Reason of the Father, or the inborn Word, begotten in the mind of the Father from eternity, becomes in time the uttered Word, or the Speech. Moreover, he calls this generation of the Speech ad extra a perfect nativity — not indeed in comparison with the generation ad intra, as if he had thought the latter imperfect; but by regarding the nativity formally as that of the Speech, i.e. of the Word manifested ad extra, in which same sense Theophilus speaks of the generation of the Word, formally as it is uttered. This nativity of the Speech, therefore, Tertullian calls perfect, inasmuch as, in opposition to the transient and vocal word of the Praxeans, it is the manifestation of the substantial and personal Word. « As soon as God willed to bring forth into their substances and species those things which he had disposed within himself with the reason and Speech of Wisdom, he first brought forth the Speech itself, that through it all things might be made, through which they had been thought out and disposed, indeed already made, as far as in the mind of God... This is the perfect nativity of the Speech, while it proceeds from God, created (begotten) by him first for the thought in the name of Wisdom: the Lord created me the beginning of his ways; then generated (ad extra formally as the Speech, or as the uttered Word) for the effect: when he prepared the heaven, I was present with him » ib. c. 7¹⁰

Nor are there lacking among the Fathers after the Council of Nicaea those who in the same way distinguish the generation ad intra from eternity and the generation ad extra in time. Thus Gregory, who is thought to be of Illiberis (among the Opp. Gregor. Naz. or. 49. n. 5): « The Son is from nothing other than the Father, because he is always with the Father; and therefore he is called the Wisdom of God, so that the Father may never be believed to be without Wisdom, i.e. without his Son. This is that ineffable Wisdom which at the beginning of the ways of God is described by Solomon (Prov. VIII. 22) as either created or begotten or made; yet he says it was so created as to show that it was always with God... For God did not so create his Wisdom as if he had at some time been without Wisdom; but when he says the beginning of his ways, he points out the beginning of the motion of some work, so that the Wisdom of God has this beginning, that it proceeded from God to create all things both heavenly and earthly, not in the way (perhaps: in that manner) it began to be. Thus Wisdom was created, indeed begotten, not for itself, because it always was, but for those things which had to be made from it ». Zeno of Verona has things nearly twin to these, l. II. tract. IV. et V. (See the Ballerini in Opp. s. Zenonis dissertat. II. c. 1.).

IV. The last manner of conceiving and speaking which, we said, among the pre-Nicene Fathers stands in need of explanation pertains to the visible apparitions of the Word and to the manifestation of the Father through the Son. For they seem to have thought that God the Father, by reason of his eminence and his immensity, could never appear by himself, but that the Son could appear, and in these his apparitions be in a certain way circumscribed by place; and so that the Father is by his nature invisible, but the Son either is or can become visible, and that thus the invisible Father is manifested to men by the Son, in his person and through his person made visible. From this doctrine Petavius and now again certain recent authors conclude that those ancient doctors thought the Son lower in nature than the Father, or at least that they had not yet understood the unity of nature in distinct persons.

The sum of the doctrine is the same in Justin, Apolog. I. n. 63; Dialog. n. 60. 127; Irenaeus, l. IV. c. 6. n. 3. 5-7; c. 20. n. 4. 5. 11; Theophilus of Antioch, ad Autolyc. l. II. n. 22; Clement of Alexandria (ed. Paris. 1641) Paedag. l. 1. c. 7. p. 110. 111; Strom. l. IV. p. 537; V. p. 562; VI. p. 643. 644; VII. p. 733; Tertullian, contra Prax. c. 14-16; Novatian, de Trin. c. 25. 26.

Now indeed 1° none of them says that the Son is or can become visible in his own divine nature, as if this were of a lower order, or that the Son according to the divine nature is not equally immense and everywhere present as the Father. They only teach that the Son can become and has become visible chiefly in the assumed human nature, in which God the Son is at the same time true man, and also in the Old Testament « through a subject creature », namely through various manifestations showing the presence of the Son as a person sent by the Father and hence as a distinct person.

Irenaeus sets forth these manifestations of the Word in many ways and often. « The Word indeed spoke to Moses, appearing in sight, as if one speaks to his friend. But Moses desired to see manifestly him who spoke with him, and it was said to him: for no man sees my face and lives; signifying both things, that man is incapable (powerless) of seeing God, and that through the wisdom of God in the last times man will see him in his coming which is according to man (i.e. the incarnate Word)... Therefore the prophets did not see the very face of God manifestly, but the dispensations and mysteries through which man would begin to see God... Therefore if neither Moses saw God, nor Elias, nor Ezechiel, but the things seen by these were likenesses of the clarity of the Lord and prophecies of future things (of the incarnation); it is manifest that the Father indeed is invisible, of whom also the Lord said: No one has ever seen God. But his Word, as he himself willed, and for the benefit of the beholders, showed the clarity of the Father and set forth the dispensations » Iren. IV. c. 20. n. 9 sq. The doctrine was announced to the Gentiles, « that the Word, invisible indeed naturally, was made palpable and visible among men » ibid. c. 24. n. 2.

