Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 64/82

And no one could sophistically derive the concept of the Father properly so called, and of the Son properly so called, from those who are called 'sons' in a more common sense — since in that case the sons of God would be many, as when he says, 'Sons have I begotten and raised up, but they have rejected me,' and, 'Is there not one Father of you all?' and 'As many as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God';

who, it says, were begotten not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; and, in addition to these, there is the saying concerning inanimate things, as 'he who has begotten the drops of dew.'

For by these examples it will be established all the more, on the basis of the common usage of the term, that he is not truly Son — just as neither are these — but, being a made thing like these, partakes only of the appellation 'son.'

But the Church has believed that God is not only creator of creatures — for this even Jews and Greeks know — but that he is also Father of the Only-begotten, possessing not only the creative activity by which he is understood as creator, but also, in a proper and unique sense, a generative activity, in accordance with which he is understood by us as Father of the Only-begotten.

For teaching us this, the blessed Paul writes: 'For this cause I bow my knees to the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.'

For just as fathers on earth are so named, having sons like their own substance, so also he is named Father in the heavens, from whom the fathers on earth were named with reference to substance, in accordance with the likeness of his own substance — having, without any doubt, a Son begotten of him and like him in substance.

And the concept applicable to those who are called 'sons' by way of loose or equivocal usage cannot fittingly apply to the Only-begotten.

For just as a 'boxwood tablet' is properly so called when made of boxwood, but, more loosely and by an abuse of the term derived from that, a tablet made of lead or bronze or some other material is also called a 'boxwood tablet.'

So then, it is not in the sense of 'he who has begotten the drops of dew' — that is, not in an essential sense —

for here the term 'begetting' has been applied by an abuse of language to a thing made;

nor as in 'Sons have I begotten and raised up' — for here too the term has been applied, by an abuse of language, on the basis of goodwill and honor;

nor as in 'he gave them authority to become children of God';

for this too has been taken from virtue, and from a likeness to adoption.

It is not in this way that the Only-begotten will be understood, but properly — as alone from the Alone, like in substance, begotten from the Father, of whom he was both named and understood to be Son.

For he has said, 'I came proclaiming to you the mystery of God, not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.'

Whoever, then, demands rational proofs for the mystery in wisdom of speech — having his portion with the wisdom that has been made foolish — let him disbelieve the mystery; for even though such a one is himself disbelieved for relying on 'wisdom of speech,' Paul spoke thus lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

But if he answers in these matters, it is not 'in wisdom of speech'; rather, having convicted every syllogistic wisdom of folly by the power that is without syllogism, he takes faith alone as the means of salvation for those who receive the proclamation.

Nor does he answer how the Father impassibly begets the Son, lest the mystery of the sonship of the Only-begotten from the Father be emptied of its power; but, convicting the wisdom of the prudent as made foolish — as it is written, 'Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?' — not in wisdom of speech, lest the mystery be emptied of its power on account of the suspicions arising from human reasoning (I mean the pious concept concerning Father and Son), he rather proclaims, without syllogistic argument, Father and Son as existing impassibly: the Father having begotten the Son from himself without efflux or passion, and the Son being like the Father in substance, perfect from the Perfect, having subsisted as Only-begotten — matters to be believed by the faithful, though suspected by the unbelieving.

For it is absurd, on hearing that Wisdom subsists from the wise God — who knows, in his wisdom, how to become Father of the Wisdom begotten from himself — to attribute passion to the Father in the subsisting of this Wisdom, if indeed the Wisdom is to subsist from him as like the Wise One in substance.

For if the wise God is understood by us not to be wise by composition, through participation in wisdom, but is himself, without composition, wise — that is, he is wisdom in substance — and if the Son is not merely 'wisdom' in the sense from which he takes his name, but Wisdom is a substance from a wise substance (since it is wisdom), then the Son, subsisting as substance, will be like the wise Father also in substance — the Father from whom the Son subsisted as Wisdom.

