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| Chapter XIV. The Son is of one substance with the Father.
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Chapter XIV.
The Son is of one substance with the Father.
108. And now, your
Majesty, with regard to the question of the substance, why need I tell
you that the Son is of one substance
with the Father, when we have read that the Son
is the image of the Father’s substance, that you may understand
that there is nothing wherein, so far as Godhead is regarded, the Son
differs from the Father.
109. In virtue of this likeness Christ
said: “All things that the Father hath are
Mine.”2286
We
cannot, then, deny substance to God, for indeed He is not
unsubstantial, Who hath given to others the ground of their being,
though this be different in God from what it is in the creature.
The Son of God, by Whose agency all things endure,2287
| 2287 Latin,
“subsistunt” subsist, persist, last through
changes. Even the ephemeris thus persists, subsists, or endures,
for its few hours of life. | could not be
unsubstantial.
110. And therefore, the Psalmist
saith: “My bones are not hidden, which Thou didst make in
secret, and my substance in the underworld.”2288
| 2288
“Non est occultatum os meum quod fecisti in abscondito,
et substantia mea in inferioribus terræ.” The
Prayer-book version runs: “My bones are not hid from Thee,
though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the
earth.”—Ps.
cxxxix. 14. “My
bones were not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, [when] I was
curiously wrought [as] in the lower parts of the
earth.”—Perowne. | For to His power and Godhead,
the things that before the foundation of the world were done, though
their magnificence was [as yet] invisible, could not be hidden.
Here, then, we find mention of “substance.”
111. But it may be objected that the mention
of His substance is the consequence of His Incarnation. I have
shown that the word “substance” is used more than once, and
that not in the sense of inherited possessions, as you would construe
it. Now, if it please you, let us grant that, in accordance with
the mystic prophecy, the substance of Christ was present in the
underworld—for truly He did exert His power in the lower world to
set free, in the soul which animated His own body, the souls of the
dead, to loose the bands of death, to remit sins.2289
112. And, indeed, what hinders you from
understanding, by that substance, His divine substance, seeing that God
is everywhere, so that it hath been said to Him: “If I go
up into heaven, Thou art there; if I go down into hell, Thou art
present.”2290
| 2290 Ps. cxxxix. 7. See R.V. “Hell”
is “Sheol,” a word also rendered “grave.”
It means the “place of darkness,” the gloomy underworld,
where the spirits of the departed were believed to abide. It is
the place from which Samuel’s spirit was called up by the witch
of Endor.—1 Sam.
xxviii. |
113. Furthermore, the Psalmist hath in the
words following made it plain that we must understand the divine
substance to be mentioned when he saith: “Thine eyes did
see My being, [as] not the effect of working;”2291
inasmuch as the Son is not made, nor one
of God’s works, but the begotten Word of eternal power. He
called Him “ἀχατέργαστον,”
meaning that the Word neither made nor created, is begotten of the
Father without the witnessing presence of any created being.
Howbeit, we have abundance of testimony besides this. Let us
grant that the substance here spoken of is the bodily substance,
provided you also yourself say not that the Son of God is something
effected by working, but confess His uncreated Godhead.
114. Now I know that some assert that the mystic
incarnate form was uncreated, forasmuch as nothing was done therein
through intercourse with a man, because our Lord was the offspring of a
virgin. If, then, many have, on the strength of this passage,
asserted that neither that which was brought forth of Mary was produced
by creative operation, dare you, disciple of Arius, think that the Word
of God is something so produced?
115. But is this the only place where we
read of “substance”? Hath it not also been said in
another passage: “The gates of the cities are broken down,
the mountains are fallen, and His substance is
revealed”?2292
| 2292 Nahum ii. 6.—The LXX.
shows—“πύλαι τῶν
πόλεων
διηνοίχθησαν,
καὶ τὰ
βασίλεια
διέπεσε. καὶ
ἡ ὑπόστασις
ἀπεκαλύφθη.” The Vulg.—“Portæ fluviorum
apertæ sunt, et templum ad solum dirutum. Et miles captivus
adductus est.” R.V.—“The gates of the
rivers are opened and the palace is dissolved, and Huzzab is uncovered,
and it is decreed; she is uncovered, she is carried away,”
etc. | What,
does the word mean something created here also? Some, I know, are
accustomed to say that the substance is substance in money. Then,
if you give this meaning to the word, the mountains fell, in order that
some one’s possessions of money might be seen.