Likewise Justin says that the Son of God is called Angel and Apostle, because he is sent by the Father; and therefore that he who appeared in the Old Testament is indeed true God, yet is not the Father but the Son, « who, since he is the Word, the firstborn of God, is also God, and appeared earlier indeed to Moses and the other prophets through the species of fire and through an incorporeal image (i.e. in various manifestations, which were not a true physical body), but now in the times of your empire (of the Caesars) was made man from a Virgin according to the will of the Father » Apol. I. 63; Dialog. n. 127.

Tertullian indeed urges against Praxeas that God is said to be invisible, and again that God was seen by the patriarchs and prophets, in order to show from this the distinction of persons — of the Father who is invisible, and

of the Son who was made visible. But first of all he declares that « God was seen according to the capacity of men, not according to the fullness of majesty »; then he concedes that « the Son also, in his own name, is invisible to that extent, inasmuch as he is the Speech and spirit of God from the condition of his substance »; nevertheless he goes on, « the Son was visible before the flesh in the way in which he speaks to Aaron and Miriam ». This way is this, that to the patriarchs and prophets and to Moses himself, before he spoke to him « mouth to mouth in species, that is, in truth », God, that is, the Son of God, was always seen « in a mirror and in an enigma and in vision and in dream ». Indeed he thinks even the vision of Moses face to face is probably to be explained in almost the same way, « because the Speech and the spirit cannot be seen except in an imaginary form ». But the Son made flesh was already properly visible himself, although not in the divine but in the human nature: he is not the Father, but « another, whom the flesh made more fully visible, him also seen of old in an enigma; namely the Speech, who also was made flesh, another whom no one ever saw (in the divine nature) except the Father, namely whose Speech he is » Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 14. 15.

Hence 2° when those ancient doctors seem to exclude immensity from the Son, who appears visible, and to attribute circumscription to him, as Theophilus l. c., Tertullian c. 16, and Novatian l. c.; this circumscription could not be understood by them according to the divine nature of the Son, but there they have before their eyes first the human nature, according to which indeed the Son is not everywhere, and while he was on earth, according to the same human nature he was not in heaven; whence both Christ and the Apostles speak of the descent from heaven, and in the most proper sense of the ascent into heaven. Moreover, those ancient Fathers regarded the theophanies of the O.T. as certain preludes to the Incarnation and to the apparition of God in the flesh; and therefore they held both those phenomena of fire, cloud, human figure etc., and the actions of eating, motion from place to place etc. in the theophanies as shadows of the human nature to be assumed; indeed the very anthropomorphic locutions which occur in the O.T. about God they not rarely interpreted as pre-significations of the future humanity. According to this manner of considering, therefore, they denied immensity and affirmed circumscription and local motion of the Son not in himself and in his divine nature, but inasmuch as he appeared in those circumscribed phenomena and figures of the humanity to be assumed: « whom the Father willed to be born man from the Virgin, who was also made fire at one time to converse with Moses in the bush » Iustin. Dial. n. 127. So also Theophilus l. c. says most expressly that the Word, inasmuch as it is the Wisdom and Virtue of the Father, always remains « implanted in the heart of God », but inasmuch as it is uttered (προφορικόν), namely manifested in visible manifestations, so it came into paradise and spoke to Adam, and is sent by the Father, when it seemed good, into some place. Tertullian explains most distinctly this whole manner of conceiving the theophanies. « From the beginning the Speech was with God and the Speech was God, to whom was given by the Father all power in heaven and in earth... He himself always descended to human colloquies, from Adam to the patriarchs and prophets, in vision, in dream, in mirror, in enigma; always from the beginning preparing his order (of the Incarnation), which he was to pursue to the end (in the fullness of time), so he was always learning¹¹; and God could not converse on earth with men as another (another person) than the Speech, who was to be flesh. But he was learning, in order to lay for us the foundation of faith, that we might more easily believe that the Son of God descended into the world, if we knew that something of the sort had been done before also... Thus he knew human affections even then, being about to take up also the very substances of man, flesh and soul: questioning Adam as if not knowing, where art thou, Adam? repenting that he had made man, as if not foreknowing... who was also about to undergo human passions, and thirst and hunger and tears and nativity itself and death itself, for this reason made a little less than the angels by the Father » Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 16.