For since Wisdom says, 'I, Wisdom, have caused counsel to dwell,' and so forth, and then passes over to the 'through whom' language — for it says, 'through me kings reign,' and 'if I should announce to you the things through me, I would recount things from eternity' — and again says, 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; and before all things he begets me' — the Apostle took, in place of 'beginning,' the word 'firstborn'; in place of 'he begets me,' the word 'offspring'; and in place of the whole phrase together, 'he created me the beginning of his ways' and 'he begets me,' the word 'firstborn of all creation'; in place of 'he founded,' 'in him all things were created'; and in place of 'through me, things from eternity,' the phrase 'whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers.'

All things have been created through him and for him.

But in place of 'I, Wisdom,' the term 'image' has been taken up; and as Wisdom is the Son of the Wise One, substance of substance, so also the Image is like in substance.

Wherefore Wisdom — who is the Son — has also been understood as the image of the invisible God.

And thus we have all the terms corresponding equally: in place of 'the Wise One,' 'God'; in place of 'Wisdom,' 'image'; in place of 'beginning,' 'firstborn'; in place of 'begets,' 'offspring'; and, taking the whole phrase together, in place of 'he created me the beginning of his ways for his works' and 'he begets me,' we say 'firstborn of all creation'; in place of 'he founded me,' 'in him all things were created'; and in place of 'through me,' 'all things through him and for him.'

It is manifest, therefore, that Paul convicts, in every respect, those who, hearing 'image' of the Son of God the invisible, nevertheless so shamelessly contrive sophistries against the essential likeness of the Son to the Father, showing that they have utterly gone astray — and not Paul alone, but along with him John also, who is truly a son of thunder, in his own lofty voice has sent forth to us, as though out of certain clouds formed from the enigmas of Wisdom, the pious conception concerning the Son, in a similar manner.

For observe that he too has handed down, in the Gospel proclaimed by him to us, those very things which he was taught by Wisdom.

For whereas Wisdom said, 'He created me the beginning of his ways,' John set forth in its place 'in the beginning,' saying, 'In the beginning was the Word'; and instead of 'he created me,' 'and the Word was God,' so that we might understand not the Word uttered in speech, but the God-Word begotten from the Father impassibly in a fixed hypostasis; and instead of 'I was beside him,' 'he was with God'; and instead of 'through me' the things that are from eternity, 'all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being'; and instead of 'he founded,' 'that which has come into being — in him was life,' to which is equal 'in him were all things created'; and instead of 'the Word became flesh,' 'Wisdom built herself a house'; and instead of 'I was beside him, fitting all things together,' 'the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing something.'

For whatever things that One does, these the Son likewise does, so that we have, by the mouth of two or three witnesses, proof of the Son's likeness to the Father according to essence.

For one calls the Wisdom of the Wise One a son, another calls the Word of God the only-begotten God, and another calls the Son of God an image — so that the Word of God, and Wisdom, and the Image, are proclaimed to all, from every consideration, as has been said before, to be alike, and, according to essence, to be Son of God and of the Father.

And still more, the Word of God brings us, like Thomas, to the touch of the activity of the likeness according to essence, saying: 'As the Father has life in himself, so also he has given the Son to have life in himself.'

For if 'as the Father has' is not understood as life being in another — for the Father is not one thing and the life in him another, so that the one should be understood as possessor and the other as possessed —

— but the Father himself is, without composition, life; and as he himself has it, so he has given the Son also to have it, evidently without composition, as the Father has it; and it is clear that, having it in this way — since he does not have it unbegottenly nor compositely — he has all things likewise according to essence, and without composition, as the Father has.

It being clear that the like can never be identical with that to which it is like — a proof of this is that the Son of God, having come to be 'in the likeness of men,' became man, yet did not become identical in every respect with man; and having come to be 'in the likeness of sinful flesh,' he came to be in the sufferings that are causes of sin in the flesh — I mean hunger and thirst and the rest — yet did not come to be in identity with sinful flesh.

