Preface.

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Chapter XIII.

Chapter XIV.

Chapter XV.

Chapter XVI.

Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII.

Chapter XIX.

Chapter XX.

Chapter XXI.

Chapter XXII.

Chapter XXIII.

Chapter XXIV.

Chapter XXV.

Chapter XXVI.

Chapter XXVII.

Chapter XXVIII.

Chapter XXIX.

Chapter XXX.

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The heresy of Arius lowered the dignity of the Holy Ghost as well as that of the Son. He taught that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are wholly unlike one another both in essence and in glory. “There is a triad, not in equal glories;” “one more glorious than the other in their glories to an infinite degree.” So says the Thalia, quoted in Ath. de Syn. § 15. But the Nicene definition, while it was precise in regard to the Son, left the doctrine of the Holy Ghost comparatively open, (Πιστεύομεν εἰς τὸ ῞Αγιον Πνεῦμα,) not from hesitation or doubt, but because this side of Arian speculation was not prominent. (Cf. Basil, Letters cxxv. and ccxxvi. and Dr. Swete in D.C.B. iii. 121.) It was the expulsion of Macedonius from the see of Constantinople in 360 which brought “Macedonianism” to a head. He was put there by Arians as an Arian. Theodoret (Ecc. Hist. ii. 5) explains how disagreement arose. He was an upholder, if not the author, of the watchword ὁμοιούσιον (Soc. ii. 45) (but many supporters of the ὁμοιούσιον (e.g., Eustathius of Sebasteia) shrank from calling the Holy Ghost a creature. So the Pneumatomachi began to be clearly marked off. The various creeds of the Arians and semi-Arians did not directly attack the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, though they did not accept the doctrine of the essential unity of the Three Persons. (Cf. Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, pp. 148–174, quoted by Swete.) But their individual teaching went far beyond their confessions. The Catholic theologians were roused to the danger, and on the return of Athanasius from his third exile, a council was held at Alexandria which resulted in the first formal ecclesiastical condemnation of the depravers of the Holy Ghost, in the Tomus ad Antiochenos (q.v. with the preface on p. 481 of Ath. in the edition of this series. Cf. also Ath. ad Serap. i. 2, 10). In the next ten years the Pneumatomachi, Macedonians, or Marathonians, so called from Marathonius, bishop of Nicomedia, whose support to the party was perhaps rather pecuniary than intellectual (Nicephorus H.E. ix. 47), made head, and were largely identified with the Homoiousians. In 374 was published the Ancoratus of St. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, written in 373, and containing two creeds (vide Heurtley de F. et Symb. pp. 14–18), the former of which is nearly identical with the Confession of Constantinople. It expresses belief in τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ῞Αγιον, Κύριον, καὶ Ζωοποιὸν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱ& 254· συμπροσκυνοί μενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον, τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν. It is in this same year, 374, that Amphilochius, the first cousin of Gregory of Nazianzus and friend and spiritual son of Basil, paid the first of his annual autumn visits to Cæsarea (Bishop Lightfoot, D.C.B. i. 105) and there urged St. Basil to clear up all doubt as to the true doctrine of the Holy Spirit by writing a treatise on the subject. St. Basil complied, and, on the completion of the work, had it engrossed on parchment (Letter ccxxxi.) and sent it to Amphilochius, to whom he dedicated it.

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Prefatory remarks on the need of exact investigation of the most minute portions of theology.

1. Your desire for information, my right well-beloved and most deeply respected brother Amphilochius, I highly commend, and not less your industrious energy. I have been exceedingly delighted at the care and watchfulness shewn in the expression of your opinion that of all the terms concerning God in every mode of speech, not one ought to be left without exact investigation. You have turned to good account your reading of the exhortation of the Lord, “Every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth,”1 and by your diligence in asking might, I ween, stir even the most reluctant to give you a share of what they possess. And this in you yet further moves my admiration, that you do not, according to the manners of the most part of the men of our time, propose your questions by way of mere test, but with the honest desire to arrive at the actual truth. There is no lack in these days of captious listeners and questioners; but to find a character desirous of information, and seeking the truth as a remedy for ignorance, is very difficult. Just as in the hunter’s snare, or in the soldier’s ambush, the trick is generally ingeniously concealed, so it is with the inquiries of the majority of the questioners who advance arguments, not so much with the view of getting any good out of them, as in order that, in the event of their failing to elicit answers which chime in with their own desires, they may seem to have fair ground for controversy.

2. If “To the fool on his asking for wisdom, wisdom shall be reckoned,”2 at how high a price shall we value “the wise hearer” who is quoted by the Prophet in the same verse with “the admirable counsellor”?3 It is right, I ween, to hold him worthy of all approbation, and to urge him on to further progress, sharing his enthusiasm, and in all things toiling at his side as he presses onwards to perfection. To count the terms used in theology as of primary importance, and to endeavour to trace out the hidden meaning in every phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who are idle in the pursuit of true religion, but distinguishing all who get knowledge of “the mark” “of our calling;”4 for what is set before us is, so far as is possible with human nature, to be made like unto God. Now without knowledge there can be no making like; and knowledge is not got without lessons. The beginning of teaching is speech, and syllables and words are parts of speech. It follows then that to investigate syllables is not to shoot wide of the mark, nor, because the questions raised are what might seem to some insignificant, are they on that account to be held unworthy of heed. Truth is always a quarry hard to hunt, and therefore we must look everywhere for its tracks. The acquisition of true religion is just like that of crafts; both grow bit by bit; apprentices must despise nothing. If a man despise the first elements as small and insignificant, he will never reach the perfection of wisdom.

Yea and Nay are but two syllables, yet there is often involved in these little words at once the best of all good things, Truth, and that beyond which wickedness cannot go, a Lie. But why mention Yea and Nay? Before now, a martyr bearing witness for Christ has been judged to have paid in full the claim of true religion by merely nodding his head.5 If, then, this be so, what term in theology is so small but that the effect of its weight in the scales according as it be rightly or wrongly used is not great? Of the law we are told “not one jot nor one tittle shall pass away;”6 how then could it be safe for us to leave even the least unnoticed? The very points which you yourself have sought to have thoroughly sifted by us are at the same time both small and great. Their use is the matter of a moment, and peradventure they are therefore made of small account; but, when we reckon the force of their meaning, they are great. They may be likened to the mustard plant which, though it be the least of shrub-seeds, yet when properly cultivated and the forces latent in its germs unfolded, rises to its own sufficient height.

