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Chapter 2:
Ideas, Principles, and Terminology about God as
One, Creator, and Trinity in the Fourth Century before Augustine
Introduction
It would not be possible to do a comprehensive survey of fourth century writings
relevant to the influence of ideas about creation on the development of trinitarian doctrine,
or on belief in one God, understood as Creator and Trinity.1 In this chapter, the writings
examined are on creation, such as hexaemeral sermons, or related to ideas about whether
or how the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity came into being, such as writings ‘against’ Eunomius
of Cyzicus, who thought God was Unbegotten (agennétos), and the Son, who was begotten
(gennéthenta) and monogenés, was different in substance (heteroousios) from God.2 The
writings examined are primarily from the 350s to 380s, the period in which trinitarian
doctrine and theologies considered compatible with Nicene principles, including those
1
Sources consulted for background on fourth century trinitarian doctrine, with abbreviations,
include Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
(New York: OUP, 2006); Morwenna Ludlow, The Early Church, I. B. Tauris History of the
Christian Church, ed. by G. R. Evans (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009); Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving
Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, with a foreword by Brian E. Daley
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011); Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History
of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971-1989;
paperback edn, 1975-1991), I; J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd edn (London: Continuum,
2006); R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy,
318-381 (London: T&T Clark, 1988; first paperback edn, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2005); Tarmo Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology: A Textbook (New York: T&T Clark, 2007);
Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth, eds., The Cambridge History of Early Christian
Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; first paperback edn, 2007) (abbreviated
CHECL here); Frances Young with Andrew Teal, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to Its
Literature and Its Background, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010); Lloyd P.
Gerson, ed., The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, 2 vols (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), I (abbreviated CHPLA here).
2
As note earlier, ‘Persons’ is used for convenience. Hexaemeral writings are on the six days of
creation according to Gen. 1. The word agennétos means unbegotten, ingenerate, or ungenerated;
gennéthenta (begotten, from gennaō) and monogené (only-begotten or meanings discussed below)
are in the creeds of the 325 Council of Nicaea and 381 Council of Constantinople. G. W. H.
Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961; 18th impression,
2004), pp. 15-16, 148, 311, 553; Ludlow, The Early Church, pp. 128-130; J. N. D. Kelly, Early
Christian Creeds, pp. 215-216, 297-298; John Anthony McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to
Patristic Theology, Westminster Handbooks to Christian Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 127-128; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 144-149; Anatolios,
Retrieving Nicaea, p. 21; Christopher A. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the
Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, ed.
by David C. Steinmetz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 21-23.
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represented in the creeds of the 325 Council of Nicaea and 381 Council of Constantinople,
came into fuller development.3
The fourth century Christians whose writings will be examined here were bishops and
supporters of Nicene theologies at times in their careers. The primary focus is on Greek
and Alexandrian ideas, principles, and terminology, which will be represented by writings,
sermons, or orations of Athanasius of Alexandria and two of the Cappadocian ‘Fathers’,
Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. However, some attention will be given to the
other Cappadocian ‘Father’, Gregory of Nyssa, and to Ambrose of Milan, who wrote in
Latin, as well as to the creeds from the 325 and 381 councils.
This chapter addresses three primary questions, in three major sections, with a few
special questions integrated into the discussions in ‘case studies’.
The first question, dealt with in major section 2.1, is what the known and likely
sources are which orthodox / catholic thinkers drew upon as they formulated trinitarian
positions, including works and ideas of their opponents.
The second question, addressed in section 2.2, is ‘how did ideas, principles, and
terminology related to creation influence trinitarian ideas about the consubstantiality,
relations of origin, and unity and distinctions of the Persons within the Godhead?’. Most
of the topics addressed are related to the ‘immanent Trinity’, but included is a discussion
of trinitarian principles of unity and distinction that apply to the immanent and ‘economic
Trinity’.4 These terms are anachronistic for this period, but are used as aids for being able
3
This period allows for examining writings in the 350s that illustrate how ideas about principles
about creation may have influenced trinitarian principles. Ayres, in Nicaea and its Legacy,
establishes the 360s to 380s as the period of what he calls ‘pro-Nicene’ theologies (which are
defined below). In Augustine and the Trinity, Ayres views the Latin pro-Nicene period as 360 to
390. Barnes, in ‘The Fourth Century’, dates the start of the Western ‘reinterpretation’ of Nicaea to
the early 360s (he includes Hilary’s writings from the late 350s), and the Eastern ‘reinterpretation’
to the early 370s, with the works of the Cappadocians. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 6, 239240; Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.
42-71; Michel René Barnes, ‘The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon’, in Christian Origins:
Theology, Rhetoric and Community, ed. by Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (Abingdon, UK:
Routledge, 1998; transferred to digital printing, New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 47-67 (pp. 61-62,
66-67); see also Michel René Barnes, ‘De Trinitate VI and VII: Augustine and the Limits of
Nicene Orthodoxy’, Augustinian Studies, 38, no. 1 (2007), 189-202 (p. 196 FN 19).
4
This is not to be confused with ideas about the economic Trinity up through the early fourth
century. McGuckin says these early ideas were ‘based within the standpoint of pre-Nicene’
Monarchianism, and it was held that ‘God is ultimately one, and only became “threefold” for the
purposes of creation and redemption’. McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook, pp. 111-112.
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to respond in later chapters to debates over how the immanent Trinity and the principle of
consubstantiality were understood by the Cappadocians and Augustine.5
The third question, responded to with examples offered in section 2.3, is ‘how are the
Persons said to be involved in acts of creation in writings about creation, and what is said
about relations within the Godhead and between God and creation?’. Basil’s hexaemeral
homilies will be used in a case study to see how he responds to these questions, and again
the topics will be related to both the immanent Trinity and economic Trinity.
A few special ‘what if?’ questions will be posed in the discussions of the primary
questions, including questions about Philo’s influence, alternative interpretations of Prov.
8. 22, and whether the word monogenés meant, or only meant, only-begotten in the fourth
century. These questions and discussions, which are set apart in case studies, are offered to
illustrate connections between ideas about creation and the Trinity, and to suggest
possibilities for alternative translations and further research.
Some ideas, principles, terminology, and writings to be discussed were known to
Augustine when he began writing on creation in the 380s,6 and Augustine could have heard
Ambrose’s hexaemeral sermons during Holy Week, either in the year of Augustine’s
conversion (386) or his baptism by Ambrose (387).7 Therefore, the period covered here,
which ends with the middle 380s, overlaps with the period covered in the next chapter.
5
See Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, pp. 1-3; Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian
Theology, 2nd edn (London: T&T Clark, 1997, 2003; repr. 2006), pp. xvii-xix, 3-4; 9-11, 38-42.
6
Michael Fiedrowicz, ‘General Introduction’, trans. by Matthew O’Connell, in Saint Augustine:
On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees, Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis, The
Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans. and notes by Edmund Hill and ed. by John E. Rotelle,
Augustinian Heritage Institute, WSA, Part I – Books, vol 13 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press,
2002), pp. 13-22 (pp. 13, 18-19); Carol Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology: An
Argument for Continuity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 79-80.
7
Fiedrowicz, Hunter, Teske, and Harrison say Augustine may have heard them; Savage implies it.
However, in his Confessions, Augustine mentions Ambrose’s Sunday, not Holy Week, sermons.
Fiedrowicz, Saint Augustine: On Genesis, p. 26; David G. Hunter, ‘Fourth-Century Latin Writers:
Hilary, Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Ambrose’, in CHECL, pp. 302-317 (pp. 310, 316 FN 59); Roland
J. Teske, ‘Genesis Accounts of Creation’, in ATTA, ed. by Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1999; paperback edn, 2009), pp. 379-381 (p. 379); C. Harrison, pp. 79-80; John J.