3°. The manner of the comparison of the Son with the Father must be noted; for in this comparison is chiefly situated the difficulty of finding among those ancients the orthodox sense. On the one hand they indeed teach that the Son appeared and administered the whole ancient economy as God the creator of the universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who names himself « I am who am »; on the other hand they say that the Son was sent in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord and the revealer of the Father sending him; indeed they seem even to teach that the Father, by reason of his eminence and immensity, could not appear by himself and in his own person¹². Here there are two difficulties: first, that they seem to consider an operation of the Son which is not the Father's, by which very thing a double nature would be established; then, that they seem expressly to judge the nature of the Son lower, the nature of the Father more sublime, and only the Father immense.

But as to the first, they do not posit a diverse operation, but the operation and manifestation of the Father through the Son. Moreover, the foundation of why not the Father but the Son appeared in the O.T. and was incarnate to establish the New Testament, they exhibit in the personal characters themselves: because the Father is the principle of the Son, the Son as the perfect image is from the Father as from a principle. Because namely the Son ad intra and in relation to the Father is the full manifestation of the Father as the consubstantial image of the Father, as the splendor (ἀπαύγασμα) of glory and the figure (χαρακτὴρ, the expression) of his substance, therefore also every manifestation ad extra in order to creatures is through the Son. But because the Son is consubstantial and one with the Father, therefore the Son manifesting himself in himself manifests also the Father, as he himself said: « he who sees me, sees also the Father... I am in the Father and the Father is in me » Io. XIV. 9. 10. Irenaeus explains the matter. « The Father indeed, invisible and indeterminable as far as concerns us, his own Word knows; and since he is ineffable, he himself narrates him to us. Again, however, the Father alone knows his own Word... And on this account the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father through his manifestation. For the knowledge of the Father is the manifestation of the Son; for all things are manifested through the Word... Therefore to all the Father revealed himself, making his Word visible to all, and again the Word was showing to all the Father and the Son; when he was seen by all... For invisible is the Father of the Son, but visible is the Son of the Father » Iren. l. IV. c. 6. n. 3-6.

In the same sense Clement of Alex. says: « the face of God is the Word, by which God is illuminated (for us as an object of knowledge) and known » Paedag. I. c. 7. p. 110; Strom. V. p. 562. More expressly afterwards Gregory Naz. or. 30 (al. 36.) n. 20, among the other names which he enumerates there, says the Son is called the Word, « because he so relates to the Father as the word relates to the mind... Perhaps also one might say that (the Son relates to the Father) as the definition relates to the defined (ὡς ὅρος πρὸς τὸ ὁριζόμενον); for the definition also is called λόγος. For Christ says: he who knows the Son — for this is what that saying means, he who sees the Son knows also the Father. And the concise and easy showing forth of the nature of the Father is the Son. For everything begotten is the tacit definition of the begetter » (γέννημα γὰρ πᾶν τοῦ γεννήσαντος ἑαυτοῦ λόγος).

As to the second: when they say that the Father could not appear by reason of immensity and eminence, those ancients are not concerned with the question of what sort the apparition and incarnation of God could be in another hypothetical order; namely, they have before their eyes only the apparitions as they are described as having been made in the present order, or at least as they were thought by them to be described in the sacred letters. But thus he who appears in the O.T. is understood to be sent or, as they themselves speak, sent into some place. But the mission of a divine person includes two things: as a root indeed the procession ad intra from another person, which is the sender, and the respect ad extra to some effect, or to a special personal habitude, as happens in the hypostatic union. Hence they easily saw that the mission of the Son into some place in no way harmed his divine nature and immensity. For just as the divinity and immensity, so also this mission is revealed, and hence both are necessarily true. For the generation of the Son from the Father and the personal habitude of the same Son to the circumscribed nature, which was made proper to him and by which he is man, and so his mission in the New Testament, are certain from revelation; for the Old Testament, moreover, from the appellation of the Angel of the Lord, who is at the same time the Lord God, and from other indications they deduced the personal habitude of the Son to those manifestations in the theophanies, by which the Son of God, about to be man, preluded his incarnation. Whence circumscription and local motion do not fall upon the Son sent by reason of the divine nature but by reason of the term which the mission regards; namely, circumscription and motion in place is understood by reason of the human nature, and as regards the phenomena through which he appeared present in the Old Testament. But on the contrary the Father could not appear in this way as sent, because there is no person from whom he proceeds, and hence none by whom he is sent. Therefore from their constant doctrine, just as Christ the Son is sent by the Father, so also the Angel of the Lord and the Lord God sent by the Lord God cannot be the Father.

