than the Divine Nature (summa res infinite perfecta), in so far as it is communicated, immediately and undiminished, by the begetting Father to His begotten Son. "Dedit mihi" is therefore synonymous with " gignendo mihi communicavit." Consequently, the Son, by this communication to Him of the Divine Essence on the part of the Father, has precisely the same power as the Father, with this sole difference, that the Father has the Divine Nature and power of Himself, while the Son derives it from the Father. Taking this truth for the antecedent of an enthymeme, the conclusion: “I and the Father are one," can only mean that the Father and the Son, as possessing the same Nature and the same power, are absolutely consubstantial, i. e., identical in essence. St. Athanasius called particular attention to this when he said: “... ut scilicet eandem amborum divinitatem (ταυτότητα τῆς θεότητος) unamque naturam (èvórηta rys ovoías) esse doceret — In order to show the identity of Godhead in both, and the unity of Nature." 8 This argument is not weakened by the circumstance that the textus receptus has: Ὁ πατήρ μου, ὅς δέδωκέ μοι, távtwv peíčwv čorí. For, as the explanation given by St. μείζων ἐστί. Chrysostom shows, this variant affects merely the form, and not the substance of the argument based upon John X, 29. 9 B) The verses which follow (John X, 34 sqq.) positively confirm the argument. The Jews obviously understood Christ's dictum, "I and the Father are one," to mean perfect consubstantiality; for they "took up stones to stone him for blasphemy." "For a good work we stone thee not," they explained, "but for blasphemy; 8 Or. Contr. Arian., 3, 3 (Migne, P. G., XXVI, 327). 9 Hom. in Ioa., 61, 2 (Migne, P. G., LIX, 338 sqq.). and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." 10 How did Jesus meet this accusation? Did He retract what He had said? Did He tell the Jews that they misunderstood Him? No; He repeated His previous statement and confirmed it by an argumentum a minori ad maius. "Is it not written in your law," He asks, "I said 'you are gods'? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?" 11 In corroboration of His claim, Christ points to His miracles: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." 12 By thus accentuating His immanence in the Father (Perichoresis), He merely repeats in other words what He had said before: "I and the Father are one." It is because He clearly asserted His consubstantiality with God the Father, that the Jews became convinced that He blasphemed; and to emphasize His consubstantiality with the Father He repeated His assertion in the words: "I am the Son of God." This also explains why His adversaries "sought to take him," so that He found it advisable to 10 John X, 33: "De bono opere non lapidamus te, sed de blasphemia: et quia tu, homo cum sis, facis teipsum Deum (ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν Θεόν).” " 11 John X, 34 sqq.: Respondit eis Iesus: Nonne scriptum est in lege vestra: Quia ego dixi, dii estis? [Ps. LXXXI, 6]. Si illos dixit deos, ad quos sermo Dei factus est, et non potest solvi scrip tura, quem Pater sanctificavit et misit in mundum, vos dicitis: quia blasphemas, quia dixi: Filius Dei sum?" 12 John X, 37 sqq.: "Si non facio opera Patris mei, nolite credere mihi; si autem facio, et si mihi non vultis credere, operibus credite, ut cognoscatis et credatis, quia Pater in me est, et ego in Patre." 66 escape out of their hands." 13 This interpretation has ample support in the writings of the Fathers. "Had they [the Father and the Son] been two," says St. Athanasius, "He [Christ] would not have said: 'I and the Father are one,' but I am the Father,' or 'I and the Father am'; . . . the word 'I' declares the Person of the Son, and the word 'Father' as evidently expresses him who begat the Son, and the word 'One' the one Godhead and His consubstantiality." 14 2. TRADITION.-Faydit, Cudworth, Placidus Stürmer, O.S.B., and others, have accused the Nicene Fathers of Tritheism, because, as they claimed, these Fathers in their naïve ignorance had understood the term ouоovorov as denoting a merely generic unity. Following the example of Sabinus of Heraclea, who was a Macedonian heretic, 15 Adolph Harnack boldly charged the Bishops assembled at Nicaea with intellectual incapacity. He says there were no really able theologians among them, and adds: "The unanimous adoption of the synodal decree can be explained only on the assumption that the question at issue exceeded the mental capacity of most of the Bishops present.' This utterance is not surprising in the mouth of a writer who is 16 Literature, p. 271, London [s. a.]. Cfr. on this topic especially Franzelin, De Verbo Incarnato, thes. 7, ed. 4, Romae 1893. 15 Cfr. Socrat., Hist. Eccl., I, 8. 16 Dogmengeschichte, Vol. II, p. 222. satisfied that "the Logos-oμoovσios formula simply leads to absurdity," and that "Athanasius tolerated this absurdity, and the Council of Nicaea formally sanctioned it." 17 According to the theory of this school it was St. Augustine who invented the strictly monotheistic conception of the unity of the Godhead, and introduced it into what is properly called ecclesiastical Tradition. How unwarranted this theory is will appear from the following considerations. 66 a) The very method which the Nicene Fathers chose to defend the oμoovotov against the attacks of Arianism, proves that they conceived the Consubstantiality of Son and Father as absolute identity of essence (Tavrovoía). The Arian and Eunomian objections (ταυτουσία). may be summarized thus: "Either God is one, or Father and Son are separate and distinct Persons. If God is one, then Sabellius is right in denying a distinction of Persons. If the Father and the Son are separate and distinct Persons, then the Godhead is divided by the act of Divine Generation, and we have Ditheism. Consequently the Son is not oμoovσios with the Father." Eunomius in particular insisted that θεότης γέγονεν εἰς Sváda. Had the Nicene Fathers been Tritheists, they would manifestly have accepted the Arian conclusion, instead of combating it so energetically. For no one who took poovoía to mean mere unity of species or genus, could consistently refuse to accept the logical inference that Generation and Spiration effect in the Divine Nature an intrinsic scission by which the Father 17 Ad. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. II, p. 221. is "God" other than the Son. The Nicene Fathers endeavor to show, on the contrary, that the act of Generation in no wise involves a multiplication of the Divine Nature, and therefore does not impair the absolute simplicity of essence proper to the Godhead. As a representative utterance, we may cite the subjoined passage from the writings of St. Athanasius: "The Fathers of the Council . . . were compelled . . . to resay and rewrite more distinctly still, what they had said before, that the Son is consubstantial (μoovσtov) with the Father; by way of signifying that the Son is from the Father, and not merely like (oμolov), but is the same by likeness (Taútòv ty dμoiwσei). . . . For since the Generation of the Son from the Father is not according to the nature of men, but in a manner worthy of God, when we hear the word oμoovσios, we must not follow the human senses, nor invent divisions and scissions, but, as when we conceive what is incorporeal, we will not rend asunder the unity of Nature and the identity of the light (τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς φύσεως καὶ τὴν ταυτότητα τοῦ φωτός).” 18 b) The orthodoxy of the post-Nicene Bishops manifested itself in a manner that might almost be called dramatic at a council held in Alexandria (A. D. 362) for the express purpose of restoring peace. At this council, when the assembled Fathers had got into a wrangle over the use of the terms οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, because some of them thought that the formula Tpeis Vπоσтάσεs savored of the heretical teaching embodied in the Latin phrase "tres substantiae," 10 St. Athanasius 18 De Decr. Nic. Syn., n. 20 sqq. On the more conciliatory position taken by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, see Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 124 sqq., 14, 19 Supra, p. 227. |