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

To his Brother Gregory, concerning the difference between and .name implies the Father, it is not possible that any one should even name the Son withoutapprehending the Father. 20438. Since then, as says the Lord in the Gospels, 2044 he that hath seen the Son sees theFather also; on this account he says that the Only-begotten is the express image of HisFather’s person. That this may be made still plainer I will quote also other passages of theapostle in which he calls the Son “the image of the invisible God,” 2045 and again “image ofHis goodness;” 2046 not because the image differs from the Archetype according to thedefinition of indivisibility and goodness, but that it may be shewn that it is the same as theprototype, even though it be different. For the idea of the image would be lost were it notto preserve throughout the plain and invariable likeness. He therefore that has perceptionof the beauty of the image is made perceptive of the Archetype. So he, who has, as it weremental apprehension of the form of the Son, prints the express image of the Father’s hypostasis,beholding the latter in the former, not beholding in the reflection the unbegottenbeing of the Father (for thus there would be complete identity and no distinction), but gazingat the unbegotten beauty in the Begotten. Just as he who in a polished mirror beholds thereflection of the form as plain knowledge of the represented face, so he, who has knowledgeof the Son, through his knowledge of the Son receives in his heart the express image of theFather’s Person. For all things that are the Father’s are beheld in the Son, and all things thatare the Son’s are the Father’s; because the whole Son is in the Father and has all the Fatherin Himself. 2047 Thus the hypostasis of the Son becomes as it were form and face of theknowledge of the Father, and the hypostasis of the Father is known in the form of the Son,while the proper quality which is contemplated therein remains for the plain distinction ofthe hypostases.2043 The simpler explanation of the use of the word hypostasis in the passage under discussion is that it hasthe earlier sense, equivalent to οὐσία. cf. Athan., Or. c. Ar. iii. 65, iv. 33, and Ad. Apos. 4.2044 John xiv. 9.2045 Col. i. 15.2046 This phrase is not in the Epistles, nor indeed does the substantive ἀγαθότης occur in the N.T. at all.“Image of his goodness” is taken from Wisdom vii. 26, and erroneously included among the “words of theApostle.”2047 cf. John xiv. 11.433