If any one laughs when he sees our subtilty, to use the Psalmist’s7 words, about syllables, let him know that he reaps laughter’s fruitless fruit; and let us, neither giving in to men’s reproaches, nor yet vanquished by their disparagement, continue our investigation. So far, indeed, am I from feeling ashamed of these things because they are small, that, even if I could attain to ever so minute a fraction of their dignity, I should both congratulate myself on having won high honour, and should tell my brother and fellow-investigator that no small gain had accrued to him therefrom.

While, then, I am aware that the controversy contained in little words is a very great one, in hope of the prize I do not shrink from toil, with the conviction that the discussion will both prove profitable to myself, and that my hearers will be rewarded with no small benefit. Wherefore now with the help, if I may so say, of the Holy Spirit Himself, I will approach the exposition of the subject, and, if you will, that I may be put in the way of the discussion, I will for a moment revert to the origin of the question before us.

3. Lately when praying with the people, and using the full doxology to God the Father in both forms, at one time “with the Son together with the Holy Ghost,” and at another “through the Son in the Holy Ghost,” I was attacked by some of those present on the ground that I was introducing novel and at the same time mutually contradictory terms.8 You, however, chiefly with the view of benefiting them, or, if they are wholly incurable, for the security of such as may fall in with them, have expressed the opinion that some clear instruction ought to be published concerning the force underlying the syllables employed. I will therefore write as concisely as possible, in the endeavour to lay down some admitted principle for the discussion.

Footnotes

1 Luke xi. 10.

2 Prov. xvii. 28, lxx.

3 Is. iii. 3, lxx.

4 Phil. iii. 14.

5 i.e., confessed or denied himself a Christian. The Benedictine Editors and their followers seem to have missed the force of the original, both grammatically and historically, in referring it to the time when St. Basil is writing; ἤδη ἐκρίθη does not mean “at the present day is judged,” but “ere now has been judged.” And in a.d. 374 there was no persecution of Christians such as seems to be referred to, although Valens tried to crush the Catholics.

6 Matt. v. 18.

7 Ps. cxix. 85, lxx. “The lawless have described subtilties for me, but not according to thy law, O Lord;” for A.V. & R.V., “The proud have digged pits for me which are not after thy law.” The word ἀδολεσχία is used in a bad sense to mean garrulity; in a good sense, keenness, subtilty.

8 It is impossible to convey in English the precise force of the prepositions used. “With” represents μετά, of which the original meaning is “amid;” “together with,” σύν, of which the original meaning is “at the same time as.” The Latin of the Benedictine edition translates the first by “cum,” and the second by “una cum.” “Through” stands for διά, which, with the genitive, is used of the instrument; “in” for ε'ν, “in,” but also commonly used of the instrument or means. In the well known passage in 1 Cor. viii. 6, A.V. renders δι᾽ οὗ τὰ πάντα by “through whom are all things;” R.V., by “by whom.”

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The origin of the heretics’ close observation of syllables.

4. The petty exactitude of these men about syllables and words is not, as might be supposed, simple and straightforward; nor is the mischief to which it tends a small one. There is involved a deep and covert design against true religion. Their pertinacious contention is to show that the mention of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is unlike, as though they will thence find it easy to demonstrate that there is a variation in nature. They have an old sophism, invented by Aetius, the champion of this heresy, in one of whose Letters there is a passage to the effect that things naturally unlike are expressed in unlike terms, and, conversely, that things expressed in unlike terms are naturally unlike. In proof of this statement he drags in the words of the Apostle, “One God and Father of whom are all things,…and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things.”1 “Whatever, then,” he goes on, “is the relation of these terms to one another, such will be the relation of the natures indicated by them; and as the term ‘of whom’ is unlike the term ‘by whom,’ so is the Father unlike the Son.”2 On this heresy depends the idle subtilty of these men about the phrases in question. They accordingly assign to God the Father, as though it were His distinctive portion and lot, the phrase “of Whom;” to God the Son they confine the phrase “by Whom;” to the Holy Spirit that of “in Whom,” and say that this use of the syllables is never interchanged, in order that, as I have already said, the variation of language may indicate the variation of nature.3 Verily it is sufficiently obvious that in their quibbling about the words they are endeavouring to maintain the force of their impious argument.

By the term “of whom” they wish to indicate the Creator; by the term “through whom,” the subordinate agent4 or instrument;5 by the term “in whom,” or “in which,” they mean to shew the time or place. The object of all this is that the Creator of the universe6 may be regarded as of no higher dignity than an instrument, and that the Holy Spirit may appear to be adding to existing things nothing more than the contribution derived from place or time.

Footnotes

1 1 Cor. viii. 6.