Savage, translation and introduction, Saint Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel, by
Ambrose, FOTC, 42 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1961), pp. v-vi; Roy
J. Deferrari, translation and introduction, Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works, by
Ambrose, FOTC, 44 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963; first
paperback repr. 2002), p. xix; Augustine, Confessions, trans. with an introduction and notes by
Maria Boulding and ed. by John E. Rotelle, Augustinian Heritage Institute, WSA, Part I – Books,
vol 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1997), Book VI, 4, pp. 138-139.
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2.1 Survey of sources of ideas about creation and the Trinity in the fourth century
This major section provides a survey of known and potential sources drawn upon by
the authors whose works will be examined below. Also included here is a case study that
raises questions about the availability, and perhaps choices, of translations of Prov. 8. 22,
and which calls for further research into Philo’s potential influences.
The orthodox / catholic authors to be discussed were involved in church life, as
bishops, through preaching and pastoral activities, and through participation in councils or
synods. They argued against Christian opponents, as did Christians in earlier centuries,
and Athanasius was sent into exile himself, as will be commented on below.8 Some also
engaged in forms of Christian living outside the church structure. Basil and Gregory of
Nazianzus, for example, tried to live an ascetic or ‘philosophic’ life for a while, Basil for
much longer than Gregory, before they were ordained as priests in the early 360s.9 Basil’s
ongoing ascetic ideals can be viewed as a source of ideas in his hexaemeral sermons, as he
is known to have used his homilies to encourage his listeners to behave in ways that fit
with his moral ideas.10 In light of these roles and experiences, Christian sources for these
authors include creeds; liturgical formulae;11 scripture; doctrines, such as of creatio ex
nihilo; writings and ideas of opponents and orthodox / catholic Christians; and influences
that stem from their lifestyles or places of exile.
Writers of this period often did not identify their sources, and it is not always known
whether they had direct or mediated access to works. Basil, for a typical example, was
On Athanasius’s many exiles, see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, ed. by Carol Harrison
(London and New York: Routledge, 2004; transferred to digital printing, 2010), pp. 12-13.
9
Gregory, according to Rousseau and McGuckin, is the source of much of our information on
Basil’s ascetic or monastic experiences, and of the phrase ‘philosophical life’, the heading of one of
Rousseau’s chapters. Both Rousseau and McGuckin write of both Basil and Gregory. Philip
Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; first paper edn,
1998), pp. 61-92; John Anthony McGuckin, St Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), pp. 56, 76-81, 87-107.
10
Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, pp. 46-47, 80-81, 84, 324, 327; Agnes Clare Way, translation and
introduction, Saint Basil: Exegetic Homilies, by Basil of Caesarea, FOTC, 46 (Washington DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1963), pp. x-xi; Morwenna Ludlow, ‘Power and Dominion:
Patristic Interpretations of Genesis I’, in Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical, and
Theological Perspectives, ed. by David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Christopher Southgate, and
Francesca Stavrakopoulou (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 140-153 (p. 141).
11
Basil argues about the Spirit based on the use of the preposition ‘with’ in doxologies. St Basil the
Great, On the Holy Spirit, trans. and introduction by Stephen Hildebrand, Popular Patristics Series,
42 (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), ch. 25, 58-60, pp. 96-99.
8
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influenced by Origen, although he rejected Origen’s allegorical methods of interpreting
Genesis, but he rarely cites Origen by name.12 Ambrose, for an egregious example, was
criticised even in his day, by Jerome, for what we would call plagiarism, including for
borrowing, in his The Holy Spirit, from Basil of Caesarea and Didymus the Blind.13 One
also cannot assume that authors discussed here, whose lives were contemporaneous to
some extent, influenced each other. Differing opinions exist, for example, on whether the
Cappadocians were influenced by Athanasius, although they probably knew of some of his
ideas through the Homoiousian Basil of Ancyra, another contemporary.14
There were, on the other hand, ideas or sources shared between authors. Origen was
known to the authors who wrote in Greek,15 and to Ambrose, who drew on Origen in his
Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz say Basil rarely names sources, and that he rejected ‘Origen’s more
speculative readings of Genesis’. Ludlow writes of Basil’s disinterest in Origen’s allegorical
methods of interpreting Gen., and Louth says Basil, in his hexaemeral homilies, rejects some of
Origen’s interpretations, although Basil does not mention him by name. DelCogliano and RaddeGallwitz say Basil does not name Origen and other sources in Against Eunomius. Lewis Ayres and
Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, ‘Basil of Caesarea’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 459-470 (pp. 459-461); Morwenna
Ludlow, ‘Power and Dominion’, pp. 141-142, 144-145; Andrew Louth, ‘The Cappadocians’, in
CHECL, pp. 289-301 (p. 294); Mark DelCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, translation and
introduction, Against Eunomius, by Basil of Caesarea, FOTC, 122 (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2011), pp. 60-62; Way, pp. ix-x; Frank Egleston Robbins, The
Hexaemeral Literature: A Study of the Greek and Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1912), 44.
13
Jerome, ‘Jerome’s Prologue to the Book of Didymus on the Holy Spirit’, in Works on the Spirit:
Athanasius and Didymus, trans. and with an introduction and annotations by Mark DelCogliano,
Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres, Popular Patristics, 43 (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2011), pp. 139-141; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 264; Deferrari, p. 32.
14
M. Barnes says it is not known if the Cappadocians had read anything of Athanasius’s. Hanson
and DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz think the Cappadocians knew Athanasius’s ideas through
Basil of Ancyra. Beeley suggests Gregory of Nazianzus shared aspects of an ‘agenda’ with
Athanasius, although Beeley says Gregory had never met him, and does not seem to have known
his work ‘firsthand’. On the other hand, Lienhard says Basil wrote letters to Athanasius asking,
unsuccessfully, for his help in persuading ‘Westerners’ to adopt Basil’s position on matters related
to Marcellus of Ancyra. M. Barnes, ‘The Fourth Century’, pp. 53-54; Ayres, Nicaea and its
Legacy, pp. 143, 236-240; Richard Hanson, ‘The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century
AD’, in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. by Rowan Williams
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989; first paperback edn, 2002), pp. 142-156;
DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, pp. 63-64; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 27, 277, also pp. 8,
24-25, 278-284; Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘Basil of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra, and “Sabellius” ’,
Church History, 58, no. 2 (1989), 157-167 (pp. 161-162).
15
See, e.g., Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought, Routledge Early
Christian Monographs (London and New York: Routledge, 1998; first paperback edn, 2005), pp.
24-25; Meredith, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 471-481; John A. McGuckin, ‘Gregory of
Nazianzus’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 482-497 (p. 485); McGuckin, St Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 57-58;
Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 7.
12
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hexaemeral sermons.16 Didymus the Blind, of Alexandria, may have influenced Basil of
Caesarea and Ambrose through Didymus’s On the Holy Spirit.17 Moreover, Didymus18
and Athanasius19 are each credited with being the first to offer full treatments of the Spirit,
while Ambrose is said to be the first do so in Latin.20 The Western Jerome contributed to
exchanges of ideas by translating texts into Latin and through his ‘exegetical’ work, and
his translations of and comments on Genesis and the Gospel of John are significant here.21
Jerome also heard Gregory of Nyssa read from Against Eunomius at the 381 Council of
Constantinople,22 and had contact with Gregory of Nazianzus.23 Exchanges of ideas also
could take place during exiles, and Alexandria and Rome are thought to share some
trinitarian traditions, because of Athanasius’s time spent in exile in Rome.24
Other common sources for authors were the ideas and writings of their opponents.
Eunomius, who was a Cappadocian, and his followers, called Heterousians because they
believed the Son was heteroousios (different in substance) from the Father,25 are addressed
by Basil and Gregory of Nyssa in their treatises Against Eunomius,26 and Gregory of
16
See Hunter, pp. 309-310; McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook, p. 9.
Mark DelCogliano, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres, translation, introduction, and
annotations, Works on the Spirit: Athanasius and Didymus, Popular Patristics, 43 (Yonkers, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), pp. 37-42; Mark DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea, Didymus the
Blind, and the Anti-Pneumatomachian Exegesis of Amos 4:13 and John 1:3’, Journal of
Theological Studies, NS, 61, no. 2 (2010), pp. 644-658.
