86. Some misunderstand homoousion; does that prevent me from understanding it? The Samosatene was wrong in using the word homoousion; does that make the Arians right in denying it? Eighty bishops once rejected it; but three hundred and eighteen recently accepted it. And for my own part I think the number sacred, for with such a number Abraham overcame the wicked kings, and was blessed by Him who is a type of the eternal priesthood. The former disapproved of it to oppose a heretic: the latter surely approved of it to oppose a heretic. The authority of the fathers is weighty, is the sanctity of their successors trivial? If their opinions were contradictory, we ought to decide which is the better: but if both their approval and disapproval established the same fact, why do we carp at such good decisions?
87. But perhaps you will reply, Some of those who were then present at Nicæa have now decreed that we ought to keep silence about the word homoousion.' Against my will I must answer: Do not the very same men rule that we must keep silence about the word homoiousion? I beseech you that there may be found no one of them but Hosius, that old man who loves a peaceful grave too well, who shall be found to think that we ought to keep silence about both. Amid the fury of the heretics into what straits shall we fall at last, if while we do not accept both, we keep neither? For there seems to be no impiety in saying that since neither is found in Scripture, we ought to confess neither or both.
88. Holy brethren, I understand by homoousion God of God, not of an essence that is unlike, not divided but born, and that the Son has a birth which is unique, of the substance of the unborn God, that He is begotten yet co-eternal and wholly like the Father. I believed this before I knew the word homoousion but it greatly helped my belief. Why do you condemn my faith when I express it by homoousion while you cannot disapprove it when expressed by homoiousion? For you condemn my faith, or rather your own, when you condemn its verbal equivalent. Do others misunderstand it? Let us join in condemning the misunderstanding, but not deprive our faith of its security. Do you think we must subscribe to the Samosatene Council to prevent any one from using homoousion in the sense of Paul of Samosata? Then let us also subscribe to the Council of Nicæa, so that the Arians may not impugn the word. Have we to fear that homoiousion does not imply the same belief as homoousion? Let us decree that there is no difference between being of one or of a similar substance. The word homoousion can be understood in a wrong sense. Let us prove that it can be understood in a very good sense. We hold one and the same sacred truth. I beseech you that we should agree that this truth, which is one and the same, should be regarded as sacred. Forgive me, brethren, as I have so often asked you to do. You are not Arians: why should you be thought to be Arians by denying the homoousion?
89. But you say: The ambiguity of the word homoousion troubles and offends me.' I pray you hear me again and be not offended. I am troubled by the inadequacy of the word homoiousion. Many deceptions come from similarity. I distrust vessels plated with gold, for I may be deceived by the metal underneath: and yet that which is seen resembles gold. I distrust anything that looks like milk, lest that which is offered to me be milk but not sheep's milk: for cow's milk certainly looks like it. Sheep's milk cannot be really like sheep's milk unless drawn from a sheep. True likeness belongs to a true natural connection. But when the true natural connection exists, the homoousion is implied. It is a likeness according to essence when one piece of metal is like another and not plated, if milk which is of the same colour as other milk is not different in taste. Nothing can be like gold but gold, or like milk that did not belong to that species. I have often been deceived by the colour of wine: and yet by tasting the liquor have recognized that it was of another kind. I have seen meat look like other meat, but afterwards the flavour has revealed the difference to me. Yes, I fear those resemblances which are not due to a unity of nature.
90. I am afraid, brethren, of the brood of heresies which are successively produced in the East: and I have already read what I tell you I fear. There was nothing whatever suspicious in the document which some of you, with the assent of certain Orientals, took on your embassy to Sirmium to be there subscribed. But some misunderstanding has arisen in reference to certain statements at the beginning which I believe you, my holy brethren, Basil, Eustathius, and Eleusius, omitted to mention lest they should give offence. If it was right to draw them up, it was wrong to bury them in silence. But if they are now unmentioned because they were wrong we must beware lest they should be repeated at some future time. Out of consideration for you I have hitherto said nothing about this: yet you know as well as I do that this creed was not identical with the creed of Ancyra. I am not talking gossip: I possess a copy of the creed, and I did not get it from laymen, it was given me by bishops.
91. I pray you, brethren, remove all suspicion and leave no occasion for it. To approve of homoiousion, we need not disapprove of homoousion. Let us think of the many holy prelates now at rest: what judgment will the Lord pronounce upon us if we now say anathema to them? What will be our case if we push the matter so far as to deny that they were bishops and so deny that we are ourselves bishops? We were ordained by them and are their successors. Let us renounce our episcopate, if we took its office from men under anathema. Brethren, forgive my anguish: it is an impious act that you are attempting. I cannot endure to hear the man anathematized who says homoousion and says it in the right sense. No fault can be found with a word which does no harm to the meaning of religion. I do not know the word homoiousion, or understand it, unless it confesses a similarity of essence. I call the God of heaven and earth to witness, that when I had heard neither word, my belief was always such that I should have interpreted homoiousion by homoousion. That is, I believed that nothing could be similar according to nature unless it was of the same nature. Though long ago regenerate in baptism, and for some time a bishop, I never heard of the Nicene creed until I was going into exile, but the Gospels and Epistles suggested to me the meaning of homoousion and homoiousion. Our desire is sacred. Let us not condemn the fathers, let us not encourage heretics, lest while we drive one heresy away, we nurture another. After the Council of Nicæa our fathers interpreted the due meaning of homoousion with scrupulous care; the books are extant, the facts are fresh in men's minds: if anything has to be added to the interpretation, let us consult together. Between us we can thoroughly establish the faith, so that what has been well settled need not be disturbed, and what has been misunderstood may be removed.