2 The story as told by Theodoret (Ecc. Hist. ii. 23) is as follows: “Constantius, on his return from the west, passed some time at Constantinople” (i.e. in 360, when the synod at Constantinople was held, shortly after that of the Isaurian Seleucia, “substance” and “hypostasis” being declared inadmissible terms, and the Son pronounced like the Father according to the Scriptures). The Emperor was urged that “Eudoxius should be convicted of blasphemy and lawlessness. Constantius however…replied that a decision must first be come to on matters concerning the faith, and that afterwards the case of Eudoxius should be enquired into. Basilius (of Ancyra), relying on his former intimacy, ventured boldly to object to the Emperor that he was attacking the apostolic decrees; but Constantius took this ill, and told Basilius to hold his tongue, for to you, said he, the disturbance of the churches is due. When Basilius was silenced, Eustathius (of Sebasteia) intervened and said, Since, sir, you wish a decision to be come to on what concerns the faith, consider the blasphemies uttered against the Only Begotten by Eudoxius; and, as he spoke, he produced the exposition of faith, wherein, besides many other impieties, were found the following expressions: Things that are spoken of in unlike terms are unlike in substance; there is one God the Father of Whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things. Now the term ‘of Whom’ is unlike the term ‘by Whom;’ so the Son is unlike God the Father. Constantius ordered this exposition of the faith to be read, and was displeased with the blasphemy which it involved. He therefore asked Eudoxius if he had drawn it up. Eudoxius instantly repudiated the authorship, and said that it was written by Aetius. Now Aetius…at the present time was associated with Eunomius and Eudoxius, and, as he found Eudoxius to be, like himself, a sybarite in luxury as well as a heretic in faith, he chose Antioch as the most congenial place of abode, and both he and Eunomius were fast fixtures at the couches of Eudoxius.…The Emperor had been told all this, and now ordered Aetius to be brought before him. On his appearance, Constantius shewed him the document in question, and proceeded to enquire if he was the author of its language. Aetius, totally ignorant of what had taken place, and unaware of the drift of the enquiry, expected that he should win praise by confession, and owned that he was the author of the phrases in question. Then the Emperor perceived the greatness of his iniquity, and forthwith condemned him to exile and to be deported to a place in Phrygia.” St. Basil accompanied Eustathius and his namesake to Constantinople on this occasion, being then only in deacon’s orders. (Philost. iv. 12.) Basil of Ancyra and Eustathius in their turn suffered banishment. Basil, the deacon, returned to the Cappadocian Cæsarea.

3 cf. the form of the Arian Creed as given by Eunomius in his ᾽Απολογία (Migne, xxx. 840. “We believe in one God, Father Almighty, of whom are all things; and in one only begotten Son of God, God the word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and in one Holy Ghost, the Comforter, in whom distribution of all grace in proportion as may be most expedient is made to each of the Saints.”

4 cf. Eunomius, Liber. Apol. § 27, where of the Son he says ὑπουργός.

5 On the word ὄργανον, a tool, as used of the Word of God, cf. Nestorius in Marius Merc. Migne, p. 761 & Cyr. Alex. Ep. 1. Migne, x. 37. “The creature did not give birth to the uncreated, but gave birth to man, organ of Godhead.” cf. Thomasius, Christ. Dog. i. 336. Mr. Johnston quotes Philo (de Cher. § 35; i. 162. n.) as speaking of ὄργανον δὲ λόγον Θεοῦ δι᾽ οὗ κατεσκευάσθη (sc. ὁ κόσμος).

6 Here of course the Son is meant.

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The systematic discussion of syllables is derived from heathen philosophy.

5. They have, however, been led into this error by their close study of heathen writers, who have respectively applied the terms “of whom” and “through whom” to things which are by nature distinct. These writers suppose that by the term “of whom” or “of which” the matter is indicated, while the term “through whom” or “through which”1 represents the instrument, or, generally speaking, subordinate agency.2 Or rather—for there seems no reason why we should not take up their whole argument, and briefly expose at once its incompatibility with the truth and its inconsistency with their own teaching—the students of vain philosophy, while expounding the manifold nature of cause and distinguishing its peculiar significations, define some causes as principal,3 some as cooperative or con-causal, while others are of the character of “sine qua non,” or indispensable.4

For every one of these they have a distinct and peculiar use of terms, so that the maker is indicated in a different way from the instrument. For the maker they think the proper expression is “by whom,” maintaining that the bench is produced “by” the carpenter; and for the instrument “through which,” in that it is produced “through” or by means of adze and gimlet and the rest. Similarly they appropriate “of which” to the material, in that the thing made is “of” wood, while “according to which” shews the design, or pattern put before the craftsman. For he either first makes a mental sketch, and so brings his fancy to bear upon what he is about, or else he looks at a pattern previously put before him, and arranges his work accordingly. The phrase “on account of which” they wish to be confined to the end or purpose, the bench, as they say, being produced for, or on account of, the use of man. “In which” is supposed to indicate time and place. When was it produced? In this time. And where? In this place. And though place and time contribute nothing to what is being produced, yet without these the production of anything is impossible, for efficient agents must have both place and time. It is these careful distinctions, derived from unpractical philosophy and vain delusion,5 which our opponents have first studied and admired, and then transferred to the simple and unsophisticated doctrine of the Spirit, to the belittling of God the Word, and the setting at naught of the Divine Spirit. Even the phrase set apart by non-Christian writers for the case of lifeless instruments6 or of manual service of the meanest kind, I mean the expression “through or by means of which,” they do not shrink from transferring to the Lord of all, and Christians feel no shame in applying to the Creator of the universe language belonging to a hammer or a saw.

Footnotes

1 The ambiguity of gender in ἐξ οὗ and δι᾽ οὗ can only be expressed by giving the alternatives in English.

2 There are four causes or varieties of cause: 1. The essence or quiddity (Form): τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι. 2. The necessitating conditions (Matter): τὸ τίνων ὄντων ἀνάγκη τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι. 3. The proximate mover or stimulator of change (Efficient): ἡ τί πρῶτον ἐκίνησε. 4. That for the sake of which (Final Cause or End): τὸ τίνος ἕνεκα. Grote’s Aristotle, I. 354. The four Aristotelian causes are thus: 1. Formal. 2. Material. 3. Efficient. 4. Final. cf. Arist. Analyt. Post. II. xi., Metaph. I. iii., and Phys. II. iii. The six causes of Basil may be referred to the four of Aristotle as follows: Aristotle. 1. τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι 2. τὸ ἐξ οὗ γίνεταί τι 3. ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς μεταβολῆς ἡ πρώτη 4. τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα Basil. 1. καθ᾽ ὅ: i.e., the form or idea according to which a thing is made. 2. ἐξ οὗ: i.e., the matter out of which it is made. 3. ὑφ᾽ οὗ: i.e., the agent, using means. δι᾽ οὗ: i.e. the means. 4. δι᾽ ὅ: i.e., the end. εν ᾧ, or sine quâ non, applying to all.

