prehensive than tlie latter, it may be expedient to speak of them in order, although what belongs to the one head, in a good degree belongs also to the other.
The ambiguity of the word 6fxoovai.o<; has already been remarked upon. As ovma may mean generic nature common to many indi- viduals, not unum in numero, but ens unum in multis, so 6/aoovo-ios (consubstantial) may mean nothing more than sameness of species or kind. It is therefore said, that " the term homoousion, in its strict grammatical sense differs from monoousion or toutoousion, as well as from heteroousion, and signifies not numerical identity, but equality of essence or community of nature among several beings." * " The Nicene Creed," Dr. Schaff adds, *' does not expressly assert the singleness or numerical unity of the divine essence (unless it be in the first article : ' we believe in one God '), and the main point with the Nicene fathers was to urge against Arianism the strict divinity and essential equality of the Son and Holy Ghost with the Father. If we press the difference of homoousion from monoousion, and overlook the many passages in which they assert with equal emphasis the monarchia or numerical unity of the God- head, we must charge them with tritheism."
Gieseler goes much further, and denies that the Nicene fathers held the numerical identity of essence in the persons of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Spirit were the same in substance as having the same nature, or same kind of substance. This he infers was their doctrine not only from the general style of their teaching, and fi'om special declarations, but from the illustrations which they habitually employed. The Father and the Son are the same in substance as among men father and son have the same nature ; or as Basil says, Father and Son differ in rank, as do the angels, although they are the same in nature. Gieseler says that the numerical sameness of nature in the three divine persons, was first asserted by Augustine. It was he, according to Gieseler, who first excluded all idea of subordination in the Trinity.^ " Athanasius and Hilary understood the proposition, ' There is one God ' of the P^ather. Basil the Great and the two Gregories understood by the word God a generic idea (Gattungsbegriff ), belonging equally to the Father and the Son. Basil in the ' Apologia ad Cassarien-
Ses,' says, i^/acTs eva 6(.ov, ov tw dpi6[J.w, dXXa Tjj cfyvaei ofMoXoyovfiev, and
endeavours to show that there can be no question of number in reference to God, as numerical difference pertains only to material
1 SchaflTa History of the Chi-islian Church, vol. iii. p. 672. 9 Kirchengeschichte, vol. vi. § 60, p. 323. Bonn. 1855.
464 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. "VI. — The Tkinity.
things. Augustine on the contrary expressly exckides tlie idea of generic unity/ and understands the proposition ' there is one God ' not of the Father alone, but of the whole Trinity,^ and, therefore, taught that there is one God in three persons." This, however, is the precise doctrine of the Nicene Creed itself, which affirms faith " in one God," and not in three. Basil in the place quoted is refuting the charge of Tritheism. His words are, -n-pos Se rovs
€7r?7pea^0FTas "^fuv to rptOeov, Ik^Ivo AeyeV^w omrep rjfxeis ei'a Oibv, etc.^ On
page 460 reasons have already been given for assuming that the sameness of substance taught by the Nicene fathers was not simply generic but numerical. On this subject Pearson, a thorough ad- vocate of the Nicene Creed, says, " As it (the divine nature) is absolutely immaterial and incorporeal, it is also indivisible ; Christ cannot have any part of it only communicated unto Him, but the whole, by which He must be acknowledged co-essential, of the same substance with the Father; as the Council of Nice determined, and the ancient fathers before them taught." ^ If the whole divine essence belongs equally to the several persons of the Trinity, there is an end to the question, whether the sameness be specific or numerical. Accordingly the Bishop says : " The Divine essence beincv by reason of its simplicity not subject to division, and in respect of its infinity uncapable of multiplication, is so communi- cated as not to be multiplied ; insomuch that He which proceedeth by that comnumication hath not only the same nature, but is also the same God. The Father God, and the Word God ; Abraham man, and Isaac man : but Abraham one man, Isaac another man ; not so the Father one God, and the Word another, but the Father and the Word both the same God." ^
Gieseler says that Augustine effectually excluded all idea of sub- ordination in the Trinity by teaching the numerical sameness of es- ence in the persons of the Godhead. This does indeed preclude all priority and all superiority as to being and perfection. But it does not preclude subordination as to the mode of subsistence and opera- tion. This is distinctly recognized in Scripture, and Avas as fully taught by Augustine as by any of the Greek fathers, and is even more distinctly affirmed in the so-called Athanasian Creed, repre- senting the school of Augustine, than in the Creed of the Council of Nice. There is, therefore, no just ground of objection to the
1 De Trinitate, vii. vi. edit. Benedictines, vol. viii. p. 1314, d.
2 Epistola ccxxxviii. iii. 18, vol. ii. p. 1304, a.
* Epistola VIII. edit. Migne, vol. iii. p. 115. e.
* Pearson, On Creed, seventh edition, 1701, p. 135. " Pearson, p. 138.