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

To the Canonicæ.For they maintained that the homoousion set forth the idea both of essence and of whatis derived from it, so that the essence, when divided, confers the title of co-essential on theparts into which it is divided. This explanation has some reason in the case of bronze andcoins made therefrom, but in the case of God the Father and God the Son there is no questionof substance anterior or even underlying both; the mere thought and utterance of such athing is the last extravagance of impiety. What can be conceived of as anterior to the Unbegotten?By this blasphemy faith in the Father and the Son is destroyed, for things, constitutedout of one, have to one another the relation of brothers.2. Because even at that time there were men who asserted the Son to have been broughtinto being out of the non-existent, the term homoousion was adopted, to extirpate this impiety.For the conjunction of the Son with the Father is without time and without interval.The preceding words shew this to have been the intended meaning. For after saying thatthe Son was light of light, and begotten of the substance of the Father, but was not made,they went on to add the homoousion, thereby showing that whatever proportion of lightany one would attribute in the case of the Father will obtain also in that of the Son. For verylight in relation to very light, according to the actual sense of light, will have no variation.Since then the Father is light without beginning, and the Son begotten light, but each ofThem light and light; they rightly said “of one substance,” in order to set forth the equaldignity of the nature. Things, that have a relation of brotherhood, are not, as some personshave supposed, of one substance; but when both the cause and that which derives its naturalexistence from the cause are of the same nature, then they are called “of one substance.”3. This term also corrects the error of Sabellius, for it removes the idea of the identityof the hypostases, and introduces in perfection the idea of the Persons. For nothing can beof one substance with itself, but one thing is of one substance with another. The word hastherefore an excellent and orthodox use, defining as it does both the proper character of thehypostases, and setting forth the invariability of the nature. And when we are taught thatthe Son is of the substance of the Father, begotten and not made, let us not fall into thematerial sense of the relations. For the substance was not separated from the Father andbestowed on the Son; neither did the substance engender by fluxion, nor yet by shooting156ἓν πρόσωπον wie der Mensch mit seiner Vernunft Eines sey,’ entgegengehalteh, die Kirchenlehre verlange EinenGott, aber mehrere πρόσωπα desselben, so sagte er, da auch ihm Christus eine Person (nämlich als Mensch) sey,so habe auch sein Glaube mehrere πρόσωπα, Gott und Christus stehen sich als ὁμοούσιοι, d. h. wahrscheinlichgleich persönliche gegenüber, Diese veratorische Dialektik konnte zwar nicht täuschen; wohl aber wurde das Wortὁμοούσιος, so gebraucht und auf die Person überhaupt bezogen, dadurcheine Weile verdächtig (man fürchtetenach Athan. De Syn. Ar. et Sel. c. 45, eine menschliche Person nach Paul in die Trinität einlassen zu müssen), bisdas vierte Jahrhundert jenem Wort bestimmten kirchlichen Stempel gab.” Dorner, Christologie. B. i. 513. Videalso Thomasius, Christliche Dogmengeschichte, B. 1, p. 188.465