NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

That the word “in,” in as many senses as it bears, is understood of the Spirit.63. In relation to the originate, 1258 then, the Spirit is said to be in them “in divers portionsand in divers manners,” 1259 while in relation to the Father and the Son it is moreconsistent with true religion to assert Him not to be in but to be with. For the grace flowingfrom Him when He dwells in those that are worthy, and carries out His own operations, iswell described as existing in those that are able to receive Him. On the other hand His essentialexistence before the ages, and His ceaseless abiding with Son and Father, cannot becontemplated without requiring titles expressive of eternal conjunction. For absolute andreal co-existence is predicated in the case of things which are mutually inseparable. We say,for instance, that heat exists in the hot iron, but in the case of the actual fire it co-exists; and,similarly, that health exists in the body, but that life co-exists with the soul. It follows thatwherever the fellowship is intimate, congenital, 1260 and inseparable, the word with is moreexpressive, suggesting, as it does, the idea of inseparable fellowship. Where on the otherhand the grace flowing from the Spirit naturally comes and goes, it is properly and truly1258 ἐν τοῦς γενητοῖς, as in the Bodleian ms. The Benedictine text adopts the common reading γεννητοις,with the note, “Sed discrimen illud parvi momenti.” If St. Basil wrote γεννητοῖς, he used it in the looser senseof mortal: in its strict sense of “begotten” it would be singularly out of place here, as the antithesis of the referenceto the Son, who is γεννητός, would be spoilt. In the terminology of theology, so far from being “parvi momenti,”the distinction is vital. In the earlier Greek philosophy ἀγένητος and ἀγέννητος are both used as nearly synonymousto express unoriginate eternal. cf. Plat., Phæd. 245 D., ἀρχὴ δὲ ἀγένητόν, with Plat., Tim. 52 A., Τουτωνδὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων ὁμολογητέον ἓν μὲν εἶναι τὸ κατὰ ταὐτὰ εἶδος ἔχον ἀγέννητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρον. And theearliest patristic use similarly meant by γεννητός and ἀγέννητος created and uncreated, as in Ign., Ad Eph. vii.,where our Lord is called γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος, ἐν ἀνθρ ?πω Θεὸς, ἐν θανάτῳ ζωὴ ἀληθινή. cf. Bp. Lightfoot’snote. But “such language is not in accordance with later theological definitions, which carefully distinguishedbetween γενητός and γεννητός, between ἀγένητος and ἀγέννητος; so that γενητός, ἀγένητος, respectivelydenied and affirmed the eternal existence, being equivalent to κτιστός, ἄκτιστος, while γεννητός, ἀγέννητοςdescribed certain ontological relations, whether in time or in eternity. In the later theological language, therefore,the Son was γεννητός even in His Godhead. See esp. Joann. Damasc., De Fid. Orth. i. 8 (I. p. 135, Lequin), χρὴγὰρ εἰδέναι ὅτι τὸ ἀγένητον, διὰ τοῦ ἑνὸς ν γραφόμενον, τὸ ἄκτιστον ἢ τὸ μὴ γενόμενον σημαίνει, τὸ δὲἀγέννητον, διὰ τῶν δύο νν γραφόμενον, δηλοῖ τὸ μὴ γεννηθέν; whence he draws the conclusion that μόνος ὁπατὴρ ἀγέννητος and μόνος ὁ υἱ& 232·ς γεννητός.” Bp. Lightfoot, Ap. Fathers, Pt. II. Vol. II. p. 90, where thehistory of the worlds is exhaustively discussed. At the time of the Arian controversy the Catholic disputantswere chary of employing these terms, because of the base uses to which their opponents put them; so St. Basil,Contra Eunom. iv. protests against the Arian argument εἰ ἀγέννητος ὁ πατὴρ γεννητὸς δὲ ὁ υἱ& 232·ς, οὐ τῆςαὐτῆς οὐσιας. cf. Ath., De Syn. in this series, p. 475, and De Decretis, on Newman’s confusion of the terms, p.149 and 169.1259 Heb. i. 1.1260 συμφυής.226