ἀπαύγασμα : οὐκοῦν καὶ ὁ ,vios τῷ πατρί. Sointhe Nicene Creed φῶς ἐκ
φωτός. ‘ The word ‘efflulgence’ seems to mean not rays of light streaming from a body in their connection with that body or as part of it, still less the reflec- tion of these rays caused by their falling” upon another body, but rather rays of light coming out from the original body and forming a similar light-body them- selves” (Davidson). So Weiss, who says that the ‘‘Strahlenglanz ein zweites Wesen erzeugt’’. Philo’s use of the- word lends colour to this meaning when:
he says of the human soul breathed into man by God that it was ἅτε τῆς μακαρίας καὶ τρισμακαρίας φύσεως ἀπαύγασμα. So in India, Chaitanya taught that the human soul was like a ray from the Divine Being; God like a blazing fire and the souls like sparks that spring out of it. In the Arian contro versy this designation of the Son was appealed to as proving that He is eter- nally generated and exists not by an act of the Father’s will but essentially. See Suicer, s.v. As the sun cannot exist or a lamp burn without radiating light, so God is essentially Father and Son. τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ. God’s glory is all that belongs to,him as God, and the Son is the effulgence of God’s glory, not only a single ray but as Origen says : ὅλης τῆς δόξης. Therefore the Son cannot but reveal the Father. Calvin says: ‘‘ Dum igitur audis filium esse splendorem Pater- nae gloriae, sic apud te cogita, gloriam Patris esse invisibilem, donec in Christo refulgeat’”’. As completing the thought of these words and bringing out still more emphatically the fitness of the Son to reveal, it is added καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ. χαρακ- τήρ, as its form indicates, originally meant the cutting agent [χαράσσειν], the tool or person who engraved. In common use, however, it usurped the place of χάραγμα and denoted the im- press or mark made by the graving tool, especially the} mark upon a coin which determined its value; hence, any dis- tinguishing mark, identifying a thing or person, character. ‘‘ Express image ”’ translates it well. The mark left on wax or metal is the ‘‘ express image’’ of the seal or stamp. It is a reproduction of each characteristic feature of the original. ὑποστάσεως rendered “person” in A.V.; “substance,” the strict etymo- logical equivalent, in R.V. To the English ear, perhaps, ‘‘nature”’ or “ es- sence” better conveys the meaning. It has not the strict meaning it afterwards acquired in Christian theology, but de- notes all that from which the glory springs and with which indeed it is identical. [We must not confound the δόξα with the ἀπαύγασμα as Hofmann and others do. The ὑπόστασις is the nature, the δόξα its quality, the ἀπαύγ- ασμα its manifestation.] There is in the Father nothing which is not reproduced in the Son, save the relation of Father to Son. Ménégoz objects that though a mirror perfectly reflects the object before it and the wax bears the very image of
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the seal, the mirror and the wax have not the same nature as that which they represent. And Phila more than once speaks of man’s rational nature as τύπος τις Kal χαρακτὴρ θείας δυνάμεως, and the ἀπαύγασμα of that blessed nature, see Quod deter. insid., ο. xxiii.; De Opif. Mundi, c. li. All that he means by this is, that man is made in God’s image. But while no doubt the primary signific- ance of the terms used by the writer to the Hebrews is to affirm the fitness of Christ to reveal God, the accompanying expressions, in which Divine attributes are ascribed to Him, prove that this fit- ness to reveal was based upon com- munity of nature. The two clauses, és to αὐτοῦ, have frequently been accepted as exhibiting the Trinitarian_versus the Arian and Sabellian positions; the Sabel- lians accepting the ἀπαύγασμα as repre- senting their view of the modal manifes- tation of Godhead, the Arians finding it possible to accept the second clause, but neither party willing to accept both clauses—separate or individual existence of the Son being found in the figure of the seal, while identity of nature seemed to be affirmed in ἀπαύγασμα. [ὑπόστ- ασις was derived from the Stoics who used it as the equivalent of οὐσία, that which formed the essential substratum, τὸ ὑποκείμενον, of all qualities. The Greek fathers, however, understood by Τε what they termed πρόσωπον ὁμοούσιον and affirmed that there were in the Godhead three ὑποστάσεις. The Latin fathers translating ὑπόστασις by substantia could not make this affirmation. Hence arose confusion until Gregory Nazianzen pointed out that the difference was one of words not of ideas, and that it was due to the poverty of the Latinlanguage. See Suicer, s.v.; Bleek in loc.; Bigg’s Chris- tian Platonists, p. 164-5; Dean Strong’s Articles in ¥.T.S. for 1901 on the His- tory of the Theological term Substance ;, Calvin Inst., i., 13, 2; Loofs’ Leitfaden, p- 109 note and p. 134.]