[3637] §49.
[3638] ten tes homoioseos henoteta: and so pp. 163, note 9, 165, 166. And Basil. tautoteta tes phuseos, Ep. 8. 3: [but] tautoteta tes ousias, Cyril in Joan. lib. iii. c. v. p. 302. [cf. tautoousion, p. 315, note 6.] It is uniformly asserted by the Catholics that the Father's godhead, theotes, is the Son's; e.g. infr. §52; supr. p. 329 b, line 8; p. 333, note 5; Orat. i. 49 fin. ii. §18. §73. fin. iii. §26; iii. §5 fin. iii. §53; mian ten theoteta kai to idion tes ousias tou patros. §56 supr. p. 84 fin. vid. §52. note. This is an approach to the doctrine of the Una Res, defined in the fourth Lateran Council [in 1215, see Harnack Dogmg. iii. 447, note, and on the doctrine of the Greek Fathers, Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) b.]
[3639] Vid. Epiph. Hær. 73. 9 fin.
[3640] §23, note 3.
[3641] epiteichisma; in like manner sundesmon pisteos. Epiph. Ancor. 6; cf. Hær. 69. 70; Ambros. de Fid. iii. 15.
[3642] [In this passage the difficulties and confusion which surround the terms agenetos and agennetos (supr. p. 149, &c.) come to a head. The question is (assuming, as proved by Lightfoot, the validity of the distinction of the two in Athan.) which word is to be read here. The mss. are divided throughout between the two readings, but it is clear (so Lightf. and Zahn on Ign. Eph. 7) that one word alone is in view throughout the present passage. That word, then, is pronounced by Lightf., partly on the strength of the quotation from the unnamed teachers (infr. note 7), partly on the ground of a reference to §26 (see note 10 there), to be agennetos. With all deference to so great an authority, I cannot hesitate to pronounce for agenetos. (1.) The parallelism of the two senses with the third and fourth senses of agen. Orat. i. 30. is almost decisive by itself. (2.) Ath.'s explanation of Ignatius. viz. that Christ is genetos on account of the flesh (he would have referred gennetos to His Essence, Orat. i. 56, certainly not to the flesh), while as Son and Word He is distinct from geneta and poiemata, is even more decisive. (3.) His explanation §46, sub fin. that the Son is agenetos because He is aidion gennema would lose all sense if agennetos were read. As a matter of fact, agennetos is the specific, agenetos the generic term: the former was not applicable to the Eternal Son; the latter was, except in the first of the two senses distinguished in the text; a sense, however, more properly coming under the specific idea of agennetos. This was the ambiguity which made the similarity of the two words so dangerous a weapon in Arian hands. The above note does not of course affect the true reading of Ign. Eph. 7, as to which Lightfoot and Zahn speak with authority: but it seems clear that Athan., however mistakenly, quotes Ign. with the reading agenetos.]
[3643] Ign. ad Eph. [Lightf. Ign. p. 90, Zahn Patr. Apost. ii. p. 338.]
[3644] Not known, but cf. Clement. Strom. vi. 7. p. 769. hen men to agenneton, ho pantokrator theos, hen de kai to progennethen di' ou ta panta egeneto, kai choris autou egeneto oude hen.
[3645] [On the subject of the rejection of the homoousion at this Council of Antioch, see Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) b.]
[3646] De Decr. §1.
[3647] §51, note.
[3648] §23, note 3, yet vid. Hipp. contr. Noet. 7.
[3649] kinesei vid. Cyril. contr. Jul. viii. p. 274. Greg. Nyss. de Hom. Op. p. 87.
[3650] §45.
[3651] By the Son being equal to the Father,' is but meant that He is His exact image;' it does not imply any distinction of essence. Cf. Hil. de Syn. 73. But this implies some exception, for else He would not be like or equal, but the same. ibid. 72. Hence He is the Father's image in all things except in being the Father, plen tes agennesias kai tes patrotetos. Damasc. de Imag. iii. 18. p. 354. vid. also Basil. contr. Eun. ii. 28; Theod. Inconfus. p. 91; Basil. Ep. 38. 7 fin. [Through missing this point the] Arians asked why the Son was not the beginning of a theogonia. Supr. p. 319 a, note 1. vid. infr. note 8.
[3652] Vid. Orat. iii. §4.
[3653] Arianism was in the dilemma of denying Christ's divinity, or introducing a second God. The Arians proper went off on the former side of the alternative, the Semi-Arians on the latter; and Athan., as here addressing the Semi Arians, insists on the greatness of the latter error. This of course was the objection which attached to the words homoiousion, aparallaktos eikon, &c., when disjoined from the homoousion; and Eusebius's language, supr. p. 75, note 7, shews us that it is not an imaginary one.
