Theological Treatises on the Trinity

Book II

AGAINST ARIUS SECOND BOOK ABOUT THE HOMOOUSIOS IN GREEK AND IN LATINI 1. THE ORTHODOX TEACHING AND ITS ADVERSARIES 1. The Orthodox Faith E ALL CONFESS an all-powerful God; we alone for the moment confess Christ Jesus; yet soon all will confess him. We who have faith in Christ confess both God the Father and Christ the Son; our faith is in both because they are both together and individuals-as certainly as God is Father, so certainly is his Son Jesus Christ, so that our whole religion and whole hope is faith in Christ. But although we confess two individuals, nevertheless we affirm one God and that both are one God, because both the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. 2. The Heresies A. PATRIPASSIANISM Some affirm that the Father alone is the unique God and that the Son is man; but let us omit this for the moment. Indeed, when we say that Jesus is Son, we confess that he was Son before he was born 1 This whole book is a discussion with the Homoeans, partisans of a mere likeness of Son to Father. The blasphemy of Sirmium, forbidding any mention of the term "substance" in trinitarian speculation was composed by Ursacius (c. 335-71) Bishop of Singidunum, now Belgrade, who with Valens bishop of Mursa, were the Arian leaders in the West and strong enemies of Athanasius whom they had previously opposed at the Council of Tyre in 335. This so-called blasphemy of Sirmium was intended to dis195 196 MARIUS VICTORINUS of Mary. For if the Logos "was in the principle," 2 and the "Logos was with God," and the "Logos himself was God," and if "he was in the principle," since it is he who afterwards was the "Logos made flesh,,,3 it is then the same thing to be Logos and to be Jesus. For if the Logos "was in the principle," the Son also was in the principle, that Son who, afterwards, was Jesus in the flesh, because of the mystery which he, by the command of the Father, accomplished. It must be confessed, therefore, that the Son was as early as the Principle. B. ARIANISM WHICH DENIES THAT THE SON IS FROM THE SUBSTANCE OF THE FATHER Do we say that he is from the substance of the Father or that he comes from outside the Father? But this must be investigated. a) God has a substance Do we not confess that God is? We do confess it. What then? This "to be" of God, do we speak of it as anousion or as enousion, that is, as without substance or as substance? As anousion (without substance ), some say. I agree, but I ask: anousion (without substance) in what way? Is it that he is not absolutely substance or that he is above substance, that is, huperousion (hypersubstance)? Who then would say that God is without substance while confessing that he is? For his "to be" is his substance, but not that substance known to us; but he himself, because he is "To Be" itself, is not from substance but is substance itself, the parent of all substances, giving himself "to be" from himself, first substance, universal substance, substance before substance. On account of this, therefore, because he is huperousios (hypersubstance), some have called him anousios (withguise their Anomoeanism, the doctrine that the Son was totally unlike the Father. These Latin adversaries argued that ousia (substance) and homoousion (consubstantiality) were not found in Scripture and were untranslatable into Latin. This is a tightly argued theological polemic in defense of the meaning of the Latin translation of homoousion as substantia, and hence the word consubstantialis (consubstantial). 2 In 1.1-2. 3 In 1.14. AGAINST ARIUS II 197 out substance), not t4at he is without substance, since he truly is. Let us adore God, therefore, and affirm that he is, that is, that he is enousion (substance), who has created all things, heaven and earth, world, spirit, angels, souls, animals, and man "according to the image and likeness,,4 of the image of those on high. b) The Son is from the substance of the Father What then? Since God is enousios (substance), he is certainly called Father; thus we confess him to be also Father of the only begotten Son; this is the faith of all. But does not the word...