So that also from the apostolic testimonies the essential likeness of the Son to the Father is proclaimed.

Yet he is the same as God the Father who begot him, even as he is not the same as man — insofar as his generation is without flux and passion, just as it is without seed and pleasure.

And just as he came to be in the likeness of sinful flesh, insofar as he endured hunger, thirst, and sleep in the flesh — sufferings from which bodies are moved sinfully — yet in enduring these aforesaid sufferings of the flesh he was not moved sinfully by them, so also the Son, being Son of God and 'existing in the form of God' and 'being equal with God,' had the properties of divinity, being incorporeal according to essence, and like the Father in divinity, incorporeality, and activities.

Just as he is like the flesh in being flesh and enduring the sufferings of the flesh, yet is not the very same thing as it — so is he like God: in that, being God, he is not 'the form' absolutely, but 'the form of God'; nor is he 'equal' absolutely, but 'equal to God'; nor does he possess the Godhead in his own right, as the Father does.

For just as he was not moved sinfully as man is, but was borne along in activity like a man,

for whatever things the Father does, these also the Son likewise does,

so then, just as here he was moved not sinfully but similarly to those in the flesh — for it would be absurd that he, having come from what is according to nature to what is beyond nature (that is, having become, from God, the Son of Man), should be like those who are according to nature (that is, men by nature) in his own condition that is beyond nature, and yet, in his own condition that is according to nature, not be like the Father who is according to nature, he having been begotten God from God.

And it is clear that those who do not say the Son is like the Father according to essence call him neither Son but only a creature, nor call the Father 'Father' but 'Creator' — since the concept of 'like' does not lead the Son to identity with the Father, but to likeness according to essence, and to the ineffable genuineness, apart from passion, that comes from him. For, as I will say again: just as he who came to be 'in the likeness of men' and 'in the likeness of sinful flesh' was not led to identity with man, but, on account of what has been said, to likeness of the essence of the flesh — so also the Son, having come to be like in essence to the Father who begot him, will not bring his own essence to identity with the Father, but to likeness.

And if anyone, giving heed to the wisdom of the world, which God has made foolish, does not give heed to the proclamation of God in wisdom, and does not confess with faith the likeness, according to essence, of the Son to the Father — thereby calling 'Father' and 'Son' by names falsely applied, and truly naming neither Father nor Son but Creator and creature, and making common the concept of Father and Son with the rest of created things, and wishing to play the sophist, whether by exceeding him in usefulness — as saying he is the first of the things made through him — or by exceeding him in greatness, and in no respect confessing the ecclesiastical faith concerning the Father and the Son, wishing to preach a gospel other than what the apostles preached to us as good news — let him be anathema.

And that which is according to the blessed Paul we have already said before, and now again, having taken it up, I say it, and again we necessarily state:

If anyone, hearing 'the only wise' as Father and Wisdom as his only-begotten Son, should say that Wisdom is identical with the only Wise One, thereby doing away with his being Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing 'the Wise One' as Father and 'Wisdom' as his Son, should say that Wisdom is unlike the wise God even according to essence, so as not to call the Wise One truly the Father of Wisdom, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, understanding 'God' as the Father, should not say that this one who in the beginning was 'the Word' and 'God' was 'with God' — that is, Word and God with that very God with whom the Word and God was — so as not truly to call him Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing 'the only-begotten God, the Word' as Son of the God with whom the Word and God was, should say that God the Word is unlike the Father even according to essence — unlike the God of God and the Father, with whom the only-begotten God the Word was in the beginning — so as not truly to call him Son, let him be anathema.

…truly Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing 'image' of the only-begotten Son of the invisible God, should say that the Son, being the image of the invisible God, is unlike him according to essence as well — of whom he is understood to be the image also according to essence — so as not truly to call him Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing the Son saying, 'For as the Father has life in himself, so also he has given the Son to have life in himself,' should say that the one who has received life from the Father, and who confesses 'and I live because of the Father,' is identical with the one who gave it, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing 'for as the Father has life in himself, so also he has given the Son to have life in himself,' should say that the Son is unlike the Father according to essence, even while protesting that he has it just as Scripture has said, let him be anathema.