18
DelCogliano, Radde-Gallwitz, and Ayres, p. 42; DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea, Didymus the
Blind…’, pp. 657-658.
19
R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 748; Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, p. 82.
20
Michel René Barnes, ‘Latin trinitarian theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity,
ed. by Peter C. Phan (New York: CUP, 2011), pp. 70-84 (p. 77).
21
See Vesey on Jerome’s translations, exegetical work, and commentaries. Mark Vessey, ‘Jerome
and Rufinus’, in CHECL, pp. 318-327 (p. 319).
22
Anthony Meredith, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 471-481 (p. 472); see also McGuckin,
St Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 349-350.
23
Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 321.
24
M. Barnes, ‘The Fourth Century’, pp. 56, 61; see also Young and Teal, pp. 40, 51.
25
Beeley refers to Eunomius and his followers as ‘Heterousians’ and says they did not ‘claim that
the Son is unlike the Father in all respects’. McGuckin says Heterousians was their preferred title,
and it was their opponents who called them Anhomoians, an accusation that Eunomius and others
thought that the Son was ‘completely unlike’ the Father. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 21,
including FN 58; McGuckin, ‘Gregory of Nazianzus’, in CHPLA, I, p. 489; Richard Paul
Vaggione, Eunomius: The Extant Works, Oxford Early Christian Texts, ed. by Henry Chadwick
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. xiii-xvii.
26
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, trans. and with an introduction by Mark DelCogliano and
Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, FOTC, 122 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press,
2011); Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, trans. by William Moore and Henry Austin Wilson,
17
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Nazianzus in his ‘theological orations’, although he often does not name them.27 There
also were groups who believed the Spirit was created and not divine, including the
‘Tropikoi’ or ‘Tropici’, whom Athanasius writes against in Letters to Serapion,28 and the
slightly later Pneumatomachians or Macedonians, whom Basil and Ambrose address in
their respective works On the Holy Spirit, and Gregory of Nazianzus in some orations.29
Orthodox / catholic authors can be the main extant witnesses to the ideas or texts of
their opponents or creeds. For example, Athanasius’s ‘On the Council of Nicaea’,30 where
he writes about the 325 creed, is, as David Gwynn says, one of the few extant writings
about the council.31 In the case of Eunomius, whose works were condemned at the end of
the fourth century, only two works are extant, according to Richard Vaggione, because
they were ‘bound up with’ copies of Basil’s and Gregory’s treatises: Liber Apologeticus
(The Apology of Eunomius or his first apology), to which Basil responds in his Against
Eunomius, and Expositio Fidei (The Confession of Faith), to which Gregory of Nyssa
responds in his own Against Eunomius.32 Eunomius’s Apologia Apologiae (An Apology
for the Apology or his second apology), is not extant, with Vaggione saying it is ‘preserved
in Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc., NPNF, 2nd series, 5, ed. by P. Schaff and H. Wace
(1893; Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]).
27
On Gregory not naming his opponents in his ‘theological orations’, see Wickham, who calls
them ‘Anomeans’ or ‘Eunomians’. Lionel Wickham, translation (with Frederick Williams),
introduction, and notes, On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to
Cledonius, by Gregory of Nazianzus, Popular Patristics Series, 23, ed. by John Behr (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), pp. 14-15; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 91;
Christopher A. Beeley, ‘Divine Causality and the Monarchy of God the Father in Gregory of
Nazianzus’, in Harvard Theological Review, 100, no. 2 (2007), 199-214 (p. 204).
28
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit’, in Works on the Spirit: Athanasius the Great
and Didymus the Blind, trans. and with an introduction and annotations by Mark DelCogliano,
Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and Lewis Ayres, Popular Patristics Series, 43, ed. by John Behr and
Augustine Casiday (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), pp. 51-137 (1.10.4, p. 69;
1.1.2, p. 53); DelCogliano, Radde-Gallwitz, and Ayres, pp. 21-22; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy,
pp. 211-214, 217-218; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, pp. 748-752, 762-763.
29
Basil speaks of ‘Spirit-fighters’. St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, chs. 10-11, pp. 55-58;
Hildebrand, On the Holy Spirit, p. 58 FN 49; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 214-218; R. P. C.
Hanson, The Search, pp. 760-763; Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, pp. 127-128; Pelikan,
The Christian Tradition, I, p. 212; Deferrari, pp. 31-32; Beeley, ‘Divine Causality’, p. 204.
30
Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea (De Decretis)’, trans. and ed. by Khaled Anatolios, in
Athanasius, by Khaled Anatolios, ECF, pp. 176-211.
31
David M. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the
Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’, Oxford Theological Monographs (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), pp. 4-5, 8-9, 241; see also J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p. 212.
32
Vaggione, pp. xv-xvii, 79-81, 89-94.
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only in the quotations’ of it in Gregory of Nyssa’s Against Eunomius.33 Vaggione does not
mention Gregory of Nazianzus, but his orations are a source of references to Eunomian
ideas, if not to his works.34 One has to consider, as will be done, whether the accounts of
these authors are likely to not be faithful representations of other writings, ideas, or events,
and, even if so, whether the accounts have theological value and value for tracing the
history of theological ideas.
A few comments can be made about philosophical backgrounds and potential sources.
Athanasius, who may have had little formal education, was familiar with Platonist and
Stoic ideas.35 Basil, who studied in Athens, knew of Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Aristotle,
and Stoicism.36 Gregory of Nyssa, who studied under Basil, drew on Platonist and Stoic
ideas, but is said rarely to refer directly to philosophical sources.37 Gregory of Nazianzus,
who also studied at Athens, knew Greek classics, philosophy, and rhetoric, and refers to
Plato and Aristotle in his works.38 Gregory seems to have known Plotinian ideas, which he
draws on in discussing differences between philosophical ideas about ‘emanation’ and
Christian ideas about begetting and procession within the ‘Godhead’.39 On the Latin side,
Ambrose was well educated and read Greek and may have had philosophical training.40
All could have taken in philosophical ideas through Origen’s writings.
Philo’s ideas were probably more influential in the fourth century than is currently
33
Vaggione, pp. xvii, also 79-81, 89-94.
Beeley, ‘Divine Causality’, p. 204.
35
Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, p. 4; Andrew Louth, ‘The Fourth-Century Alexandrians: Athanasius
and Didymus’, in CHECL, pp. 275-282 (p. 275); R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 422.
36
Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz, pp. 459, 461, 463; Way, pp. x-xi; Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, p. 28;
Robbins, pp. 42-43.
37
Meredith, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 471-473; Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa,
ECF, ed. by Carol Harrison (London: Routledge, 1999; transferred to digital printing, 2005), p. 3.
38
McGuckin, ‘Gregory of Nazianzus’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 484-485; see also McGuckin, St Gregory
of Nazianzus, pp. 56-60; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 8-9.
39
Gregory’s references to the ideas about emanation of the ‘non-Christian philosopher’ are similar
to those expressed by Plotinus in his Enneads V.2. Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological
Oration: Oration 29’, in On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to
Cledonius, trans. by Lionel Wickham, with introduction and notes by Lionel Wickham, Popular
Patristics Series, 23, ed. by John Behr (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), pp.
69-92 (2, p. 70); Plotinus, Enneads, trans. by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, ed. by
Jeffrey Henderson, 7 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969-1988), V (1984), V. 2,
pp. 58-61; see also Wickham, pp. 70 and 89 FN 3; McGuckin, St Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 57-58.
40
McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook, p. 9; Boniface Ramsey, Ambrose, The Early Church
Fathers, ed. by Carol Harrison (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 18.