3 προκαταρκτική. cf. Plut. 2, 1056. B.D. προκαταρκτικὴ αἰτία ἡ εἱμαρμένη.

4 cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. viii. 9. “Of causes some are principal, some preservative, some coöperative, some indispensable; e.g. of education the principal cause is the father; the preservative, the schoolmaster; the coöperative, the disposition of the pupil; the indispensable, time.”

5 ἐκ τῆς ματαιότητος καὶ κενῆς ἀπάτης. cf. ματαιότης ματαιοτήτων, “vanity of vanities,” Ecc. i. 2, lxx. In Arist. Eth. i. 2, a desire is said to be κενὴ καὶ ματαία, which goes into infinity,—everything being desired for the sake of something else,—i.e., κενη, void, like a desire for the moon, and ματαία, unpractical, like a desire for the empire of China. In the text ματαιότης seems to mean heathen philosophy, a vain delusion as distinguished from Christian philosophy.

6 ἄψυχα ὄργανα. A slave, according to Aristotle, Eth. Nich. viii. 7, 6, is ἔμψυχον ὄργανον.

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That there is no distinction in the scriptural use of these syllables.

6. We acknowledge that the word of truth has in many places made use of these expressions; yet we absolutely deny that the freedom of the Spirit is in bondage to the pettiness of Paganism. On the contrary, we maintain that Scripture varies its expressions as occasion requires, according to the circumstances of the case. For instance, the phrase “of which” does not always and absolutely, as they suppose, indicate the material,1 but it is more in accordance with the usage of Scripture to apply this term in the case of the Supreme Cause, as in the words “One God, of whom are all things,”2 and again, “All things of God.”3 The word of truth has, however, frequently used this term in the case of the material, as when it says “Thou shalt make an ark of incorruptible wood;”4 and “Thou shalt make the candlestick of pure gold;”5 and “The first man is of the earth, earthy;”6 and “Thou art formed out of clay as I am.”7 But these men, to the end, as we have already remarked, that they may establish the difference of nature, have laid down the law that this phrase befits the Father alone. This distinction they have originally derived from heathen authorities, but here they have shewn no faithful accuracy of limitation. To the Son they have in conformity with the teaching of their masters given the title of instrument, and to the Spirit that of place, for they say in the Spirit, and through the Son. But when they apply “of whom” to God they no longer follow heathen example, but “go over, as they say, to apostolic usage, as it is said, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,”8 and “All things of God.”9 What, then, is the result of this systematic discussion? There is one nature of Cause; another of Instrument; another of Place. So the Son is by nature distinct from the Father, as the tool from the craftsman; and the Spirit is distinct in so far as place or time is distinguished from the nature of tools or from that of them that handle them.

Footnotes

1 ὕλη=Lat. materies, from the same root as mater, whence Eng. material and matter. (ὕλη, ὕλFα, is the same word as sylva=wood. With materies cf. Madeira, from the Portuguese “madera”=timber.) “The word ὕλη in Plato bears the same signification as in ordinary speech: it means wood, timber, and sometimes generally material. The later philosophic application of the word to signify the abstract conception of material substratum is expressed by Plato, so far as he has that concept at all, in other ways.” Ed. Zeller. Plato and the older Academy, ii. 296. Similarly Basil uses ὕλη. As a technical philosophic term for abstract matter, it is first used by Aristotle.

2 1 Cor. viii. 6.

3 1 Cor. xi. 12.

4 Ex. xxv. 10, LXX. A.V. “shittim.” R.V. “acacia.” St. Ambrose (de Spiritu Sancto, ii. 9) seems, say the Benedictine Editors, to have here misunderstood St. Basil’s argument. St. Basil is accusing the Pneumatomachi not of tracing all things to God as the material “of which,” but of unduly limiting the use of the term “of which” to the Father alone.

5 Ex. xxv. 31.

6 1 Cor. xv. 47.

7 Job xxxiii, 6, LXX.

8 1 Cor. i. 30.

9 1 Cor. xi. 12.

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That “through whom” is said also in the case of the Father, and “of whom” in the case of the Son and of the Spirit.

7. After thus describing the outcome of our adversaries’ arguments, we shall now proceed to shew, as we have proposed, that the Father does not first take “of whom” and then abandon “through whom” to the Son; and that there is no truth in these men’s ruling that the Son refuses to admit the Holy Spirit to a share in “of whom” or in “through whom,” according to the limitation of their new-fangled allotment of phrases. “There is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things.”1

Yes; but these are the words of a writer not laying down a rule, but carefully distinguishing the hypostases.2

The object of the apostle in thus writing was not to introduce the diversity of nature, but to exhibit the notion of Father and of Son as unconfounded. That the phrases are not opposed to one another and do not, like squadrons in war marshalled one against another, bring the natures to which they are applied into mutual conflict, is perfectly plain from the passage in question. The blessed Paul brings both phrases to bear upon one and the same subject, in the words “of him and through him and to him are all things.”3 That this plainly refers to the Lord will be admitted even by a reader paying but small attention to the meaning of the words. The apostle has just quoted from the prophecy of Isaiah, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor,”4 and then goes on, “For of him and from him and to him are all things.” That the prophet is speaking about God the Word, the Maker of all creation, may be learnt from what immediately precedes: “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?”5 Now the word “who” in this passage does not mean absolute impossibility, but rarity, as in the passage “Who will rise up for me against the evil doers?”6 and “What man is he that desireth life?”7 and “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?”8 So is it in the passage in question, “Who hath directed [lxx., known] the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath known him?” “For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things.”9 This is He who holds the earth, and hath grasped it with His hand, who brought all things to order and adornment, who poised10 the hills in their places, and measured the waters, and gave to all things in the universe their proper rank, who encompasseth the whole of heaven with but a small portion of His power, which, in a figure, the prophet calls a span. Well then did the apostle add “Of him and through him and to him are all things.”11 For of Him, to all things that are, comes the cause of their being, according to the will of God the Father. Through Him all things have their continuance12 and constitution,13 for He created all things, and metes out to each severally what is necessary for its health and preservation. Wherefore to Him all things are turned, looking with irresistible longing and unspeakable affection to “the author”14 and maintainer “of” their “life,” as it is written “The eyes of all wait upon thee,”15 and again, “These wait all upon thee,”16 and “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”17

8. But if our adversaries oppose this our interpretation, what argument will save them from being caught in their own trap?