For it is clear that, since the life conceived as being in the Father signifies essence, and the life of the Only-begotten, conceived as begotten from the Father, likewise signifies essence, this signifies the likeness of essence to essence in such a manner — let him be anathema.

And if anyone, hearing 'he created me' and 'he begets me' said of her, does not understand 'he begets me' as referring to the same one and according to essence, but says that 'he begets me' is identical with 'he created me,' so as not to say that the Son, perfect without passion, is signified by the two names as Son, but, through the two names — 'he created me' and 'he begets me' — confesses only a creature and no longer a Son, contrary to how Wisdom has piously transmitted the concept from the two terms, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, though the Son reveals to us the likeness according to essence to his own Father through the words in which he says, 'For as the Father has life in himself, so also he has given the Son to have life in himself,' and reveals the likeness according to activity through the words in which he teaches, 'for whatever the Father does, these things the Son likewise does,' should grant the Son only the likeness according to activity, depriving him of the likeness according to essence — which is the chief point of our faith — thereby depriving himself of the eternal life that consists in the knowledge of the Father and the Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, professing to believe in the Father and the Son, should say that the Father is Father not of one of like essence with himself, but of activity, thereby daring to utter profane novelties of speech against the essence of the Son of God and doing away with his truly being Son, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, while understanding the Son to be like in essence to him of whom he is also understood to be Son, should say that the Son is identical with the Father, or a part of the Father, or understand him to have come to be by way of emanation and passion, as in the case of bodily sons, the Son who has come to subsist, incorporeal, from the incorporeal Father, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, because the Father is never understood as Son, and the Son is never understood as Father, calling the Son 'other' than the Father, because the Father is other and the Son is other, as it is said, 'another is he who testifies concerning me,' and 'for the Father who sent me,' he says, 'testifies' — if anyone, on account of this reverent property of the persons understood in the Church, of Father and of Son, fearing lest the Son be understood as identical with the Father, should say that the Son is unlike the Father according to essence, let him be anathema.

And if anyone understands the Father to be Father of the only-begotten Son within time, and does not believe that the only-begotten Son subsists from the Father, impassibly, beyond all times and beyond all human conceptions, thereby transgressing the apostolic proclamation, which has set aside thoughts of time concerning the Father and the Son, and has faithfully taught us, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' let him be anathema.

And if anyone should say that the Father is older in time than the only-begotten Son from him, and that the Son is younger in time than the Father, let him be anathema.

And if anyone refers the timelessness of the subsistence of the only-begotten Christ from the Father to the unbegotten essence of God, so as to speak of a 'Son-Father,' let him be anathema.

…truly a genuine Son from the Father, let him be anathema.

And if anyone, while saying that the Father is Father of the Son in authority and essence, should say that the Son is 'of the same essence' (homoousios) or 'of identical essence' (tautoousios) with the Father, let him be anathema.

And those who signed are: Basil, Eustathius, Hyperechius, Letoius, Heortikos, Gymnasius, Memnonius, Eutyches, Severinus, Eutychius, Alcimides, Alexander.

And thus I believe, as has been written above, and by my signature I confess it.

The memorandum concerning Basil and George's party has been completed.

The term 'essence' (ousia) is not set down plainly in either the Old or the New Testament, but its sense is carried, that is, conveyed, everywhere.

And first, from the words with which God, sending Moses, said, 'Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel: HE WHO IS' — as concerning the Father, who is primarily conceived, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named — is manifested the one who is from no one, and who is the cause of the things that are.

