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| Unless Father and Son are two in name only, or as parts and so each imperfect, or two gods, they are coessential, one in Godhead, and the Son from the Father. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
§§9, 10. Unless Father and
Son are two in name only, or as parts and so each imperfect, or two
gods, they are coessential, one in Godhead, and the Son from the
Father.
9. ‘I and the Father are One3319 .’ You say that the two things are one,
or that the one has two names, or again that the one is divided into
two. Now if the one is divided into two, that which is divided must
need be a body, and neither part perfect, for each is a part and not a
whole. But if again the one have two names, this is the expedient of
Sabellius, who said that Son and Father were the same, and did away
with either, the Father when there is a Son, and the Son when there is
a Father. But if the two are one, then of necessity they are two, but
one according to the Godhead, and according to the Son’s
coessentiality with the Father, and the Word’s being from the
Father Himself; so that there are two, because there is Father, and
Son, namely the Word; and one because one God. For if not, He would
have said, ‘I am the Father,’ or ‘I and the Father
am;’ but, in fact, in the ‘I’ He signifies the Son,
and in the ‘And the Father,’ Him who begat Him; and in the
‘One’ the one Godhead and His coessentiality3320
3320 Here
again is the word ὁμοούσιον. Contrast the language of Orat. iii. when commenting
on the same text, in the same way; e.g. ἓν τῇ
ἰδιότητι καὶ
οἰκειότητι
τῆς φύσεως,
καὶ τῇ
ταὐτότητι
τῆς μιᾶς
θεότητος, §4. | . For the Same is not, as the Gentiles hold,
Wise and Wisdom, or the Same Father and Word; for it were unfit for Him
to be His own Father, but the divine teaching knows Father and Son, and
Wise and Wisdom, and God and Word; while it ever guards Him indivisible
and inseparable and indissoluble in all respects.
10. But if any one, on hearing that the Father
and the Son are two, misrepresent us as preaching two Gods (for this is
what some feign to themselves, and forthwith mock, saying, ‘You
hold two Gods’), we must answer to such, If to acknowledge Father
and Son, is to hold two Gods, it instantly3321
3321 Cf.
Or. iii. 10, note 4. |
follows that to confess but one we must deny the Son and Sabellianise.
For if to speak of two is to fall into Gentilism, therefore if we speak
of one, we must fall into Sabellianism. But this is not so; perish the
thought! but, as when we say that Father and Son are two, we still
confess one God, so when we say that there is one God, let us consider
Father and Son two, while they are one in the Godhead, and in the
Father’s Word being indissoluble and indivisible and inseparable
from Him. And let the fire and the radiance from it be a similitude of
man, which are two in being and in appearance, but one in that its
radiance is from it indivisibly.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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