For if they will not grant that the three expressions “of him” and “through him” and “to him” are spoken of the Lord, they cannot but be applied to God the Father. Then without question their rule will fall through, for we find not only “of whom,” but also “through whom” applied to the Father. And if this latter phrase indicates nothing derogatory, why in the world should it be confined, as though conveying the sense of inferiority, to the Son? If it always and everywhere implies ministry, let them tell us to what superior the God of glory18 and Father of the Christ is subordinate.

They are thus overthrown by their own selves, while our position will be on both sides made sure. Suppose it proved that the passage refers to the Son, “of whom” will be found applicable to the Son. Suppose on the other hand it be insisted that the prophet’s words relate to God, then it will be granted that “through whom” is properly used of God, and both phrases have equal value, in that both are used with equal force of God. Under either alternative both terms, being employed of one and the same Person, will be shewn to be equivalent. But let us revert to our subject.

9. In his Epistle to the Ephesians the apostle says, “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body.”19

And again in the Epistle to the Colossians, to them that have not the knowledge of the Only Begotten, there is mention of him that holdeth “the head,” that is, Christ, “from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered increaseth with the increase of God.”20 And that Christ is the head of the Church we have learned in another passage, when the apostle says “gave him to be the head over all things to the Church,”21 and “of his fulness have all we received.”22 And the Lord Himself says “He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”23 In a word, the diligent reader will perceive that “of whom” is used in diverse manners.24 For instance, the Lord says, “I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.”25 Similarly we have frequently observed “of whom” used of the Spirit. “He that soweth to the spirit,” it is said, “shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.”26 John too writes, “Hereby we know that he abideth in us by (ἐκ) the spirit which he hath given us.”27 “That which is conceived in her,” says the angel, “is of the Holy Ghost,”28 and the Lord says “that which is born of the spirit is spirit.”29 Such then is the case so far.

10. It must now be pointed out that the phrase “through whom” is admitted by Scripture in the case of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost alike. It would indeed be tedious to bring forward evidence of this in the case of the Son, not only because it is perfectly well known, but because this very point is made by our opponents. We now show that “through whom” is used also in the case of the Father. “God is faithful,” it is said, “by whom (δι᾽ οὖ) ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son,”30 and “Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by (διά) the will of God;” and again, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”31 And “like as Christ was raised up from the dead by (διά) the glory of God the Father.”32 Isaiah, moreover, says, “Woe unto them that make deep counsel and not through the Lord;”33 and many proofs of the use of this phrase in the case of the Spirit might be adduced. “God hath revealed him to us,” it is said, “by (διά) the spirit;”34 and in another place, “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by (διά) the Holy Ghost;”35 and again, “To one is given by (διά) the spirit the word of wisdom.”36

11. In the same manner it may also be said of the word “in,” that Scripture admits its use in the case of God the Father. In the Old Testament it is said through (ἐν) God we shall do valiantly,37 and, “My praise shall be continually of (ἐν) thee;”38 and again, “In thy name will I rejoice.”39 In Paul we read, “In God who created all things,”40 and, “Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father;”41 and “if now at length I might have a prosperous journey by (ἐν) the will of God to come to you;”42 and, “Thou makest thy boast of God.”43 Instances are indeed too numerous to reckon; but what we want is not so much to exhibit an abundance of evidence as to prove that the conclusions of our opponents are unsound. I shall, therefore, omit any proof of this usage in the case of our Lord and of the Holy Ghost, in that it is notorious. But I cannot forbear to remark that “the wise hearer” will find sufficient proof of the proposition before him by following the method of contraries. For if the difference of language indicates, as we are told, that the nature has been changed, then let identity of language compel our adversaries to confess with shame that the essence is unchanged.

12. And it is not only in the case of the theology that the use of the terms varies,44 but whenever one of the terms takes the meaning of the other we find them frequently transferred from the one subject to the other. As, for instance, Adam says, “I have gotten a man through God,”45 meaning to say the same as from God; and in another passage “Moses commanded…Israel through the word of the Lord,”46 and, again, “Is not the interpretation through God?”47 Joseph, discoursing about dreams to the prisoners, instead of saying “from God” says plainly “through God.” Inversely Paul uses the term “from whom” instead of “through whom,” when he says “made from a woman” (A.V., “of” instead of “through a woman”).48 And this he has plainly distinguished in another passage, where he says that it is proper to a woman to be made of the man, and to a man to be made through the woman, in the words “For as the woman is from [A.V., of] the man, even so is the man also through [A.V., by] the woman.”49 Nevertheless in the passage in question the apostle, while illustrating the variety of usage, at the same time corrects obiter the error of those who supposed that the body of the Lord was a spiritual body,50 and, to shew that the God-bearing51 flesh was formed out of the common lump52 of human nature, gave precedence to the more emphatic preposition.

The phrase “through a woman” would be likely to give rise to the suspicion of mere transit in the generation, while the phrase “of the woman” would satisfactorily indicate that the nature was shared by the mother and the offspring. The apostle was in no wise contradicting himself, but he shewed that the words can without difficulty be interchanged. Since, therefore, the term “from whom” is transferred to the identical subjects in the case of which “through whom” is decided to be properly used, with what consistency can these phrases be invariably distinguished one from the other, in order that fault may be falsely found with true religion?

Footnotes

1 1 Cor. viii. 6.

2 If Catholic Theology does not owe to St. Basil the distinction between the connotations of οὐσία and ὑπόστασις which soon prevailed over the identification obtaining at the time of the Nicene Council, at all events his is the first and most famous assertion and defence of it. At Nicæa, in 325, to have spoken of St. Paul as “distinguishing the hypostases” would have been held impious. Some forty-five years later St. Basil writes to his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (Ep. xxxviii.), in fear lest Gregory should fall into the error of failing to distinguish between hypostasis and ousia, between person and essence. cf. Theodoret Dial. i. 7, and my note on his Ecc. Hist. i. 3.