But since 'He who is' is also Son, and Paul of Samosata took his occasion from the Gospel according to John, which says, 'In the beginning was the Word' — Paul of Samosata and Marcellus, no longer willing to call the Son of God truly Son, but taking occasion, I mean, from the name 'Word,' wished to say that the Son of God is an utterance and sound out of a mouth — the Fathers who condemned Paul of Samosata for such heresy were compelled, in order to show that the Son has a hypostasis, and that he is subsisting, and is 'one who is,' and not a mere utterance, to say that the Son also is 'essence' (ousia), thereby demonstrating the difference between that which has no subsistence in itself and that which does subsist, by means of the term 'essence.'

For an utterance in itself has no subsistence and cannot be Son of God, since otherwise there would be many such sons of God.

For the Father is acknowledged to speak many things to the Son, as when he says, 'Let there be a firmament,' 'let there be lights,' 'let the earth bring forth,' and 'let us make man.'

So then, the Father speaks to the Son, and the words of God that he speaks to the Son are not sons; but the Son, to whom the Father speaks, is, along with his other titles, reverently called Bread and Life and Resurrection, and is also named Word, since he is the interpreter of the will of God.

So then, in order that the heretics might not deceive the more simple by saying that the Son is identical with the words spoken by God, the Fathers, showing the difference of the Son of God as compared with the utterances of God, called the Son, I say, 'essence.'

Thus setting forth the difference, that God is one who is, and the words that he speaks are existing things, yet are not essences of God, but rather activities of speech.

But the Son, though being 'Word,' is not an activity of speech belonging to God, but, being Son, is essence.

For if the Father, being one who is, and the Son also being one who is — the Son being such as to have his being genuinely from God — then the Son will be understood as 'Word' not as the words that are spoken by God are.

For those words have their being in the one who speaks them, but he has his being in being begotten from the Father, and in hearing the Father, and in ministering to the Father.

This hypostasis, then, the Fathers called 'essence.'

We therefore understand the Son to be like the Father in all respects, contending also against the heresy now springing up against the Church.

For the present heresy declares that the Son is like the Father in will and activity, but that in being he is unlike the Father;

so that it is contrived by the present new heretics that the will of the Son and the activity of the Son are like the will of the Father and the activity of the Father, but that the Son himself is unlike the Father.

And on this account they wish the will of the Son and his activity to be like the will and activity of the Father, but they do not wish the Son himself to be like the Father, since they insist that the Son was not begotten from God, but is only a creature, and that he differs from the rest of creatures in this: that he excels in greatness, and that he came into being first of all things, and that God made use of him as a minister for the creation of the rest.

God made the rest through him, but him he did not make through anyone else, but made him by his own direct working, and made him excel all in greatness and power; and for this reason he called him 'only-begotten Son.'

But we of the catholic Church, having received the confession of faith from the divine Scriptures, hold thus: that the Father is Father of a Son who is like himself, and the Son is like the Father, from whom, as Father, the Son is understood to derive.

We define this and thus purify our understanding, as against the Sabellians and the rest, that neither can the Son be Father, nor can the Father be Son, but the Son is Son, and the Father is Father and not Son — for in this consists the precision of the recognition of the persons: that the Father, being always Father, is without flesh and immortal, while the Son, being always Son and never being Father, yet being said to be 'always,' on account of the timelessness and incomprehensibility of his hypostasis, took on flesh according to the will of the Father and underwent death on our behalf — these points having been clarified, those remarkable men who ally themselves with the heresy hasten to contrive two things: one, no longer to speak of 'Father' and 'Son,' but of 'unbegotten' and 'begotten,' and by this means, thinking thereby to introduce a sophism of the heresy into the Church.

For those wise in the things of God know well that 'unbegotten' seems to be a lesser term than the name 'Father.'

For 'unbegotten' signifies only that he was not begotten, but it does not yet signify whether he is also Father;

whereas 'Father' is a name greater than 'unbegotten.'

For in 'unbegotten,' I say, the power of the Father is not manifested, but in the name 'Father' it is manifested at once both that the Father is not a Son — if indeed 'Father' is understood properly — and that he is the cause of a Son like himself.