Up to this point their argumentation is clear enough; but some of the ancients (as Justin and Tertullian) urged further the mission, as it regards the external term, and seem in the heat of the disputation against the Monarchians to affirm that, by the very fact that the Father cannot be sent, neither can he put on a personal habitude to an external term, so that, if the Father appeared in a place, circumscription and local motion would already fall upon the divine nature itself, which, as no one denies, evidently repugnates.

Now I say: in this doctrine a) the error of a distinction of nature, which is wont to be objected to those ancients, is most certainly not found; for the difference that the Son can, the Father cannot, appear in a place, they do not deduce from a diversity of nature and immensity, which they most openly acknowledge to be one in the Father and in the Son, but from a different personal character, by which it comes about that the Father cannot be sent, while the Son can be sent and in fact was sent. b) This distinction — that the first person cannot be sent, while the proceeding persons can be sent — is most true, of which we shall speak elsewhere. c) If the question concerns the fact of the apparition in the flesh, this indeed is proper to the Son who is sent, not common to the Father who sends; and therefore if the theophanies of the Old Testament are conceived as preludes to the Incarnation, these too, together with very many Fathers (th. VI), are to be referred to the Son. d) It is established not only by the fact, but in the personal character itself there is the reason of congruity why the Son rather than the Father appeared through a subject creature — of which congruity we spoke a little earlier. e) Considering the theophanies as they took place in the present order, and the intimate congruity of this order — that the Father sends and the Son is sent — those ancient doctors are not concerned about another possible order, of which revelation does not speak; but they simply teach that, according to the present order, apparitions through a subject creature are proper to the person who is sent, who is the Son, the substantial image of the Father, and therefore that the Father Himself cannot appear visibly. For His apparition would not be through a personal habitude to the creature, as to an external term, which habitude is reserved to the Son; therefore the Father would appear in time and in space according to the divine nature, which is repugnant to the divine eminence and immensity. We readily concede that, from the fact and from the congruity of the Son's apparition through a subject creature, those ancient doctors do not rightly conclude that the Father's apparition, if there were any, would be according to the divine nature itself, and therefore impossible; but certainly on that account a distinction and diversity of nature between the Father and the Son is not yet introduced by those ancients.

From what has been said it is understood how Justin rejects as absurd that the Father, who cannot be comprehended by the whole world, appeared in a small part of the earth; and how he said it would be a consequence that God would seem to have left heaven and to be moved from place, if it were thought that it was God the Father who, appearing on earth as the Lord, rained fire upon Sodom from the Lord out of heaven. In like manner that harsher argumentation of Tertullian is understood. «But of what sort is it, he says, that God the Almighty, that invisible one... He who does not dwell in temples made with hands... for whom heaven is a throne and the earth a footstool, in whom is every place, not Himself in a place, who is the extreme boundary of the universe — that the Most High walked in paradise at evening seeking Adam, and shut the ark after Noah's entry, and rested under the oak with Abraham, and called Moses from the burning bush, and appeared as the fourth in the furnace of the Babylonian king, although He was called the son of man, unless these things had been in image and mirror and riddle? Certainly even these things would not have been believed of the Son of God, if they had not been written; perhaps they would not be believed of the Father even though written» Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 16. These things, of course, are not only not written of the Father, but they could not even be written of Him, granted the principle that a person only insofar as He is sent can assume personal habitudes ad extra, and that in a person not sent, this circumscription and this motion in place would have to be understood according to the divine nature itself.