34
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known, and can be sources of theological and philosophical ideas.41 Based on similarities
to be presented here and below, more research is warranted on how some Christians in the
fourth century may have been influenced by his ideas. Philo’s ‘On the Creation of the
Cosmos according to Moses’ (Opif.), discussed in the first chapter, may have been one of
Basil’s sources for his hexaemeral homilies, but this has not been proven.42 Gregory of
Nyssa knew Philo’s works well enough to claim, in his Against Eunomius, that Eunomius
borrowed Philo’s words,43 and there are potential borrowings from Philo in Gregory’s
hexaemeral writings, De virginitate, and De vita Moysis, enough for David Runia to
conclude that he had works of Philo in his library.44 Ambrose, in keeping with his style of
not citing sources, is said by Runia to draw on Philo about 600 times, mentioning his name
once.45 However, Ambrose was dependent on Basil in his hexaemeral sermons, so any
influences of Philo on these works could have come through Basil.46 It also is possible that
Basil, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and others who seldom, if ever, mention Philo,
were influenced by his ideas through Origen’s commentary on Genesis.47
Philo also is important as a potential source of ideas, because he is a predecessor to the
Christian tradition of offering interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts.48 This
tradition was participated in by Origen in the third century, and Basil, Gregory of Nyssa,
Ambrose, Augustine, and others in the fourth and fifth.49 Basil, in one of his hexaemeral
41
See David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey, Compendia Rerum
Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section 3, Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 194-196, 241, and other pages cited in this
discussion. (This work is abbreviated PECL.)
42
Philo’s account of the six days of creation starts with Opif., 13. Runia says the possibility that
Philo’s Opif. was one of four sources for Basil for his hexaemeral homilies was put forth by
Armand de Mendieta, who died before he was able to publish the work to support his assertions.
Runia, PECL, pp. 236-237, also 251-252; Philo, ‘On the Creation’, trans. by Runia, p. 49.
43
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book VII, 1; Runia, PECL, pp. 261, 244-249.
44
Runia, PECL, pp. 261, 249-261.
45
Runia, PECL, p. 295.
46
See Runia, PECL, pp. 294-295, 309-310; Robbins, pp. 42, 57-58; Savage, pp. vi-vii; Way, p. viii;
Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 317.
47
See Runia, PECL, pp. 236-238, 194-196, 241-243.
48
Robbins, pp. 1, 24-35.
49
Robbins, pp. 36-42, 53-72; Fiedrowicz, Saint Augustine: On Genesis, p. 17; Isabella Sandwell,
‘How to Teach Genesis 1.1-19: John Chrysostom and Basil of Caesarea on the Creation of the
World’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 19, no. 4 (2011), pp. 539-564; Paul M. Blowers,
Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety,
Oxford Early Christian Studies, ed. by Gillian Clark and Andrew Louth (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012), pp. 109-110.
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homilies, offers an interpretation of Gen. 1. 2 that also comes from other Greek or Syrian
thinking on Genesis, and was known in Latin writings, as will discussed below.50
Basil’s homilies, which he may have preached in 377 or 378, not long before his
death,51 influenced his Cappadocian associates52 and Ambrose, and possibly Jerome53 and
Augustine.54 Given the variety of sources upon which Basil drew, and that these homilies
were sources for others, and are explicitly about creation, they are used in the final major
section here, to illustrate connections between thinking on creation and the Trinity.
2.1.1 Case study: interpretations of Prov. 8. 22 and the potential influences of Philo
A case study will be offered here to suggest that further research be undertaken on a
line of transmission of Philo’s terminology, and its possible influence on interpretations of
Prov. 8. 22. While the arguments presented here are original, they build on work done by
Mark DelCogliano, and Runia’s survey of Philo’s influences on early Christians.
Philo, in the first century, and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth, were aware of
the same alternative to the key phrase ‘ektisen me’ (created me) from an LXX translation
of Prov. 8. 22. Philo uses ‘ektésato me’ (‘obtained me’) in one instance,55 and this possible
wording was mentioned by Basil in his Against Eunomius (without reference to Philo).56
50
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, in Saint Basil: Exegetic Homilies, trans. and with an
introduction by Agnes Clare Way, FOTC, 46 (Washington DC: Catholic University of America
Press, 1963), 3-150 (Homily 2, 6, pp. 30-31).
51
Ayres suggests the homilies were ‘probably’ delivered in 378. Hildebrand suggests 377 or 378.
Rousseau says they may be dated to 377 or 378, but the dating depends on the date of Basil’s death,
which had been assumed to be 1 January 379, but may have been slightly earlier. Other scholars,
according to Way, give earlier dates, but she says the dating is uncertain. Ayres, Nicaea and its
Legacy, p. 314; Stephen Hildebrand, translation and introduction, On the Holy Spirit, by St Basil
the Great, Popular Patristics Series, 42 (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), p. 21;
Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea, pp. 318-319, 360-363; Way, p. ix.
52
Gregory of Nyssa’s hexaemeral treatise of 379 or 380 defended criticisms of Basil’s homilies.
Gregory of Nyssa, Traité sur les six jours, trans. by Timothée Lecaudey and Jean Rousselet,
October 1999 [accessed 20 August 2012 from <http://www.gregoiredenysse.com/?page_id=66>];
Meredith, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in CHPLA, I, pp. 471-472; Way, pp. vii-viii.
53
Potential connections between Jerome and Basil are discussed in the case study below.
54
See Way, pp. vii-viii; Fiedrowicz, Saint Augustine: On Genesis, pp. 18-19; Teske, ‘Genesis
Accounts of Creation’, p. 379; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 317-318.
55
Runia mentions Philo’s use of this phrase, but does not make the connections discussed here.
Runia, PECL, p. 193 FN 51; Philo, ‘On Drunkenness’, in Philo: Volume III, trans. by F. H. Colson
and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library, ed. by Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1930; repr. 2001), pp. 307-435 (pp. 334-335) (this treatise is referred to as Ebr.).
56
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.20, pp. 160-161; Mark DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea
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Philo may have known a Greek translation of Prov. 8. 22 that used ‘ektésato me’, given
that he was known to not always use the same LXX texts.57 Basil, as DelCogliano says,
attributes his own knowledge of ‘obtained me’ to ‘other translators, who have hit upon the
meaning of the Hebrew words in a more appropriate way’.58 Gregory of Nyssa knew that
the Hebrew word translated as ‘created’ also could mean ‘obtained’, ‘possessed’, and
‘constituted’, so ‘created’ is not necessarily a wrong translation, just not the only one. 59
The Hebrew word is said to be ‘ambiguous’ by Jennifer Dines, and she includes the
meaning ‘begot’ along with ‘created’ and ‘acquired’, meanings she says overlap with LXX
translations that use the ‘creation verb, ktizō’.60 The idea that Prov. 8. 22 might be saying
something about the Word or Son being begotten is a meaning that Basil infers from
‘acquired’ as it is used in Gen. 4. 1, an interpretation which DelCogliano argues Basil
adapts from Eusebius of Caesarea’s understanding of ‘acquiring’.61
DelCogliano, in his arguments about Basil being dependent on Eusebius for other
translations of Prov. 8. 22, says that Eusebius was the first to use the translation ‘ektésato
me’ in debates about this verse, which DelCogliano attributes to Eusebius’s use of the
Greek translations of the scriptures by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.62
However, an intriguing possibility, which DelCogliano does not mention and can only
on Proverbs 8:22 and the Sources of Pro-Nicene Theology’, Journal of Theological Studies, 59, no.
1 (2008), pp. 183-190 (pp. 187-188).
57
As discussed in the first chapter, Dines says Philo’s ‘LXX sources were not homogenous, as the
nature of his citations makes clear’. That he used an alternative to typical LXX translations when
he used ‘ektisen me’ can be inferred from Colson and Whitaker. Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint,
Understanding the Bible and Its World series (London: T&T Clark, 2004; repr. 2005), pp. 70, 6-7,
97; F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, ‘Appendix to De Ebriate’, in F. H. Colson and G. H.
