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

To his Brother Gregory, concerning the difference between and .cerned either between blue and flame-coloured, or between flame-coloured and red, orbetween red and amber. For all the rays, seen at the same time, are far shining, and whilethey give no signs of their mutual combination, are incapable of being tested, so that it isimpossible to discover the limits of the flame-coloured or of the emerald portion of the light,and at what point each originates before it appears as it does in glory. As then in the tokenwe clearly distinguish the difference of the colours, and yet it is impossible for us to apprehendby our senses any interval between them; so in like manner conclude, I pray you, that youmay reason concerning the divine dogmas; that the peculiar properties of the hypostases,like colours seen in the Iris, flash their brightness on each of the Persons Whom we believeto exist in the Holy Trinity; but that of the proper nature no difference can be conceived asexisting between one and the other, the peculiar characteristics shining, in community ofessence, upon each. Even in our example, the essence emitting the many-coloured radiance,and refracted by the sunbeam, was one essence; it is the colour of the phænomenon whichis multiform. My argument thus teaches us, even by the aid of the visible creation, not tofeel distressed at points of doctrine whenever we meet with questions difficult of solution,and when at the thought of accepting what is proposed to us, our brains begin to reel. Inregard to visible objects experience appears better than theories of causation, and so inmatters transcending all knowledge, the apprehension of argument is inferior to the faithwhich teaches us at once the distinction in hypostasis and the conjunction in essence. Sincethen our discussion has included both what is common and what is distinctive in the HolyTrinity, the common is to be understood as referring to the essence; the hypostasis on theother hand is the several distinctive sign. 20416. It may however be thought that the account here given of the hypostasis does nottally with the sense of the Apostle’s words, where he says concerning the Lord that He is“the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person,” 2042 for if we have taughthypostasis to be the conflux of the several properties; and if it is confessed that, as in thecase of the Father something is contemplated as proper and peculiar, whereby He alone isknown, so in the same way is it believed about the Only-begotten; how then does Scripturein this place ascribe the name of the hypostasis to the Father alone, and describes the Sonas form of the hypostasis, and designated not by His own proper notes, but by those of the2041 The scientific part of the analogy of the rainbow is of course obsolete and valueless. The general principleholds good that what is beyond comprehension in theology finds its parallel in what is beyond comprehensionin the visible world. We are not to be staggered and turn dizzy in either sphere of thought at the discovery thatwe have reached a limit beyond which thought cannot go. We may live in a finite world, though infinite spaceis beyond our powers of thought: we may trust in God revealed in the Trinity, though we cannot analyse ordefine Him.2042 Heb. i. 3.431