This, then, is one thing; and the other is that, having already ventured to write that the Son is unlike the Father according to essence, they thought that they had thereby, as it were, condemned the Church by means of the letters that they had procured from the venerable bishop Hosius, in which the phrase 'unlike according to essence' occurs.

But since those from the East, having gone up to Sirmium last year, exposed the mischief of this heresy, in order that they might not be held to account for what they had dared against the ecclesiastical faith, they made it their business, for the aforesaid reasons, to remove from ecclesiastical teaching the term 'essence,' which was in use among the Fathers, so that in this respect too they might seem to strengthen their own heresy.

For they supposed that, if the term 'essence' were cast out, then, saying only that the Son is like the Father according to will and according to activity, they would, once 'essence' was no longer named, have license thereafter to say that the Son is unlike the Father in being and in subsistence.

But nevertheless God, the avenger of truth, who catches the wise in their own craftiness, made openly known before the pious emperor the kinship of his only-begotten Son — that the Son is like the Father in all respects.

For thus he himself also thought, being pious, on behalf of his only-begotten Son of God who champions his cause, and, holding this conviction, declared with a pious mouth, in accordance with all things, as we of the catholic Church have believed, that the Son is like the Father, and that through him the scheme against the ecclesiastical faith — the scheme wishing to abolish the name 'essence' — did not advance, so that, with the word 'essence' no longer being spoken by the mouth, the heresy might not thereafter lurk and creep in the hearts.

But let us anticipate them as they write 'like according to will, but unlike according to essence';

if indeed they confess, without guile and purely, that the Son is like the Father in all respects, their undertaking — in having been eager to remove the term 'essence' — will be exposed as stale.

For they gained nothing, having been compelled to confess that the Son is like the Father in all respects.

It admits of no difference, since it is confessed that neither is the Father like himself, nor is the Son like himself, but that the Son is like the Father, and in being like the Father in all things — being Son and not Father, from that Father from whom he is — perfect from perfect, before all thought and all reasoning and times and ages he was begotten from the Father in likeness, as only the Father knows, who impassibly begot him from himself, and the Son, who has his being from him, and he to whom the Son himself will reveal it, in the contemplation that pertains to him, granting us worthily to conceive his own Father.

And let not the term 'hypostases' trouble anyone.

For this is why the Orientals speak of 'hypostases,' so that they may make known the properties of the persons as subsisting and really existing.

For if the Father is spirit, the Son too is spirit, and the Holy Spirit is spirit; yet the Son is not understood to be the Father, and the Spirit too subsists, which is not understood to be the Son, and the Spirit is not understood as the Son; and the Holy Spirit also subsists; and the Holy Spirit is no longer either the Father or the Son, but is Holy Spirit given to the faithful from the Father through the Son. Since, then, the Holy Spirit too fittingly subsists and truly exists, the Orientals, as we have said, call the properties of the subsisting persons 'hypostases,' not thereby saying that the three hypostases are three first principles or three gods.

For they anathematize anyone who says there are three gods.

But neither do they say that the Father and the Son are two gods;

for they confess that there is one Godhead, containing all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit; and while confessing one Godhead and one kingdom and one first principle, they nevertheless piously recognize the persons in the properties of their hypostases, understanding the Father as subsisting in his paternal authority, and confessing the Son not to be a part of the Father but to have been begotten purely from the Father, perfect from perfect, and to subsist; and recognizing also the Holy Spirit, whom the divine Scripture calls the Paraclete, as subsisting from the Father through the Son;

For as the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, teaches us the truth, which is the Son (for no one says 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit), so too the Son, who is the truth, will teach us to know piously the true God, his own Father, even as he says, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.'

Therefore in the Holy Spirit we worthily conceive of the Son, and in the only-begotten Son we piously and worthily glorify the Father.

And this is the seal of the faith, with which seal the Savior and Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to be baptized, saying, 'Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'