Whitaker, trans., Philo: Volume III, Loeb Classical Library, ed. by Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1930; repr. 2001), pp. 500-509 (p. 501, note 31).
58
Basil’s statements are cited by DelCogliano. DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8:22,
p. 187; Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.20, p. 160.
59
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, 22; Book II, 10; Book III, 2; see also Raymond C.
Van Leeuwen, ‘The Book of Proverbs: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, in The New
Interpreter’s Bible, 5, ed. by Leander E. Keck and others (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997),
pp. 17-264 (p. 92).
60
Dines, p. 147.
61
DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8:22’, pp. 187-189; Basil of Caesarea, Against
Eunomius, 2.20-21, pp. 160-161.
62
DelCogliano says that Eusebius cites these three Greek translators in his Ecclesiastica theologia.
Young and Teal consider Eusebius’s ‘frequent discussion of Greek versions other than the LXX’ to
be one of the ‘striking’ features of his Old Testament exegesis. DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea on
Proverbs 8:22’, pp. 183-184, 187-188; Young and Teal, p. 22; see also DelCogliano and RaddeGallwitz, p. 160 FN 105.
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be conjectured here in this case study, is that Eusebius might also have been influenced by
Philo. Eusebius, as mentioned in the discussions of Philo in the previous chapter, assisted
Pamphilus in cataloguing and preserving Philo’s works in Origen’s library in Palestinian
Caesarea, in the late third and early fourth centuries,63 and Eusebius lists Philo’s works in
his Ecclesiastical History.64 Eusebius includes Philo’s book where ‘ektésato me’ appears,
‘On Drunkenness’, in a grouping of Philo’s works ‘that have come into my hands dealing
with Genesis’.65 In light of this, as well as Young and Teal’s statement that Pamphilus
‘was not just a collector of books, but one who engaged in collation, correcting and
copying … and engaged his disciples in this oral and collaborative process’,66 it is worth
asking whether Eusebius may have been aware of Philo’s use of ‘ektésato me’.
This possibility suggests the need for further research into Philo and Eusebius, to add
to the research DelCogliano has done on Basil and Eusebius. It is possible, based on the
arguments and conjectures offered here, and if DelCogliano’s arguments about Basil and
Eusebius are correct, that Basil may have been influenced by Philo through Eusebius.
This leads to the posing of one of the ‘what if?’ questions relevant to the exploration
of sources, texts, and translations. Prov. 8. 22, as is well known, was one of the scriptures
used by Arius in the early fourth century to support his conviction that the Son was a
creature, and debates over this verse contributed to Arian and Eunomian controversies for
decades.67 Dines cites the ‘lexical choice’ made when Prov. 8. 22 was taken to read
‘created me’ as one of the ‘lexical choices’ in the ‘patristic use of the Bible’ that affected
interpretations and ‘controversy’.68 Whether using ‘created me’ was a choice or dictated
by available translations, one could ask what might have been different had Arius and
others drawn on another translation or interpretation of Prov. 8. 22, one which did not
imply, when read christologically, that the Son was created. This is just one example of
63
See the discussion in Chapter 1. Runia, PECL, pp. 16-24, 212-234.
See the discussion in Chapter 1. Runia, PECL, pp. 17, 19; Eusebius, The History of the Church
from Christ to Constantine, trans. by G. A. Williamson and revised and edited and with a new
introduction by Andrew Louth (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 2.18, p. 54.
65
Eusebius, The History of the Church, 2.18, p. 54; Runia, PECL, pp. 17-22; 212-234.
66
Young and Teal, p. 21.
67
See Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, I, pp. 61, 191-200; Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, p. 37;
Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, pp. 19, 71, 110-111; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy & Tradition,
rev. edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 107-112; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 4;
Young and Teal, p. 46; DelCogliano, ‘Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8:22’.
68
Dines, pp. 147-148.
64
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where the use of a particular translation or interpretation as a source may have been
influential in fourth century writings on or controversies over the Trinity and creation.
2.2 Influences of ideas about creation on trinitarian ideas about consubstantiality,
relations of origin, and unity and distinctions among the Persons
Attention is often given to the word homoousios from the 325 creed and whether it
was adopted, or homoiousios was preferred, or neither was ideal, for those, like Eunomius,
who thought the Son was heteroousios from God. The authors whose works are examined
here did not use homoousios often. Athanasius does not offer support for the word until
the early to middle 350s, in ‘On the Council of Nicaea’.69 Basil did not offer much support
for it until after he wrote Against Eunomius in the mid-360s,70 and it is seldom used by
Gregory of Nyssa in his Against Eunomius, which he wrote from 381 to 383.71 Gregory of
Nazianzus, in his theological orations, delivered in 380,72 is unusual in saying that both the
Son73 and Spirit74 are ‘consubstantial’ with the Father, although Christopher Beeley argues
that he often uses homoousios ‘as a response to the arguments of others.’75
However, it will be argued in this major section that these authors did write in support
of the concept of the Son, and sometimes the Spirit, being consubstantial or of the same
nature with the Father.76 Their ideas about substance or nature were related to ideas about
Athanasius’s ‘On the Council of Nicaea’ is dated to the early to middle 350s and is said to be the
first work where he defends the word homoousios. Lewis Ayres, ‘Athanasius’ Initial Defense of the
Term homoousios: Rereading the De Decretis’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 12, no. 3
(2004), 337-359 (pp. 337-338, 340); Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 140-144; Anatolios,
Athanasius, ECF, p. 176; Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, p. 21; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 419;
Louth, ‘The Fourth-Century Alexandrians’, p. 277; Young and Teal, pp. 65, 49; Gwynn, pp. 29-33,
239; J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 257-259.
70
On Basil’s use of ‘homoousios’, see DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz. They date his Against
Eunomius to 364 or 365, Ayres to 363-364. and Vaggione to 362-365. DelCogliano and RaddeGallwitz, pp. 16, 33, 120 FN 112; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 191; Vaggione, pp. 5, 8-9.
71
On Gregory’s use of ‘homoousios’, see Barnes, and on the dating, Anatolios. M. Barnes, ‘The
Fourth Century’, pp. 59-60; Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, p. 158.
72
The dating is from Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 39.
73
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, pp. 83-84; 10, p. 78.
74
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration: Oration 31’, in On God and Christ: The
Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius, trans. by Lionel Wickham, with
introduction and notes by Lionel Wickham, Popular Patristics Series, 23, ed. by John Behr
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), pp. 117-147 (10, pp. 123-124).
75
Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 213.
76
Kelly, in defending Athanasius for not using homoousios earlier, cites examples of how he wrote
of similar concepts (e.g., ‘ “intimately united with the Father’s substance” ’). Kelly says these
69
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how the Son and Spirit were ‘from’ the Father, and, in the Eunomian controversies, what
names, especially names indicating origins, say about the nature of what they designate. It
also will be argued, in a case study, that monogenés, which is in the 325 and 381 creeds,
may not refer to the Son’s being only-begotten. It will be argued that this word may not
have been intended to support the principles that the Son is homoousios with or begotten
by the Father, which are principles of unity, but rather to speak of the Son’s uniqueness.
Throughout the discussions and analyses presented in this major section, it will be argued
where trinitarian ideas may have been influenced by the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and
other ideas about creation. This section concludes with summaries of trinitarian principles
of unity and distinction which relate to the immanent and economic Trinity.
2.2.1 Athanasius on the Son and Spirit being ‘from’ the Father
Athanasius’s ‘On the Council of Nicaea’; his Letters to Serapion, which are dated to
359-361;77 and a later letter he may have co-authored, ‘To the Bishops of Africa’;78 are
drawn upon here to illustrate arguments about the Son and Spirit being ‘from’ the Father,
and how these arguments were grounded in principles related to the doctrine of creation.