4°. Under this heading of the locutions which are referred to the Son, insofar as He is considered as made man, belong those for which Dionysius of Alexandria was accused before the Roman Pontiff of the same name: namely, that to show the distinction of the Father and the Son against the Sabellians he had said that «the Son of God is a work (ποίημα) and a thing made, and not proper by nature but alien from the essence of the Father, as the farmer is in comparison to the vine, and the carpenter to the boat; and indeed since He is a thing made, He did not exist before He was made». That the accusers indeed exhibited his doctrine in this way, Athanasius narrates (de sentent. Dionysii n. 4); and yet not all these seem to have been the words of Dionysius himself; but Dionysius himself confesses that only that comparison with the vine and with the boat was employed by him in passing (ibid. n. 18). He could, however, have used this comparison against the Sabellians in two ways: either only in general, to affirm the reality of the distinction between the Father and the Son, not indeed to declare what sort the distinction is and what is its proper ground; or he could have had regard to the assumed human nature, as Athanasius interprets Dionysius. For since the Son Himself according to the human nature said: «I am the true vine, and My Father is the farmer» (Io. XV. 1), Dionysius could from that demonstrate that the Father is one and the Son another. The rest the accusers seem to have gathered by deducing from this comparison instituted by him: that therefore the Son is a made work, that He is alien from the essence of the Father and not consubstantial, that He was made when previously He was not. Dionysius himself attests that he never thought and said things as they objected, but everything to the contrary (ibid. n. 15. 18. 20). Moreover, he says, even if I had called the Father, in relation to the Word, a maker, this very word, being ambiguous, would have to be interpreted from the context in the sense of begetter: «for as I do not think that the Word is a thing made, and I call God not a maker but His Father, even if I had said in passing that God is a maker (ποιητήν), speaking of the Son, so too there would be room for a defense; for the wise men of the Greeks call themselves makers of their own discourses (ποιητὰς τῶν ἰδίων λόγων), although they are fathers of their own discourses; but divine Scripture calls us makers of the movements of the heart, when it calls us makers of law and judgment and justice» (ibid. n. 21). Athanasius, however, says that all those locutions which Dionysius' accusers objected have an easy explanation, because in them the holy Bishop had regard not to the Word considered in Himself, but to the Word insofar as it was made flesh (ibid. n. 20. 26).

Nay, in this whole cause of the great Dionysius there is more manifestly discerned both the constancy and universality of faith in the one nature of distinct persons before the Nicene Council, and the necessary caution lest we too readily interpret the ambiguous locutions of the Fathers of that age in a sinister sense. For just as Dionysius the Roman on the one hand condemned the Sabellians denying the distinction of hypostases, and on the other hand, on the occasion of the accusation brought against the Alexandrian, rejected any distinction of nature in the three hypostases (supra th. X.); so the Alexandrian first urged the real distinction of the persons against the Sabellians, but then, when certain explanations of this distinction seemed to indicate also a distinction and inferiority of the Son's nature, there was immediately a protest from the other Catholics and the cause was brought to the Pontiff as the chief guardian and vindicator of the faith handed down. Moreover, the Alexandrian in his apologetic writings showed the fullest agreement with the doctrine and definition of the Roman Pontiff, and that by the expressions called into question he had wished to signify nothing other than the distinction of the persons. The very formula afterwards established in the Nicene creed — that the Son is ὁμοούσιος to the Father — whose profession the accusers and the Pontiff himself already then demanded, he not only freely admitted, but also testified that he had always held the thing itself expressed by this token. «In another epistle, he says, I showed the false accusation which they bring against me, as though I were unwilling to say that Christ is consubstantial with God (ὡς οὐ λέγοντος τὸ Χριστὸν ὁμοούσιον εἶναι τῷ Θεῷ); for although I confess that I have nowhere found or read this word in the Sacred Scriptures, yet my arguments, which I subjoined and which they passed over in silence, do not differ from this sense» (ibid. n. 18.)¹³. And indeed the unity of the non-multiplicable nature in three distinct persons could hardly have been expressed more expressly by the Fathers themselves after the Nicene Council than it had been done by Dionysius of Alexandria in agreement with Dionysius the Roman already in the III century: «thus we extend the unity without division (and therefore without multiplication) into the Trinity (of persons), and again we contract the Trinity without diminution (the three persons remaining) into the unity (of nature)» Ibid. n. 17. See the remaining confirmations of orthodox doctrine in Athanasius himself in the cited book de sententia Dionysii, and in the other de decret. Nic. n. 25. Certainly not only the authority of Athanasius, but even more the express words of Dionysius cited by him persuade us that St. Basil rather spoke of certain abrupt statements, when he did not have the books of Dionysius at hand, and judged more from the abuse of the Arians, who gladly appealed to the Bishop of Alexandria, than from the whole complex of the doctrine, when in ep. 9. n. 2. ad Maxim. he wrote that Dionysius had scattered the first seeds of the Arian dogma (cf. de Sp. S. n. 72.).