3 Rom. xi. 36.

4 Rom. xi. 34, and Is. xl. 13.

5 Is. xl. 12, 13.

6 Ps. xciv. 16.

7 Ps. xxxiv. 12.

8 Ps. xxiv. 3.

9 John v. 20.

10 ἰσοῤ& 191·οπία. cf. Plat. Phæd. 109, A.

11 Rom. xi. 38.

12 διαμονή. cf. Arist. de Sp. i. 1.

13 cf. Col. i. 16, 17.

14 Acts iii. 15.

15 Ps. cxlv. 15.

16 Ps. civ. 27.

17 Ps. cxlv. 16.

18 Ps. xxix. 3; Acts vii. 2.

19 Eph. iv. 15, 16.

20 Col. ii. 19.

21 Eph. i. 22.

22 John i. 16.

23 1 John xvi. 15.

24 πολύτροποι. cf. the cognate adverb in Heb. i. 1.

25 “ἐξ ἐμοῦ ” The reading in St. Luke (viii. 46) is ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ. In the parallel passage, Mark v. 30, the words are, “Jesus knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him,” ἐξ αὐτοῦ which D. inserts in Luke viii. 45.

26 Gal. vi. 8.

27 1 John iii. 24.

28 Matt. i. 20.

29 John iii. 6.

30 1 Cor. i. 9.

31 Gal. iv. 7. A.V. reads “an heir of God through Christ;” so אCD. R.V. with the copy used by Basil agrees with A.B.

32 Rom. vi. 4. It is pointed out by the Rev. C.F.H. Johnston in his edition of the De Spiritu that among quotations from the New Testament on the point in question, St. Basil has omitted Heb. ii. 10, “It became him for whom (δι᾽ ὅν) are all things and through whom (δι᾽ οὗ) are all things,” “where the Father is described as being the final Cause and efficient Cause of all things.”

33 Is. xxix. 15, lxx.

34 1 Cor. ii. 10.

35 2 Tim. i. 14.

36 1 Cor. xii. 8.

37 Ps. cvii. 13.

38 Ps. lxxi. 6.

39 For “shall they rejoice,” Ps. lxxxix. 16.

40 Eph. iii. 9.

41 2 Thess. i. 1.

42 Rom. i. 10.

43 Rom. ii. 17.

44 According to patristic usage the word “theology” is concerned with all that relates to the divine and eternal nature of Christ, as distinguished from the οἰκονομία, which relates to the incarnation, and consequent redemption of mankind. cf. Bishop Lightfoot’s Apostolic Fathers, Part II. Vol. ii. p. 75, and Newman’s Arians, Chapter I. Section iii.

45 Gen. iv. 1, lxx. A.V. renders “she conceived and bare Cain and said,” and here St. Basil has been accused of quoting from memory. But in the Greek of the lxx. the subject to εἶπεν is not expressed, and a possible construction of the sentence is to refer it to Adam. In his work adv. Eunom. ii. 20, St. Basil again refers the exclamation to Adam.

46 Num. xxxvi. 5, lxx.

47 Gen. xl. 8, lxx.

48 Gal. iv. 4.

49 1 Cor. xi. 12.

50 The allusion is to the Docetæ. cf. Luke xxiv. 39.

51 The note of the Benedictine Editors remarks that the French theologian Fronton du Duc (Ducæus) accuses Theodoret (on Cyril’s Anath. vii.) of misquoting St. Basil as writing here “God-bearing man” instead of “God bearing flesh,” a term of different signification and less open as a Nestorian interpretation. “God-bearing,” θεοφόρος, was an epithet applied to mere men, as, for instance, St. Ignatius. So Clement of Alexandria, I. Strom. p. 318, and Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. xxxvii. p. 609. St. Basil does use the expression Jesus Christ ἄνθρωπον Θεόν in Hom. on Ps. xlix.

52 φυραμα. cf. Rom. ix. 21.

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Issue joined with those who assert that the Son is not with the Father, but after the Father. Also concerning the equal glory.

13. Our opponents, while they thus artfully and perversely encounter our argument, cannot even have recourse to the plea of ignorance. It is obvious that they are annoyed with us for completing the doxology to the Only Begotten together with the Father, and for not separating the Holy Spirit from the Son. On this account they style us innovators, revolutionizers, phrase-coiners, and every other possible name of insult. But so far am I from being irritated at their abuse, that, were it not for the fact that their loss causes me “heaviness and continual sorrow,”1 I could almost have said that I was grateful to them for the blasphemy, as though they were agents for providing me with blessing. For “blessed are ye,” it is said, “when men shall revile you for my sake.”2 The grounds of their indignation are these: The Son, according to them, is not together with the Father, but after the Father. Hence it follows that glory should be ascribed to the Father “through him,” but not “with him;” inasmuch as “with him” expresses equality of dignity, while “through him” denotes subordination. They further assert that the Spirit is not to be ranked along with the Father and the Son, but under the Son and the Father; not coordinated, but subordinated; not connumerated, but subnumerated.3

With technical terminology of this kind they pervert the simplicity and artlessness of the faith, and thus by their ingenuity, suffering no one else to remain in ignorance, they cut off from themselves the plea that ignorance might demand.

14. Let us first ask them this question: In what sense do they say that the Son is “after the Father;” later in time, or in order, or in dignity? But in time no one is so devoid of sense as to assert that the Maker of the ages4 holds a second place, when no interval intervenes in the natural conjunction of the Father with the Son.5 And indeed so far as our conception of human relations goes,6 it is impossible to think of the Son as being later than the Father, not only from the fact that Father and Son are mutually conceived of in accordance with the relationship subsisting between them, but because posteriority in time is predicated of subjects separated by a less interval from the present, and priority of subjects farther off. For instance, what happened in Noah’s time is prior to what happened to the men of Sodom, inasmuch as Noah is more remote from our own day; and, again, the events of the history of the men of Sodom are posterior, because they seem in a sense to approach nearer to our own day. But, in addition to its being a breach of true religion, is it not really the extremest folly to measure the existence of the life which transcends all time and all the ages by its distance from the present? Is it not as though God the Father could be compared with, and be made superior to, God the Son, who exists before the ages, precisely in the same way in which things liable to beginning and corruption are described as prior to one another?