116. But let us remember what
mountains fell, those, namely, of which it hath been said:
“If ye shall have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye shall say
to this mountain: Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the
sea!”2293
By
mountains, then, are meant high things that exalt themselves.2294
117. Moreover, in the Greek, the rendering
is this: “The palaces are fallen.” What
palaces, save the palace of Satan, of whom the Lord said:
“How shall His kingdom stand?”2295
| 2295
Regnumis used in Latin to denote a domain as well
as in the general sense of “kingdom.” Virg.,
Ecl. I. 70; S. Matt. xii. 26. | We are reading, therefore, of the
things which are the devil’s palaces as being very mountains, and
therefore in the fall of those palaces from the hearts of the faithful,
the truth stands revealed, that Christ, the
Son of God, is of the Father’s
eternal substance. What, again, are those mountains of bronze,
from the midst of which four chariots come forth?2296
118. We behold that height, lifting up
itself against the knowledge of God, cast down by the word of the Lord,
when the Son of God said: “Hold thy peace, and come forth,
thou foul spirit.”2297
Concerning whom the prophet also said: “Behold, I am come
to thee, thou mount of corruption!”2298
119. Those mountains, then, are
fallen,2299
and it is
revealed that in Christ was the substance of God, in the words of those
who had seen Him: “Truly Thou art the Son of
God,”2300
for it was in
virtue of divine, not human power, that He commanded devils.
Jeremiah also saith: “Make mourning upon the mountains, and
beat your breasts upon the desert tracks, for they have failed;
forasmuch as there are no men, they have not heard the word of
substance: from flying fowl to beasts of burden, they trembled,
they have failed.”2301
| 2301 Jer. ix. 10. St. Ambrose follows the
text of the LXX. with one or two variations in the punctuation.
What St. Ambrose renders as “vox substantiæ”
(“word of substance” or “voice of substance”)
appears in the LXX. as “φωνὴ
ὑπάρξεως”
(which vox substantiæ represents verbatim), and in Vulg. as
“vox possidentis” (“the voice of the
possessor”—i.e. landowner); in the A.V. and R.V. as
“the voice of the cattle.”—ὐπαρξις and
substantia should be taken in the concrete sense (as they
clearly represent a concrete term), like our “substance,”
or “possessions.” Now in primitive
society—like, e.g., that of the nomad
Tartars—possessions consist mainly in horses and
cattle. Cf. the evolution of the term
pecunia=money. |
120. Nor has it escaped us, that in another
place also, setting forth the frailties of man’s estate, in order
to show that He had taken upon Himself the infirmity of the flesh, and
the affections of our minds, the Lord said, by the mouth of His
prophet: “Remember, O Lord, what My substance
is,”2302
because it was
the Son of God speaking in the nature of human frailty.2303
| 2303 The text will then
be prophetic of the Agony in the Garden and upon the Cross. |
121. Of Him the Scripture saith, in the
passage cited,2304
in order to
discover the mysteries of the Incarnation: “But Thou hast
rejected, O Lord, and counted for nought—Thou hast cast out Thy
Christ.2305
| 2305 Or, “thine
Anointed.” Cf. Ps. xxii. 1; S. Matt. xxvii.
46. | Thou hast
overthrown the covenant made with Thy Servant, and trampled His
holiness in the earth.”2306
What was
it, in regard whereof the Scripture called Him “Servant,”
but His flesh?—seeing that “He did not hold equality with
God as a prey, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being
made into the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a
man.”2307
So, then,
in that He took upon Himself My nature, He was a servant, but by virtue
of His own power He is the Lord.
122. Furthermore, what meaneth it that thou
readest: “Who hath stood in the truth
(substantia) of the Lord?” and again: “Now if
they had stood in My truth, and had given ear to My words, and
had taught My people, I would have turned them from their follies and
transgressions”?2308
| 2308 St.
Ambrose’s “substantia” is, in the LXX.,
ὑπόστημα—“standing-ground.”
R.V. “council.”—Jer. xxiii. 18–22. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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