[3654] De Decr. §10. p. 15, note 4.
[3655] etheopoiese Orat.ii. §70. de Decr. §14.
[3656] Cf. supr. p. 314, note 1, Cyr. Thesaur. pp. 22, 23.
[3657] Cf. p. 169, note 4^a [and on ousia as a philosophical and theological term, Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) b. On the divergence of its theological use from its philosophical sense, see] Anastasius, Hodeg. 6. and Theorian, Legat. ad Arm. pp. 441, 2. Socr. iii. 25. Damascene, speaking of the Jacobite use of phusis and hupostasis says, Who of holy men ever thus spoke? unless ye introduce to us your S. Aristotle, as a thirteenth Apostle, and prefer the idolater to the divinely inspired.' cont. Jacob. 10. p. 399. and so again Leontius, speaking of Philoponus, who from the Monophysite confusion of nature and hypostasis was led into Tritheism. He thus argued, taking his start from Aristotelic principles; for Aristotle says that there are of individuals particular substances as well as one common.' De Sect. v. fin.
[3658] The argument, when drawn out, is virtually this: if, because two subjects are coessential, a third is pre-supposed of which they partake, then, since either of these two is coessential with that of which both partake, a new third must be supposed in which it and the pre-existing substance partake and thus an infinite series of things coessential must be supposed. Vid. Basil. Ep. 52. n. 2. [Cf. Aristot. Frag. 183, p. 1509 b 23.]
[3659] Orat. i. §28.
[3660] Vid. de Decr. §11, note 6: also Cyril, Thesaur. iv. p. 29: Basil. contr. Eun. ii. 23: Hil. de Syn. 17.
[3661] Naz. Orat. 28. 2.
[3662] S. Basil says in like manner that, though God is Father kurios properly, supr. p. 156, note 1, 157, note 6, 171, note 5, 319, note 3), yet it comes to the same thing if we were to say that He is tropikos and ek metaphoras, figuratively, such, contr. Eun. ii. 24; gennesis implies two things,--passion, and relationship, oikeiosis phuseos; accordingly we must take the latter as an indication of the divine sense of the term. Cf. also supr. p. 158, note 7, p. 322, Orat. ii. 32, iii. 18, 67, and Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 17; Hil. de Trin. iv. 2. Vid. also Athan. ad Serap. i. 20. and Basil. Ep. 38. n. 5. and what is said of the office of faith in each of these.
[3663] Supr. p. 167, note 7, and p. 307.
[3664] henos ontos eidous theotetos: for the word eidos, cf. Orat. iii. 16 is generally applied to the Son, as in what follows, and is synonymous [?] with hypostasis; but it is remarkable that here it is almost synonymous with ousia or phusis. Indeed in one sense nature, substance, and hypostasis, are all synonymous, i.e. as one and all denoting the Una Res, which is Almighty God. The apparent confusion is useful as reminding us of this great truth; vid. note 8, infr.
[3665] De Decr. §31.
[3666] [phusis is here (as the apodosis of the clause shows) as well as in the next section, used as a somewhat more vague equivalent for ousia, not, as Newman contends in an omitted note, for person,' a use which is scarcely borne out by the (no doubt somewhat fluctuating) senses of phusis in the passages quoted by him from Alexander (in Theod. H. E. i. 4, cf. Origen's use of ousia, Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2) a) and Cyril c. Nest. iii. p. 91. phusis and ousia are nearly equivalent in the manifesto of Basil of Ancyra, whom Ath. has in view here, see Epiph. Hær. 73. 12-22.]
[3667] p. 171, note 6.
[3668] And so tais logomachiais, Basil de Sp. S. n. 16. It is used with an allusion to the fight against the Word, as christomachein and theomachein. Thus logomachein meletesantes, kai loipon pneumatomachountes, esontai met' oligon nekroi te alogi& 139;. Serap. iv. 1.
[3669] Cf. Hil. de Syn. 77, and appendix, note 3, also supr. p. 303, and note. The homoousion was not imposed upon Ursacius and Valens, a.d. 347, by Pope Julius; nor in the Council of Aquileia in 381, was it offered by S. Ambrose to Palladius and Secundianus. S. Jerome's account of the apology made by the Fathers of Ariminum is of the same kind. We thought,' they said, the sense corresponded to the words, nor in the Church of God, where there is simplicity, and a pure confession, did we fear that one thing would be concealed in the heart, another uttered by the lips. We were deceived by our good opinion of the bad.' ad Lucif. 19.
[3670] §11, note 7.
[3671] §12, note 2.
[3672] These two Letters are both in Socr. ii. 37. And the latter is in Theod. H. E. ii. 15. p. 878. in a different version from the Latin original.