The superior remoteness of the Father is really inconceivable, in that thought and intelligence are wholly impotent to go beyond the generation of the Lord; and St. John has admirably confined the conception within circumscribed boundaries by two words, “In the beginning was the Word.” For thought cannot travel outside “was,” nor imagination7 beyond “beginning.” Let your thought travel ever so far backward you cannot get beyond the “was,” and however you may strain and strive to see what is beyond the Son, you will find it impossible to get further than the “beginning.” True religion, therefore, thus teaches us to think of the Son together with the Father.

15. If they really conceive of a kind of degradation of the Son in relation to the Father, as though He were in a lower place, so that the Father sits above, and the Son is thrust off to the next seat below, let them confess what they mean. We shall have no more to say. A plain statement of the view will at once expose its absurdity. They who refuse to allow that the Father pervades all things do not so much as maintain the logical sequence of thought in their argument. The faith of the sound is that God fills all things;8 but they who divide their up and down between the Father and the Son do not remember even the word of the Prophet: “If I climb up into heaven thou art there; if I go down to hell thou art there also.”9 Now, to omit all proof of the ignorance of those who predicate place of incorporeal things, what excuse can be found for their attack upon Scripture, shameless as their antagonism is, in the passages “Sit thou on my right hand”10 and “Sat down on the right hand of the majesty of God”?11 The expression “right hand” does not, as they contend, indicate the lower place, but equality of relation; it is not understood physically, in which case there might be something sinister about God,12 but Scripture puts before us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of dignified language indicating the seat of honour. It is left then for our opponents to allege that this expression signifies inferiority of rank. Let them learn that “Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God,”13 and that “He is the image of the invisible God”14 and “brightness of his glory,”15 and that “Him hath God the Father sealed,”16 by engraving Himself on Him.17

Now are we to call these passages, and others like them, throughout the whole of Holy Scripture, proofs of humiliation, or rather public proclamations of the majesty of the Only Begotten, and of the equality of His glory with the Father? We ask them to listen to the Lord Himself, distinctly setting forth the equal dignity of His glory with the Father, in His words, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;”18 and again, “When the Son cometh in the glory of his Father;”19 that they “should honour the Son even as they honour the Father;”20 and, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;”21 and “the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father.”22 Of all these passages they take no account, and then assign to the Son the place set apart for His foes. A father’s bosom is a fit and becoming seat for a son, but the place of the footstool is for them that have to be forced to fall.23

We have only touched cursorily on these proofs, because our object is to pass on to other points. You at your leisure can put together the items of the evidence, and then contemplate the height of the glory and the preeminence of the power of the Only Begotten. However, to the well-disposed hearer, even these are not insignificant, unless the terms “right hand” and “bosom” be accepted in a physical and derogatory sense, so as at once to circumscribe God in local limits, and invent form, mould, and bodily position, all of which are totally distinct from the idea of the absolute, the infinite, and the incorporeal. There is moreover the fact that what is derogatory in the idea of it is the same in the case both of the Father and the Son; so that whoever repeats these arguments does not take away the dignity of the Son, but does incur the charge of blaspheming the Father; for whatever audacity a man be guilty of against the Son he cannot but transfer to the Father. If he assigns to the Father the upper place by way of precedence, and asserts that the only begotten Son sits below, he will find that to the creature of his imagination attach all the consequent conditions of body. And if these are the imaginations of drunken delusion and phrensied insanity, can it be consistent with true religion for men taught by the Lord himself that “He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father”24 to refuse to worship and glorify with the Father him who in nature, in glory, and in dignity is conjoined with him? What shall we say? What just defence shall we have in the day of the awful universal judgment of all-creation, if, when the Lord clearly announces that He will come “in the glory of his Father;”25 when Stephen beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God;26 when Paul testified in the spirit concerning Christ “that he is at the right hand of God;”27 when the Father says, “Sit thou on my right hand;”28 when the Holy Spirit bears witness that he has sat down on “the right hand of the majesty”29 of God; we attempt to degrade him who shares the honour and the throne, from his condition of equality, to a lower state?30 Standing and sitting, I apprehend, indicate the fixity and entire stability of the nature, as Baruch, when he wishes to exhibit the immutability and immobility of the Divine mode of existence, says, “For thou sittest for ever and we perish utterly.”31 Moreover, the place on the right hand indicates in my judgment equality of honour. Rash, then, is the attempt to deprive the Son of participation in the doxology, as though worthy only to be ranked in a lower place of honour.

Footnotes

1 cf. Rom. ix. 2.

2 Matt. v. 11.

3 ὑποτάσσω. cf. 1 Cor. xv. 27, and inf. cf. chapter xvii. ὑποτεταγμένος is applied to the Son in the Macrostich or Lengthy Creed, brought by Eudoxius of Germanicia to Milan in 344. Vide Soc. ii. 19.

4 ποιητὴς τῶν αἰ& 240·νων.

5 Yet the great watchword of the Arians was ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν.

6 τῆ ἐννοί& 139· τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων is here the reading of five MSS. The Benedictines prefer τῶν ἀνθρώπων, with the sense of “in human thought.”

7 Φαντασία is the philosophic term for imagination or presentation, the mental faculty by which the object made apparent, φάντασμα, becomes apparent, φαίνεται. Aristotle, de An. III. iii. 20 defines it as “a movement of the mind generated by sensation.” Fancy, which is derived from φαντασία (φαίνω, ÖBHA=shine) has acquired a slightly different meaning in some usages of modern speech.