‘On the Council of Nicaea’ is used here with caution, given that Athanasius is said to
have misrepresented his opponents in some writings.79 These representations include,
according to Gwynn, his grouping and labeling opponents as ‘Eusebians’, after the fourth
century Eusebius of Nicomedia,80 and, as Khaled Anatolios says, his ‘conflating all antiNicene factions as “Arians” ’81 The practice adopted here is to examine Athanasius’s
writings about the 325 creed to see what they reveal about his theological perspectives in
the 350s. This is compatible with approaches taken by Anatolios, who looks at Athanasius
expressions are ‘really synonyms of the Nicene teaching’. Similar examples will be offered here,
taken from arguments about creation. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p. 260.
77
DelCogliano, Radde-Gallwitz, and Ayres, p. 29.
78
This letter was written by Athanasius and other bishops, according to its heading. Hanson dates it
to 369 and raises the question of its authenticity. Athanasius, ‘To the Bishops of Africa’, trans. by
Archibald Robertson and Cardinal Newman, in St. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, NPNF,
2nd series, 4, ed. by Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, and Archibald Robertson (1892; Oak Harbor:
Logos Research Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]), 1; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 420.
79
Gwynn, pp. vii-viii, 1-10, and throughout; DelCogliano, Radde-Gallwitz, and Ayres, pp. 15-17;
Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, pp. 105-111; Young and Teal, pp. 49-52.
80
Gwynn, p. 6 and throughout; see also Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, pp. 176-178.
81
Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, pp. 176-178.
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as a ‘theologian in his own right’,82 and Lewis Ayres, in his analysis of ‘On the Council of
Nicaea’.83 Given the interest here in orthodox / catholic theologies, however, it also is
relevant that Gwynn cautions that what Athanasius deems to be ‘orthodox’ or Nicene
theology should not be taken to represent ‘the traditional and universal faith of the Church
that he wished to claim’.84 With these caveats in mind, it should be noted that Athanasius
did attend the 325 council,85 and some of his accounts of the council could be historical.
Athanasius, in ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, purports to explain why the council had
included ‘ “from the essence” (ek tés ousias) and “one in essence” (homoousios)’ in its
creed.86 He claims that the council, to respond to the ‘Arians’, had wanted to use words
from scripture to convey ‘that the Son is not from non-being but from God … neither
creature nor something made, but from the Father as his own (idion) offspring’.87 He says
that ‘Arians’ or ‘the party of Eusebius’ had thought that ‘from God’ referred not only to
how the Son came into being, but also to how human beings did (‘from’ was understood in
different ways in scripture).88 The council therefore was compelled to say, according to
Athanasius, that ‘ “the Son is from the essence of the Father” (ek tés ousias tou theou)’, so
that the Son or Word was ‘from God’ in a unique way.89
Ayres shows that Athanasius’s ideas that the Son is ‘from the essence of the Father’
and ‘ “proper” to the Father’s substance’ appear in his earlier Orations against the Arians,
which Anatolios dates to 339-343.90 Similar ideas are expressed in the later ‘To the
Bishops of Africa’, where another purported explanation is given of why the 325 council
had said the Son is ‘coessential’ with the Father.91 In this letter, it is said that the council,
to counter ideas about the Son being a creature ‘made of nothing’ and there having been a
time ‘when He was not’, had sought to establish that ‘the Son alone might be deemed
82
Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, pp. 12-13; see also Young and Teal, pp. 51-52.
Ayres, ‘Athanasius’ Initial Defense of the Term homoousios’.
84
Gwynn, p. 170, also pp. 6, 239-244.
85
Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, pp. 11; Gwynn, 4.
86
English and Greek citations are from Anatolios’ translation. Athanasius, ‘On the Council of
Nicaea’, 3, p. 180; see also 1, p. 178.
87
English and Greek citations here and for the rest of this paragraph are from Anatolios’s
translation. Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 19, pp. 196-197.
88
Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 19, pp. 196-197.
89
Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 19, pp. 196-197.
90
Ayres, ‘Athanasius’ Initial Defense of the Term homoousios’, pp. 342, 344-345; Anatolios,
Athanasius, ECF, pp. 19-20.
91
Athanasius, ‘To the Bishops of Africa’, 5; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 420.
83
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proper to the Essence of the Father’, because ‘this is peculiar [idion] to the one who is
Only-begotten [monogenous] and true Word in relation to a Father’.92
Ayres argues that when Athanasius distinguishes between how the Son and creatures
are ‘from God’, in ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, he draws on the relationship ‘by nature’ of
a Father to his ‘offspring’ or Son.93 This passage also is of interest because Athanasius
distinguishes between how creatures and the Son are ‘from God’, with creatures having
been ‘made’, and the Son being ‘from the being of God’, because He is a son ‘by nature’:
… if the Word is not from God as a genuine son who is from his father by nature, but
is said to be from the Father in the same way that all creatures are said to be so,
because of their having been created [by the Father], then indeed he is not from the
being of the Father, nor is he a son according to essence [kat ousian], but because of
virtue, as we are who are called sons by grace. But if he is alone from God as genuine
Son, as indeed is the case, then it is well said that the son is from the being of God.94
In this passage, Athanasius can be seen as explaining how he (and perhaps also the
325 council, if his account is accurate95) was able to support the idea that the Son was
‘from’ the being of the Father, a similar concept to homoousios with the Father, for two
reasons. First, a ‘genuine’ son must be of the same nature as the Father, and second, the
Son cannot have come ‘from’ the Father in the same way creatures do. He does not offer
much explanation, however, on what it means for the Son to come ‘from’ the Father.
Athanasius discusses these matters in his later Letters to Serapion. He argues that
there is a distinction between ‘makers’ and ‘begetters’, and between ‘creatures’ and ‘sons’,
and that fathers, whether human parents or God, are ‘begetters’, and sons, including the
Son, are sons ‘by nature’, who are ‘the same as our fathers in substance’.96 He does not
explain how the Father’s begetting of the Son took place, but again associates the state of
being begotten with that of being of the same essence as the begetter.97 He argues that
while things that are made, such as a ‘house’ or ‘ship’, cannot be of the same ‘substance’
Athanasius, ‘To the Bishops of Africa’, 5. The words idion and monogenous are from Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae, A Digital Library of Greek Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2035.049,
from ‘Epistula ad Afros episcopos’, J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus (series Graeca)
(MPG) 26, Paris: Migne, 1857-1866: 1029-1048 (p. 1037, line 38).
93
Ayres, ‘Athanasius’ Initial Defense of the Term homoousios’, p. 347; Athanasius, ‘On the
Council of Nicaea’, 22, pp. 199-200.
94
The English and Greek citations are from Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 22, p. 200.
95
Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 22, p. 200.
96
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.6.1, 112.
97
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.6.2-2.6.3, pp. 112-113.
92
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as those who made them, ‘so too it is appropriate for someone to say that every son is the
same as his own father in substance’.98 He then makes a similar point to points in ‘On the
Council of Nicaea’: ‘So if there is Father and Son, then the Son must be Son by nature and
in truth. But this is what it means to be the same as the Father in substance…’99
The expression ‘genuine son’ appears in the passage from ‘On the Council of Nicaea’.
The word translated as ‘genuine’ is ‘gnésios’,100 and ‘genuine sonship’ is an implication of
its first meaning, ‘belonging to the race, i.e., lawfully begotten, legitimate’.101 In the
second instance it is used above, ‘monos’ appears: ‘ei de ek tou theou esti monos ōs uios
gnésios’,102 and one might see a connection between monos and gnésios, and monogenés.
The word monogenés can mean ‘single of its kind, only’, ‘the only member of a kin or
kind’, or ‘uniqueness of being’,103 meanings which stem from ‘ “ of a single [monos] kind
[genos]” ’, and do not say how a son comes into being.104 For Athanasius, the ‘genuine
Son’, who is from the Father’s being ‘by nature’, is of the divine ‘race’ or ‘kind’, which
includes Father and Son, so the Son is not the only one of this kind. The Son, moreover, is
of this race or kind because he was begotten, and did not come ‘from the Father in the
same way that all creatures are said to be’. So these meanings of ‘genuine sonship’ here
are similar to, but not the same as, some meanings of monogenés to be discussed.
