§ 127. THE XICENE DOCTRINE OF CONSLBSTANTIALITT. (355
though in a different sense, both by heathen writers' and by hereti(;&,' as well as by orthodox fathers.' It formed a bulwark again&t Arians and Semi-Arians, and an anchor which moored the church during the stormy time between the first and the second ecumenical councils/ At fii-st it had a negative meaning against heresy; denying, as Athanasius repeatedly says, that the Son is in any sense created or produced and change-
iScriptures— else they mean nothing or everything — since they .are an interpretation of the Scriptures and intended to exclude false doctrines.
' Bull, Def. fidei Nic, Works, vol. v. P. i. p. 70: '"O^ooi'.tiov a probatis Graecis scriptoribus id dicitur, quod ejusdem cum altero substantise, essentise, sive naturfB est." He then cites some passages from profane writers. Thus Porphyry says, De abstinentia ab esu animalium, lib. i. n. 19 : El'ye oixouuuioi al rwv (wwv rpvxal r/MSTepais, i. e., siquidem anima? animalium sunt ejusdem cum nostris essentise. Aristotle (in a quotation in Origen) speaks of the consubstantiality of all stars, o^ioovcia iroyra iarpa, omnia astra sunt ejusdem essentise sive naturse.
* First by the Gnostic Valentine, in Irenaeus, Adv. hser. 1. i. cap. 1, § 1 and § 5 (ed. Stieren, vol. i. 57 and 66). In the last passage it is said of man that he is v\iic6s, and as such very like God, indeed, but not consubstantial, irapanA-fiaLO}' t^h', aA.\' oi'x of^ouvffiov rtS Qew. The Manichosans called the human soul, in the sense of their emanation system, b^oovaiov rw &ew. Agapius, in Photius (Bibl. Cod. 179), calls even the sun and the moon, in a pantheistic sense, o/j-oovcria &etS. The Sabellians used the word of the trinity, but in opposition to the distinction of persons.
^ Origen deduces from the figurative description airavyaaixa, Hcb. i. 3, the S/j-oovainv of the Son. His disciples rejected the term, indeed, at the council at Antioch in 264, because the heretical Paul of Samosata gave it a perverted meaning, taking uvaia. for the common source from which the three divine persons first derived their being. But towards the end of the third century the word was introduced again into church use by Theognostus and Dionysius of Alexandria, as Athanasius, De Deer. Syn. Nic. c. 25 (ed, Bened. i. p. 2.30), demonstrates. Eusebius, Ep. ad Cassarienses c. 7 (in Socr. H. E. i. 8, and in Athan. Opera i. 241), says that some early bishops and authors, learned and celebrated (ran/ itaXaiiiv Ttvas Aoylov^ kuI i-iTKpavus iTHffKoirov: Kal crvyypa(j)us\ used ofxocvaiov of the Godhead of the Father and Son. Tertullian (Adv. Prax.) applied the corresponding Latin phrase unim tubstaniioB to the persons of the holy Trinity.
■• Cunningham (Hist. Theology, i. p. 291) says of bfxoovaios: "The number of these individuals who held the substance of the Nicenc doctrine, but objected to the phraseology in which it was expressed, was very small [?] — and the evil thereof, was very inconsiderable ; while the advantage was invaluable that resulted from tha possession and the use of a definite phraseology, which shut out all supporters of error, combined nearly all the maintaiuers of truth, and formed a rallying-point around which the whole orthodox church ultimately gathered, after the confusion and distraction occasioned by Arian cunning and Arian persecution had passed away."
r,5G TniED pp:riod. a.b. 311-590.
able.' But afterwards the homoonsion became a positive testword of ortliodoxy, designating, in the sense of the Nicene council, clearly and unequivocally, the veritable and essential deity of Christ, in opposition to all sorts of apparent or half divinity, or mere similarity to God. The same divine, eternal, unchangeable essence, which is in an original way in the Father, is, from eternity, in a derived way, through generation, in the Son; just as the water of the fountain is in the stream, or the light of the sun is in the ray, and cannot be separated from it. Hence the Lord says : " I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ; " " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;" "I and My Father are one." Tliis is the sense of the expression : " God of God," " very God of veiy God." Christ, in His divine nature, is as fully consubstantial with the Father, as, in His human nature, lie is with man ; flesh of our flesli, and bone of our bone ; and yet, with all tliis. He is an independent person with respect to the Father, as He is with respect to other men. In this view Basil turns the term 6fioovaio<; against the Sabellian denial of the personal distinctions in the Trinity, since it is not the same thing that is consubstantial with itself, but one thing that is consubstantial with another." Consubstantial ity among men, indeed, is predicated of different individuals who partake of the same nature, and tiie term in this view might denote also unity of species in a tritheistic sense.
But in the case before us the personal distinction of the Son from the Father must not be pressed to a duality of substances of the same kind ; the homoousion, on the contrary, must be understood as identity or numerical unity of substance, in distinction from mere generic unity. Otherwise it leads manifestly into dualism or tritheism. The Nicene doc-
' Athanafl. Eidst. de Dccretis Syn. Nicacnre, cap. 20 (i. p. 226); c. 26 (p. 231); and elsewhere.
" Basil. M. Epist. lii. 3 (torn. iii. 146): Auttj 8} rj (puvi] Ka\ rh tov 2a0f\^iov KUKhv iiravop^ovrai • a.vatp(7 yap rijt' Tai/T(ST7jTo rrij vvocTTafffco^ kc\ fladyti TfKtiaf ■riiv izpoaixnttiiv -rriv tvvoiav • (toUit enira hypo9tascos idcntitat'jm perfcctamque per- BOaamm notioncm inducit) ov yap a'jrh ri ianv kavT(f ifjLOoixnov, aA\' (Tfpoy ijif* (lion enim idem sibi ipai conaubstantiale est, <wd altenim alteri).