§ 127. THE NICENE DOCTRINE OF C0NSUB3TAXTIALITY, G57
trine refuses to swerve from the monotheistic basis, and stands between Sabellianism and tritheism ; though it must be ad mitted that the usage of ovala and v7r6aTaGi<; still wavered for a time, and the relation of the consnbstantiality to the numerical unity of the divine essence did not come clearly out till a later day. Athanasius insists that the unity of the divine essence .la indiyisible, and that there is only one principle of Godhead.' He frequently illustrates the relation, as TertuUian had done before him, by the relation between tire and brightness,'' or between fountain and stream ; tliough in these illustrations the proverbial insufficiency of all similitudes must never be forgotten. " We nmst not," says he, " take the words in John xiv. 10 : ' I am in the Father and the Father in Me,' as if the Father and the Son were two different interpenetrating and mutually complemeutal substances, like two bodies which fill one vessel. The Father is full and perfect, and the Son is the fulness of the Godhead." ^ '' We nmst not imagine," says he in another place, " three divided substances * in God, as among men, lest we, like the heathen, invent a multiplicity of gods; but as the stream which is born of the fountain, and not separated from it, though there are two forms and names. Neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father ; for the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son is the Son of the Father. As the fountain is not the stream, nor the stream the fountain, but the two are one and the same water which flows from the fountain into the stream ; so the Godhead pours itself, without division, from the Father into the Son. Hence the
' Orat. iv. contra Arianos, c. 1 (torn. i. p. 61*7): "flj-Te Svo fitv eivai irarSpa icrJ ni'oi', ^1. ova's a 5e be6TT)Tos aStalpfToy kuI SffxtfTor . . . ju/o apy^ i) eoT7)r OS Koi oo Zvo apxa'ij o^fv Kvpiuis /col fiovapx'^ci iariv.
'' E. jr., Orat. iv. c. Arianos, c. 10 (p. 624): "Eo-toj Se irapaSfiyna av^pdnrtvov rh TTvp Kal TO f'l aiiTov anavyaaixa (ignis et splendor ex eo ortus), 5uo juec ni? elvai [thia ia not accurate, and strictly taken would lead to two ovalai] koI dpaa-^ai, eV de rw «{ aiiTov Kal aSiaipiTov elvai rh (iiravyaaixa aurov.
' Orat iii. C. Arian. C. 1 (p. 551): TlKrjpris koI re'AeiJs cVt., 6 ttott/p, Kal TrK-npaifxa 5eoTTjT<Js iariv 6 Ti6s.
* TpeTs vTroa-rdcrets [here, as often in the Nicene age, synonymous with oi/alcu] ufij.(piafitvas Ka^ eauTcis, Athan. Expos. Fidei or "E/c&strtj irlaTicos, cap. 2 (Opera, e<i. Bened. i. p. 100).
868 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Lord says : I went forth irom the Father, and come from tLt Father. Yet He is ever with the Father, He is in the bosom of the Father, and the bosom of the Father is never emptied of the Godhead of the Son." '
Tlie Son is of the essence of the Fatlier, not by division or diminntion, but by simple and perfect self-communication. This divine self-communication of eternal love is rej^resented by the figure of generation, suggested by the bibilical terms Fatlier and Son, the only-begotten Son, the firsthorn.^ The eternal generation is an internal process in tlie essence of God, and tlie Son is an immanent offspring of this essence ; whereas creation is an act of the will of God, and the creature is exterior to the Creator, and of different substance. The Son, as man, is produced ; ' as God, he is unproduced or uncreated ; * lie is begotten * from eternity of the unbegotten ' Father. To tills Athanasius refers the passage concerning the Only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father.^
Generation and creation are therefore entirely different ideas. Generation is an immanent, necessary, and pei-petual process in the essence of God himself, the Father's eternal
' Expositio Fidel, cap. 2: 'ilj yap ovk icrnv t) injyi] iroTu/xhs, ouSe 6 -noraixb. Trrjyri, a/nipoTepa Se ev uai ravrSf ((Ttiv vSuip rh (K ttji TTT/yfjs fteTfx^evoiJ.ti'oi', outws 5) ^(c ToD -iroTp^s els rhv v'lhv S€({t7jj a^pfvcrrus koi aZiatpeTus rvyxdveij K.r.\.
' rtaTTjp, vlhs, fJiOvoyiVTTi vlus (frequent in John), irptDToroKos ■naa-qs Kriaews (CoL i. 15). Waterland (Works, i. p. 368) says of this point of the Niccne doctrine, " that au explicit profession of eternal generation miglit have been dispensed with : provided only that the eternal existence of the Adyor, as a real subsisting person, in and of the Father, which comes to the same thing, might be secured. Thia was the point ; and this was all."
' T(vi)t6$ (not to be confounded with yevKjjTtJv), TroiTjrdr, factus. Comp. John
L 14 : 'O K6yO'i aap^ iyivero.
* 'AyfvrfTos, oh TToiTjde^f, non-factu3, increatus ; not to be confounded with iyfvvnTos, non-genitus, which belongs to the Father alone.
* FccjojTcis, or, as in the Symb. Nic. yfvfribei^, genitus.
* 'A^fVvTjTo?, non-genitus. This terminology is very frequent in the writings of Athanasius, especially in the Orat. L contra Ariauos, and in his Epist. de decreiis (§yn. Nic.
' John i. 18: 'O ixouoyfvr}^ vlbi, 6 &v (a perpetual or eternal relation, rot ^v) t'n (motion, ia distinction from tr) rhu k6\ttoi rov irarpos. Comp. Athan;is. Epist. da deer. S. N. c. 22 (torn. i. p. 227): T/ yap &.I \o rh tV koKttcs aTj/^aiVfi, ?) t^jv yyijaia* iic roil warpos tov v'lov ytvini\a y ;