8 Eph. iv. 10.

9 Ps. cxxxix. 7, P.B.

10 Ps. cx. 1.

11 Heb. i. 3, with the variation of “of God” for “on high.”

12 I know of no better way of conveying the sense of the original σκαῖος than by thus introducing the Latin sinister, which has the double meaning of left and ill-omened. It is to the credit of the unsuperstitious character of English speaking people that while the Greek σκαῖος and ἀριστερός, the Latin sinister and lævus, the French gauche, and the German link, all have the meaning of awkward and unlucky as well as simply on the left hand, the English left (though probably derived from lift=weak) has lost all connotation but the local one.

13 1 Cor. i. 24.

14 Col. i. 15.

15 Heb. i. 3.

16 John vi. 27.

17 The more obvious interpretation of ἐσφράγισεν in John vi. 27, would be sealed with a mark of approval, as in the miracle just performed. cf. Bengel, “sigillo id quod genuinum est commendatur, et omne quod non genuinum est excluditur.” But St. Basil explains “sealed” by “stamped with the image of His Person,” an interpretation which Alfred rejects. St. Basil at the end of Chapter xxvi. of this work, calls our Lord the χαρακτὴρ καὶ ἰσότυπος σφραγίς, i.e., “express image and seal graven to the like” of the Father. St. Athanasius (Ep. i. ad Serap. xxiii.) writes, “The seal has the form of Christ the sealer, and in this the sealed participate, being formed according to it.” cf. Gal. iv. 19, and 2 Pet. i. 4.

18 John xiv. 9.

19 Mark viii. 38.

20 John v. 23.

21 John i. 14.

22 John i. 18. “Only begotten God” is here the reading of five mss. of Basil. The words are wanting in one codex. In Chapter viii. of this work St. Basil distinctly quotes Scripture as calling the Son “only begotten God.” (Chapter viii. Section 17.) But in Chapter xi. Section 27, where he has been alleged to quote John i. 18, with the reading “Only begotten Son” (e.g., Alford), the ms. authority for his text is in favour of “Only begotten God.” OC is the reading of א.B.C. TC of A. On the comparative weight of the textual and patristic evidence vide Bp. Westcott in loc.

23 cf. Ps. cx. 1.

24 John v. 23.

25 Matt. xvi. 27.

26 Acts vii. 55.

27 Rom. viii. 34.

28 Ps. cx. 1.

29 Heb. viii. 1.

30 Mr. Johnston well points out that these five testimonies are not cited fortuitously, but “in an order which carries the reader from the future second coming, through the present session at the right hand, back to the ascension in the past.”

31 Baruch iii. 3, lxx.

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Against those who assert that it is not proper for “with whom” to be said of the Son, and that the proper phrase is “through whom.”

16. But their contention is that to use the phrase “with him” is altogether strange and unusual, while “through him” is at once most familiar in Holy Scripture, and very common in the language of the brotherhood.1 What is our answer to this? We say, Blessed are the ears that have not heard you and the hearts that have been kept from the wounds of your words. To you, on the other hand, who are lovers of Christ,2 I say that the Church recognizes both uses, and deprecates neither as subversive of the other. For whenever we are contemplating the majesty of the nature of the Only Begotten, and the excellence of His dignity, we bear witness that the glory is with the Father; while on the other hand, whenever we bethink us of His bestowal3 on us of good gifts, and of our access4 to, and admission into, the household of God,5 we confess that this grace is effected for us through Him and by6Him.

It follows that the one phrase “with whom” is the proper one to be used in the ascription of glory, while the other, “through whom,” is specially appropriate in giving of thanks. It is also quite untrue to allege that the phrase “with whom” is unfamiliar in the usage of the devout. All those whose soundness of character leads them to hold the dignity of antiquity to be more honourable than mere new-fangled novelty, and who have preserved the tradition of their fathers7 unadulterated, alike in town and in country, have employed this phrase. It is, on the contrary, they who are surfeited with the familiar and the customary, and arrogantly assail the old as stale, who welcome innovation, just as in dress your lovers of display always prefer some utter novelty to what is generally worn. So you may even still see that the language of country folk preserves the ancient fashion, while of these, our cunning experts8 in logomachy, the language bears the brand of the new philosophy.

What our fathers said, the same say we, that the glory of the Father and of the Son is common; wherefore we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son. But we do not rest only on the fact that such is the tradition of the Fathers; for they too followed the sense of Scripture, and started from the evidence which, a few sentences back, I deduced from Scripture and laid before you. For “the brightness” is always thought of with “the glory,”9“the image” with the archetype,10 and the Son always and everywhere together with the Father; nor does even the close connexion of the names, much less the nature of the things, admit of separation.

Footnotes

1 The word ἀδελφότης is in the New Testament peculiar to S. Peter (1 Peter ii. 17, and v. 9); it occurs in the Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, Chap. ii.

2 Φιλόχριστοι. The word is not common, but occurs in inscriptions. cf. Anth. Pal. I. x. 13. ὀρθὴν πίστιν ἔχουσα φιλοχρίστοιο μενοινῆς.

3 χορηγία. cf. the use of the cognate verb in 1 Pet. iv. 11. ἐξ ἰσχύος ἧς χορηγεί ὁ θεός.

4 προσαγωγή. cf. Eph. ii. 18.

5 οἰκείωσιν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. cf. οἰκεῖοι τοῦ Θεοῦ in Eph. ii. 19.

6 ἐν.

7 cf. Gal. i. 14.

8 The verb, ἐντρίβομαι, appears to be used by St. Basil, if he wrote ἐντετριμμένων in the sense of to be ἐντριβής or versed in a thing (cf. Soph. Ant. 177)—a sense not illustrated by classical usage. But the reading of the Moscow ms. (μ) ἐντεθραμμένων, “trained in,” “nurtured in,” is per se much more probable. The idea of the country folk preserving the good old traditions shews the change of circumstances in St. Basil’s day from those of the 2d c., when the “pagani” or villagers were mostly still heathen, and the last to adopt the novelty of Christianity. cf. Pliny’s Letter to Trajan (Ep. 96), “neque civitates tantum sed vicos etiam atque agros superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est.”

9 Heb. i. 1. cf. Aug. Ep. ii. ad Serap.: “The Father is Light, and the Son brightness and true light.”

10 2 Cor. iv. 4.

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