Scholion I. Since we have so far treated of the doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers, the place itself seems to demand mention of the condemnation which is reported to have been proclaimed in the middle of the III century in the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, because either he himself taught, or objected as a consequence of the Catholic doctrine, that the Son is ὁμοούσιος to the Father. How excellent this token is for strictly defining the Catholic dogma is evident from the history of dogmas, and especially from the history of the Arian heresy condemned and vanquished in the IV and V centuries. Nevertheless the signification of the word ὁμοούσιος could be perverted by frauds in two ways: a) so that the imperfection of nature, which the word itself does not signify, but which always accompanies consubstantiality in creatures, should be supposed to be formally signified by the word itself; on which hypothesis one could no longer speak of the divine persons without denying the perfection and unity of the divine nature. For, namely, οὐσία in distinct created hypostases is one only specifically, while really there are as many first substances (οὐσία πρώτη), that is, singular essences, distinct from one another, as created hypostases are distinguished; one is not ὁμοούσιος to another without the singular essence or nature being one in the one and another in the other, distinct in number although of the same kind, and consequently, if the question is about father and son, without the nature being understood as propagated from father to son by some division and multiplication. In this way the Arians and Semiarians frequently made use of it, so that without manifest confession of their impiety they might bring forward some excuse why they wished this token of the Catholic faith to be exterminated. In this same sense Athanasius (de Synod. n. 45.) and Basil (ep. 52. n. 2.) interpret the condemnation of the word ὁμοούσιος which the Semiarians and then also the Arians objected as having been made in the aforesaid Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata. That is, on the supposition of the truth of the history first brought forward by the Semiarians, they say that the Antiochene Fathers are not to be judged to have denied that the Son is ὁμοούσιος to the Father otherwise than that the divine generation is not by division or multiplication of the substance. b) The heretics, who in no way distinguished the singular essence from the person, could take οὐσία in this word for person, and so (certainly against the most manifest signification of the name) interpret the Son as ὁμοούσιος to the Father, as if the Son were said to be one person with the Father; which signification Epiphanius (Ancorat. n. 6; Haeres. 76. n. 7.) thought could underlie the words συνούσιος and ταὐτούσιος¹⁴. Now those Semiarians, who, writing from their synod of Ancyra in the year 358 to the bishops gathered at Sirmium, are found to have been the first to make mention of the condemned word ὁμοούσιος, narrate (in Hilary de Synod. n. 81.) that the word was used by the Samosatene in this latter sense and therefore rejected by the Fathers, «because by this naming of one essence he proclaimed that the Father and the Son were for himself solitary and unique (one person)». Therefore, if the history of the condemnation is not fabricated, this at least is certain: that the dispute against the Samosatene was not about the appellation ὁμοούσιος in its own proper signification, but about a distorted sense of the word, and that only this sense was proscribed. For in the genuine sense the word had already been used a little before this Council of Antioch by Dionysius the Roman Pontiff, and by the accusers of the Alexandrian of the same name, and by the Alexandrian himself, and indeed by his teacher Origen; and a little later, toward the end of the III century, it was admitted and defended as an established and common theological term by St. Pamphilus the martyr (Apol. pro Origene Opp. Orig. T. IV. Append. p. 33. 34) for the most apt expression of the unity of nature in distinct persons, so much so that Eusebius of Caesarea himself could not deny that it had been used by the Fathers (Socrat. H. E. l. I. c. 8.).

Moreover, it certainly seems most probable that the whole history of this condemnation was aptly composed by the Semiarians. For since they were wont gladly to suppose the Sabellian sense in ὁμοουσίᾳ, by deduction from the chapters of doctrine established against the Samosatene they could infer that ὁμοούσιος had not been admitted by the Antiochene Fathers either. Certainly, in admitting the fact of a condemnation never mentioned in the controversy with the Arians, which concerning this word had already raged for thirty and more years up to the year 358, there are such great difficulties that it cannot be rendered credible without witnesses above every exception; but the whole authority of the witnesses is reduced to those Semiarians, most hostile to the token τοῦ ὁμοουσίου, and therefore most eager to oppose another council to the Nicene Council. The whole authority, I say, rests in them; for Athanasius and Hilary expressly signify that they received the narrative from them, nor is Basil, who mentions this matter in passing, to be judged to have drawn it from the Antiochene Acts themselves, but likewise from the adversaries, or perhaps from the disputation of Athanasius. Reasons will be given by Maranus (De Div. D. N. I. C. l. IV. c. 39.) and Simon de Magistris (in Opp. Dionysii Alex. Praef. n. XVIII. seq.), which render the falsity of the Semiarian assertion at least most probable; and they do not seem to me to have been weakened by the opposing arguments of Frohschammer (Fol. theolog. Tübing. 1850. fasc. I.) and of the distinguished Charles Joseph Hefele (Hist. Concil. T. I. p. 115).