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.6.3, p. 113.
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.6.3, p. 113.
100
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 2035.003, ‘De decretis Nicaenae synodi,’ Epist., Concil., H.G.
Opitz, Athanasius Werke, vol. 2.1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1940: 1-45 (ch. 22, section 5, lines 1-2, 5-6).
101
Lampe, pp. 316-317.
102
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 2035.003, ‘De decretis Nicaenae synodi,’ (ch. 22, section 5, lines
5-6).
103
See the previous chapter. Dale Moody, ‘God’s Only Son: The Translation of John 3. 16 in the
Revised Standard Version’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 72, no. 4 D (1953), 213-219 (pp. 213215); Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols, Anchor Bible 29 and 29a (New
York: Doubleday, 1966-1970), I (1966), pp. 13-14, 17; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to
John, rev. edn, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. by Ned B. Stone, F.
F. Bruce, and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 93; George R. BeasleyMurray, John, 2nd edn, Word Biblical Commentary, 36, ed. by Bruce A. Metzger, Ralph P. Martin,
and others (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2000), p. 14; Frederick William Danker, ed., A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 839-842 (p. 658); Jaroslav Pelikan, What Has
Athens to Do with Jerusalem?: ‘Timaeus’ and ‘Genesis’ in Counterpoint, Jerome Lectures, 21
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 101-102.
104
This was discussed in the previous chapter. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel, pp. 13-14;
Beasley-Murray, p. 14; Leon Morris, p. 93; Moody, pp. 213-215 and entire article; see also Kevin
Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology, with a
foreword by Robert Letham (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), pp. 64-65.
98
99
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Whether Athanasius’s account in ‘On the Council of Nicaea’ is historical, the 325
creed appears to be grounded in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, which was established by
the third century. The creed, in saying that Jesus Christ, the Son, was ‘begotten not made’
(gennéthenta ou poiéthenta), distinguishes his mode of generation from that of creatures,
and goes further by saying that all things came into being through him (‘di’ ou ta panta
egeneto’, from John 1. 3).105 The creed also condemns those who say, ‘There was when
He was not, and, Before being born (gennéthénai) He was not’, and ‘He came into
existence out of nothing’. The first condemnation applied to people like Arius, who said
there was a time when the Son ‘was not’ (ouk én),106 which can be seen as a rejection of
the attestation of John 1. 1 that the Word ‘was’ (én) in the beginning. The second applied
to those who thought the Son came from the same origin as creatures: out of nothing.107
Athanasius makes similar arguments when he claims the council ‘made it manifestly
clear that “from the essence” and “of one essence” are abrogations of the trite slogans of
the impious: such as that he is a “creature” and “made” and something which has come
into being (genéton) and changeable and that he was not before he was generated.’108
Athanasius took on issues about the non-created status and substance of the Holy
Spirit, and, to a lesser extent, the discussion of how the Spirit is ‘from’ God, in his Letters
to Serapion, where he argues against the ‘Tropikoi’ or ‘Tropici’, who thought the Spirit
had been created and was not divine.109 Athanasius does use ‘homoousios’ with respect to
the Spirit, when he says the Spirit is ‘proper to the one Word and proper to and the same as
the one God in substance.’110 His ideas in these letters, however, are based more on the
relationship the Spirit has with the Son, than with the Father. This is clear when he says
the Spirit is of the substance of the Word: ‘Thus the Spirit is not a creature but is said to be
105
Greek and English words from the 325 creed in this paragraph are from J. N. D. Kelly, Early
Christian Creeds, pp. 215-216.
106
These words are in the ‘creed of Arius’ as presented by Skarsaune. Oskar Skarsaune, ‘A
Neglected Detail in the Creed of Nicaea (325)’, Vigiliae Christianae, 41, no. 1 (1987), 34-54 (p.
40); see also R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 6; Anatolios, Athanasius, ECF, pp. 7, 9.
107
Anatolios says Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Asterius, early supporters of
Arius, had distanced themselves from Arius’s position that the Son had come into being out of
nothing, so this view was not pervasive at the time of the 325 council. Anatolios, Retrieving
Nicaea, pp. 18-19.
108
Athanasius, ‘On the Council of Nicaea’, 20, p. 198.
109
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.10.4, p. 69; 1.1.2, p. 53.
110
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.27.3, p. 96; DelCogliano, Radde-Gallwitz, and Ayres, p. 96
FN 66; Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, p. 91.
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proper to the substance of the Word and proper to God and in God’.111 He emphasises the
relationship between the Spirit and Son again when he says that if the Spirit has ‘the same
unity with the Son as the Son has with the Father’, the Spirit cannot be a creature.112
Athanasius does argue on behalf of the Spirit’s uncreated nature in a way that implies
that the Spirit is of the same essence as the Father. He argues that ‘two distinct natures’
cannot be mixed in the Godhead, which would result if the Spirit was a creature.113 That
there would be two natures, one shared by Father and Son, the other the created nature of
the Spirit, is implicit in his statement that the Tropikoi accepted the ‘unity’ of Son and
Father, without ‘dividing them’.114 He then argues that the Trinity cannot have anything
‘foreign’ mixed with it, because God cannot be a ‘compound’ and ‘the whole Trinity is one
God’, which suggests the Spirit shares the essence of the Father and Son.115 This argument
is similar to Philo’s idea that God is not comprised of parts or mixed with anything, which,
as discussed, is grounded in the principle of divine simplicity.116 Philo’s idea that God
would be ‘lessened’ if something inferior were to be ‘assimilated to him’117 is reflected in
Athanasius’s claim that if the Spirit were a creature, the mixture that would occur in the
‘divinity in the Trinity’ would ‘rupture’ its unity, and ‘reduce it to the level of creatures’.118
So, in Athanasius’s arguments, he can be seen as defending the ‘unity of God’, including
of God’s essence, while countering the belief that the Spirit is a creature.119
Athanasius offers a similar argument, with a clear trinitarian statement, when he says:
‘So, the Trinity is holy and perfect, confessed in Father and Son and Holy Spirit. It has
nothing foreign or external mixed with it, not is it composed of Creator and creature, but is
entirely given to creating and making. It is self-consistent and indivisible in nature, and it
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 3.4.1, p. 132; see also Najeeb Awad, God without a Face? On
the Personal Individuation of the Holy Spirit, Dogmatik in der Moderne, 2 (Tübingen, Germany:
Mohr Siebeck, 2011), p. 85.
112
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.3, p. 55.
113
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.1-1.2.4, pp. 54-55; see also 1.17.1, p. 79.
114
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.1-1.2.3, pp. 54-55.
115
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.3-1.2.4, p. 55; see also 1.17.1, p. 79.
116
See the discussion in the previous chapter. Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, p. 22; Ayres
and Radde-Gallwitz, p. 468; Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 280-282.
117
The translation is Winston’s. Winston, Philo of Alexandria, pp. 130-131; see also Philo,
‘Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis II, III’, in Philo: Volume 1, trans. by F. H. Colson and G. H.
Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library, ed. by Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1929; repr. 2004), pp. 146-473 (II, 2-3, pp. 224-227). This treatise is referred to as Leg. All.
118
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.3-1.2.4, p. 55.
119
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.2.3, p. 55.
111
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has one activity.’120 He says that the Trinity is ‘indivisible in nature’, both because of his
reliance on the principle of divine simplicity, and his conviction that the Son and Spirit
could not be created, because they take part in the activities of ‘creating and making’. He
also puts forth other arguments, partly grounded in his belief that ‘our knowledge of the
Spirit is derived from the Son’, and the attestation of John 1. 3 that ‘all things came to be
through’ the Son, that ‘the Son is Creator like the Father’, and the Spirit ‘is not a creature
but is involved in the act of creating’.121 These examples illustrate Athanasius’s belief that
God is Creator and Trinity, and his use of ‘Creator’ for the Son will be brought up below.