92. Beloved brethren, I have passed beyond the bounds of courtesy, and forgetting my modesty I have been compelled by my affection for you to write thus of many abstruse matters which until this our age were unattempted and left in silence. I have spoken what I myself believed, conscious that I owed it as my soldier's service to the Church to send to you in accordance with the teaching of the Gospel by these letters the voice of the office which I hold in Christ. It is yours to discuss, to provide and to act, that the inviolable fidelity in which you stand you may still keep with conscientious hearts, and that you may continue to hold what you hold now. Remember my exile in your holy prayers. I do not know, now that I have thus expounded the faith, whether it would be as sweet to return unto you again in the Lord Jesus Christ as it would be full of peace to die. That our God and Lord may keep you pure and undefiled unto the day of His appearing is my desire, dearest brethren.
[453] Matt. xiii. 15 ff.
[454] Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain, had been sent by Constantine to Alexandria at the outbreak of the Arian controversy. He had presided at the Council of Nicæa in 325, and had taken part in the Council of Sardica in 343, when the Nicene Creed was reaffirmed. In his extreme old age he was forced with blows to accept this extreme Arian Creed drawn up at the third Council of Sirmium in the summer of 357. This is what is stated by Socrates, and it is corroborated by Athanasius, Hist. Arian, c. 45, where it is added that he anathematized Arianism before dying. Hilary certainly does Hosius an injustice in declaring him to be joint-author of the blasphemous' creed.
[455] Rom. xii. 3.
[456] John xx. 17.
[457] Is. liii. 8.
[458] John xiv. 28.
[459] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[460] John v. 26.
[461] Ib. vi. 57.
[462] John v. 26.
[463] Prov. viii. 22.
[464] John v. 26.
[465] Ib. v. 19.
[466] John v. 32.
[467] Matt. x. 16.
[468] John i. 1.
[469] Substantia is in this passage used as the equivalent of Person. The word was used by Tertullian in the sense of ousia, and this early Latin use of the word is the use which eventually prevailed. The meaning of the word in Hilary is influenced by its philological equivalent in Greek. At the beginning of the fourth century hupostasis was used in the same sense as ousia. The latter word meant reality,' the former word the basis of existence.' Athanasius, however, began the practice of restricting hupostasis to the divine Persons. Hilary consequently here uses substantia in this new sense of the word hupostasis. The Alexandrine Council of 362 sanctioned as allowable the use of hupostasis in the sense of Person, and by the end of the century the old usage practically disappeared.
[470] The Council at Antioch of 341, generally known as the Dedication Council, assembled for the dedication of the great cathedral church which had been commenced there by the emperor Constantine, who did not live to see its completion. Four creeds were then drawn up, if we reckon a document which was drawn up at Antioch by a continuation of the Council in the following year. The second, and most important, of these creeds became the creed of the Semi-Nicene party. Capable of a wholly orthodox interpretation, it was insufficient of itself to repel Arianism, but not insufficient to be used as an auxiliary means of opposing it. Hilary throughout assumes that it is not to be interpreted in an Arian sense, and uses it as an introduction to Nicene theology.
[471] Lamb is Hilary's mistake for Man. He doubtless read the original in a Greek manuscript which had the word anthropon written in its abbreviated form anon. This would readily be mistaken for the word arnion, lamb. The Latin word used by Hilary as a substitute for Apostle is prædestinatus, for which word it seems impossible to account.
[472] John vi. 28.
[473] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[474] Mount Haemus is the mountain range which at this period formed the boundary between the provinces of Thracia and Moesia Inferior. Hæmimontus was grouped with Moesia Inferior under the Vicarius of Thrace.
[475] John i. 14.
[476] Gen. i. 26.
[477] Ps. cix 1.
[478] John xiv. 16.
[479] Isai. xliv. 6.
[480] The Flesh, without ceasing to be truly flesh, is represented as becoming divine like the Word. That is, the humanity becomes so endowed with power, and knowledge, and holiness through the unction of the Holy Ghost that its natural properties are "deified." These and similar phrases are freely used by the Fathers of the fourth century, and may be compared with John i. 14, and 2 Pet. i. 4.
[481] Passibility may not be affirmed of the divine nature of Christ which is incapable of any change or limitation within itself. At the same time the Word may be said to have suffered inasmuch as the suffering affected the flesh which He assumed. This subject was afterwards, carefully developed by St. John of Damascus peri orthodoxou pisteos, III. 4. In c. 79, Hilary criticises the Arian statement that the Son "jointly suffered," a word which meant that the divine nature of the Son shared in the sufferings which were endured by His humanity. This phrase, like the statement of Arius that the Logos was "capable of change" implied that the Son only possessed a secondary divinity.