Scholion 2. One or another of the ancients seems — namely Hippolytus, and perhaps Tertullian — to distinguish between the Word and the Son, so that the second person of the Trinity, before the manifestation ad extra and especially before the incarnation and the nativity from the

Virgin was the Word, but not yet the perfect Son; but the perfect Son is understood at last insofar as the Word has been manifested and incarnated. Thus Hippolytus cont. Noët. n. 15. (Galland. II. p. 462.). «Someone will say (a Noëtian), you bring me a strange thing, when you call the Word the Son. John indeed certainly (thus Hippolytus responds) says Word; but he introduces another interpretation. For thus demonstrating this Word of God, as that which was from the beginning and is now sent, afterwards in the Apocalypse he said: and I saw heaven opened.... and He was clothed in a garment sprinkled with blood and His name is the Word of God.... Likewise blessed Paul says: God sending His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. VIII. 3.).... What Son, therefore, did God send through the flesh, except the Word, which He called Son, because it was to be born (a man from the Virgin)? And while it is called Son, it assumes the common name of love toward men. For neither was the Word without flesh, of itself, the perfect Son, although it was the perfect Word, the only-begotten. Nor could the flesh subsist by itself apart from the Word, because it has its subsistence in the Word. Thus, therefore, the perfect one Son of God was manifested. And these indeed are the testimonies concerning the Incarnation of the Word... But you ask concerning the generation of the Word, that the Father begot willing, as He willed.... And yet to narrate His generation according to the flesh has been entrusted to no more than two (the Evangelists Matthew and Luke), and you dare to search out the generation according to the spirit (according to the divinity), which the Father keeps with Himself, about to reveal to the Saints who will be worthy to see His face?»

This passage ought to be considered in comparison with the doctrine of the Monarchians (Noetus, Sabellius, Praxeas), which he impugns. According to their doctrine, the Word in God (Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος) is not a person distinct from him whose Word He is said to be, but an absolute attribute; but the uttered Word (Λόγος προφορικός) is the sounding word of God, «air struck, intelligible to hearing» (in Tertull. cont. Prax. c. 7.), or a transient action in creatures. Therefore the Word did not assume flesh, but the divine person, which is unique just as God is one. This person before the incarnation is called the Father; through the incarnation He made Himself a Son for Himself. But when they were pressed by the Catholics that Christ, the Son of God sent, no less evidently distinguishes Himself as another from the Father who sends, they were compelled to take refuge in the distinction between God and man in Christ, and so at least in their manner of speaking divided Christ, as Nestorius later did, into two persons. «Covered on every side by the distinction of Father and Son... they nevertheless try to interpret it otherwise, in accordance with their own opinion, so as to distinguish both equally in one person (only one person being admitted in God), the Father and the Son, saying that the Son is the flesh, that is, the man, that is, Jesus; but the Father is the spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And they who contend that the Father and the Son are one and the same now begin to divide them rather than to unite them... Such a monarchy they perhaps learned from Valentinus, to make two, Jesus and Christ» Tertull. contr. Prax. c. 27. (cf. de Valentino supra p. 81).

Now from the character of the heresy to be impugned it appears why Hippolytus first proves that the Word is incarnate; then indeed insists on so explicit a declaration, that the incarnate Word is one person, the Son of God, the same God, Word and man. But since the adversaries understood the Son insofar as He is the Son of man born of the Virgin, Hippolytus distinguishes the account of the only-begotten Word, begotten of the Father ineffably according to the spirit (according to the divinity), from the account of the son of man born in time of the Virgin according to the flesh; that is, he distinguishes the twofold generation of one and the same person — from God the Father according to the divinity, and from the Virgin mother according to the humanity — and says that from both together the perfect Son is understood, that is, the account of the Son of God and of the Son of man, which belongs to Christ, God and man. What he therefore says — that before the incarnation He was the perfect Word and the only-begotten of the Father, yet not yet the perfect Son — cannot without manifest contradiction be understood as though He were not yet the perfect Son of God, since he expressly says that He was the only-begotten and begotten of the Father according to the spirit; but he signifies that He was not yet the Son of man and begotten of the Virgin according to the flesh. Hence also in the Old Testament, in this sense which the adversaries had before their eyes, he says the Word was called Son, because it was to be born of the Virgin. Which he explains more expressly in n. 4. «The Word was, the Spirit was, the Virtue was. The One assumed in Himself the common name, usual among men, called from the beginning son of man on account of the future; although He was not yet man, as Daniel (VII. 13.) testifies, saying: I saw.... like the son of man.» Moreover, even by the diversity of the name Hippolytus takes care lest he seem to exclude the account of the true Son of God before the incarnation;

For the Son, insofar as He is made man (ib. n. 11), is called παῖς Θεοῦ, the boy of God (see the text above p. 154). Tertullian likewise, just as he sometimes calls the manifestation of the Word ad extra a generation, which presupposes the generation ad intra (above p. 185), so he can be seen to have sometimes considered also the account of the Son corresponding to the generation in the Word, insofar as it has been manifested ad extra. God the Father, he says, thought out and disposed all things to be created in the Word (the Reason, Sophia), and at the beginning of time brought forth the Word (the Speech), and through the Word created all things: «this is the perfect nativity of the Speech (substantial, not of a passing voice, above l. c.), while it proceeds from God, being founded by Him first for thought in the name of Sophia: the Lord founded me as the beginning of His ways; then it was generated for effect: when He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him (Prov. VIII. 22. sq.). Thence making Him equal to Himself¹⁵, from whom by proceeding the Son was made the first-begotten, as begotten before all things, and the only-begotten, as alone begotten of God, properly from the womb of His own heart, according to which the Father Himself also testifies: my heart has uttered a good Word» (Ps. 44. 2.) cont. Prax. c. 7.

If in the words «from the Father by proceeding the Son was made,» the procession is understood as the manifestation, which he had called «generation for effect,» and the Son is taken as predicate, the sense which I have said will have to be accepted. But then neither can that person be understood as made, nor can even the eternal pre-existing person be understood as made Son simply; but the eternal person would have to be understood as made the manifested Son, namely by the account of filiation corresponding to this generation ad extra, which is nothing other than the manifestation of the Son. I say that without contradiction with the express doctrine of Tertullian neither the person made nor made Son simply can be understood, because in countless places he teaches that the Word is begotten from eternity and was always the Son of God. In the following c. 8. he says: «The Speech was always with God, as it is written: and the Speech was with God; and never separated from the Father nor other (another God) than the Father, because I and the Father are one. This will be the probola (generation) of the Truth, the guardian of unity, by which we say that the Son was brought forth from the Father but not separated... Every origin is a parent, and everything that is brought forth from an origin is offspring; much more the Speech of God, which has also properly received the name of Son.» A little below, c. 21: «without doubt the other is shown who was from the beginning, the other with whom He was (Io. I. 1.); that the Speech is other, the God (the Father) other, although the Speech is also God, but as the Son of God, not as the Father... other, however, not as separated, but by disposition¹⁶ other, not by division.» Certainly, therefore, the procession or mission ad extra presupposes this eternal person who is sent, and presupposes that He is, by the internal procession itself, the Son of God; therefore the procession ad extra does not make Him to be the Son, but only to be the manifested Son.

But I do not see why in the cited text c. 7. the procession cannot be understood ad intra, nor do I see why the name Son cannot be the subject, and first-begotten and only-begotten the predicate. Then the sense will be: the Son, by proceeding from the Father, even when heaven was prepared, that is, when all things were created, in comparison with creatures assumes the habitude of first-begotten and only-begotten, because He Himself is from eternity before every creature, and begotten by the Father in a wholly different manner than creatures were made. In this way, however, the passage has nothing of difficulty.

By this distinction of the twofold generation, to which the diverse consideration and appellation of the Son corresponds, the difficulty which is in the words of Tertullian contr. Hermogenem c. 3. can also be solved. Hermogenes defends matter as eternal and uncreated on this ground: that as God was always God, so He was also always Lord; whence he said it was necessary that there always existed something over which He would rule; and this, he said, is matter. Tertullian denies that, because He is always God, He is also always Lord: for the name God signifies the substance of God absolutely and in itself; the name Lord expresses a respect ad extra and connotes an existing creature of which He is Lord. This he illustrates by the example of the other two names, father and judge. «Because both the father is God and the judge is God; yet not therefore father and judge always, because God always. For neither could the father exist before the son, nor the judge before the offense. But there was a time when both the offense and the son did not exist, which would make the judge, and him who is the father, Lord. So also the Lord exists not before those things of which He would be Lord, but will be Lord only at some time; as the Father through the son, as the judge through the offense, so also the Lord through those things which He would have made to serve Him.»

From the whole doctrine of Tertullian, both in his other books and in this very one contra Hermog. c. 18., it is absurd to say: there was a time when the Son, who is the Reason and Wisdom of God, did not yet exist. And therefore if the son is understood in this passage as the second person of the Trinity, He must necessarily be understood not insofar as He is and exists as Son with the Father, but insofar as the Son, and through the Son the Father, is manifested. But since Tertullian here regards God absolutely and without distinction of persons, and regards the relation of God to an external term, and joins the account of father with the account of judge, and the relation of the son to God the father with the relation of the sinner to God the judge, at least a far more probable explanation seems to be — which even Bellarmine prefers to the other (de Christo l. I. c. 10.) — that the son is understood as adoptive, a man or an angel, namely a rational creature approaching from outside, which in time denominated God father.