Athanasius is vague, however, about what it means for the Spirit to be ‘from’ God, as
can be seen where he argues for the Spirit’s being ‘from God’ based on 1 Cor. 2. 11-12,
which is not about creation or proceeding, but about the Spirit knowing ‘the things that
belong to God’.122 He does draw on a principle of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo when
he says the Spirit cannot have ‘kinship’ with creatures, partly because it is ‘from God’ and
hence ‘cannot be from nothing’, which indicates a connection between the Spirit’s mode of
generation and substance.123 It is not obvious, though, how the Spirit’s being ‘from God’
differs from other ways that being ‘from God’ is presented in scripture, which he says
prevented the 325 Council from using simply ‘from God’ language for the Son.
A few final reflections on Athanasius’s ideas will be offered, to illustrate connections
between the doctrines of creation and the Trinity. The Son’s coming ‘from’ God’s essence
would have been the only option available as the source of the Son’s being, if one believed
the Son was not a creature, and that creatures come ‘from’ nothing. Athanasius makes this
connection when he says ‘inasmuch as the Son has no likeness to creatures but has all that
belongs to the Father, that the Son must be the same as the Father in substance’, and
otherwise the Son would be the same as creatures ‘in substance’, beliefs he attributes to the
325 council.124 He says neither the Son nor the Spirit could have come ‘from nothing’,
because creatures are ‘from nothing’,125 another argument related to substance. Athanasius
also gives roles in creation to the Son and Spirit, which precludes them from being ‘from’
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.28.1-1.28.2, pp. 96-97.
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.13.4-2.14.1, pp. 123-124.
122
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.22.1, p. 87.
123
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 1.22.1, p. 87.
124
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.5.1-2.5.2, p. 111.
125
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.11.2, p. 120.
120
121
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matter, which they would have taken part in creating. However, it is not clear what he
thought being ‘from’ the Father meant with respect to how the Son and Spirit came into
being, or their modes of generation.
2.2.2 Case study: translating or interpreting monogenés
Before moving to discussing ideas about consubstantiality and relations of origin as
they appear in writings and orations against Eunomius, another case study will be offered.
Here the idea that the Son is ‘only-begotten’ will be examined, and other possibilities for
understanding monogenés will be offered, given that this word is used by the Cappadocian
‘Fathers’ and Eunomius, as will be seen. Justification for relooking at monogenés comes
from the opportunity to apply, to the text of the 325 and 381 creeds126 and to fourth century
writings, the revised translations scholars have applied to the Gospel of John.127
The placement and intent of the word monogené is ambiguous in the 325 creed, or, as
Oskar Skarsaune puts it, it has ‘rather unelegant positioning’ or seems ‘misplaced’.128 In J.
N. D. Kelly’s text, it can be argued that monogené clarifies gennéthenta, when the creed
says that Jesus Christ, Son of God, is ‘gennéthenta ek tou patros monogené, toutestin ek tés
ousias tou patros’.129 This is translated as ‘begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that
is, from the substance of the Father’.130 Skarsaune’s position that monogené is a ‘precision
to’ gennéthenta is similar to the argument being made here, but he believes this yields the
meaning ‘ “begotten as only-begotten” ’,131 while other arguments will be made below.
Kevin Giles offers two translations of this part of the creed, using ‘only’ or ‘uniquely’
for monogenés, rather than ‘only-begotten’: ‘begotten [gennaō] of the Father, the only
Kelly says, writing of the 325 creed, that ‘[w]e may pass over ONLY-BEGOTTEN
(monogenés), although much ink has been expended in the discussion of it, because it was accepted
by all parties in the Arian quarrel and no special dogmatic significance was read into it’, and cites
as support an 1876 work. However, this work, Two Dissertations, by Fenton John Anthony Hort,
published by Cambridge and available from Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/), is about
the different textual traditions of John 1. 18, and the scholars cited in this and the previous chapter
use more recent research. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p. 235, also 303-304.
127
Kevin Giles, who draws on Moody, applies some of the alternative translations of monogenés to
the 325 creed and fourth century writings, and argues that these alternatives were accepted at the
time. I do not think he offers enough evidence to support this, and he and I disagree at points, but
he shares my interest in relooking at monogenés. Giles, pp. 27-28, 64-66, 69, 81, and elsewhere.
128
Skarsaune, pp. 34-35.
129
The Greek and English text are from J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 215-216.
130
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 215-216.
131
Skarsaune, p. 36.
126
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[monogenés] [Son] of the being [ousia] of the Father’,132 or ‘uniquely [monogenés]
begotten [gennaō] of the Father, of the being [ousia] of the Father’.133 Giles says the first
translation speaks of the Son as ‘begotten and unique’, and the second as ‘the uniquely
begotten Son’, but, in either case, he says monogenés and gennaō were not intended to be
‘synonyms’.134 However, even Giles’s first option seems to suggest that monogenés is
related to the Son’s mode of being, as being the only one ‘of’ the Father’s being.
Skarsaune cites a creed he attributes to Arius, which uses ‘gennésanta uion monogené’
but with God as the subject, as seen in Skarsaune’s translation: ‘We know one God …
who brought forth the only-begotten Son…’.135 Skarsaune argues that Arius thought that
monogenés ‘has no other meaning than that God’s Son was brought forth directly by the
Father without any mediator – unlike the rest of God’s creation, in which the Son was the
Mediator’,136 which does focus on the Father and the Son. Skarsaune also notes that ‘the
standard Arian exegesis’ of monogenés later came to be that ‘the monos applies primarily
to the Father as sole begetter-creator of the Son’, and the ‘Son alone was brought forth
from the Father alone, without any mediator’.137 This interpretation, with its emphasis on
the Father as the begetter and one who is alone, will be relevant in discussing Eunomius.
Skarsaune shows that Alexander of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, had a creed
that countered Arius’s views, and which placed gennéthenta directly after monogenés.138
Skarsaune is aware of other meanings of monogenés, including ‘only one of its kind’, but
he takes monogenés here again to be a ‘precision’ on gennéthenta, with the latter word
being followed and further clarified by ‘ek tés ousias tou patros’.139 However, in the text
of Alexander’s creed, monogené is part of ‘ton uion tou theou monogené’, and is separated
from gennéthenta.140 This suggests that monogené may have suggested something else
about the Son, which Skarsaune does not consider.
Another proposal about how monogenés may have been understood at the time of
132
The brackets are from Giles. Giles, p. 147.
The brackets are from Giles. Giles, p. 148.
134
Giles, pp. 147-148.
135
The Greek and English text are from Skarsaune, pp. 40-41.
136
Skarsaune, p. 41.
137
Skarsaune, p. 52 FN 22.
138
Skarsaune, pp. 42-44.
139
Skarsaune, p. 44.
140
Skarsaune, p. 42.
133
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Arius comes from Tarmo Toom. Toom says that Arius probably could have agreed with
the words in the 325 creed that come before ‘from the essence of the Father’, including
monogenés, which Toom says Arius likely understood to mean ‘unique’, again using an
alternative translation, but when monogenés was taken with the ‘clarifying clause’ of ‘from
the essence’ of the Father, it meant the Son was consubstantial with the Father.141
As already discussed, the other possibilities for understanding monogenés, in addition
to the traditional translation of ‘only-begotten’, include ‘single of its kind, only’, ‘the only
member of a kin or kind’, ‘uniqueness of being’, or ‘only child’. It also can be used
synonymously with agapétos (beloved) and suggest a ‘beloved child’, as it is in a work by
an unknown author attributed to Athanasius.142 Any of these meanings, if they had been
held by the 325 council when the creed was being crafted, might not have reinforced either
that the Son was begotten or that He was of the substance of the Father. The Son could
have been understood as unique or one of a kind, without saying how He came into being.
The ambiguity of how monogené is placed in the creed does not permit conclusions here,
but this possibility should be given consideration.
Athanasius may have known some of these meanings, even if they are implicit in his
writings. He uses monogenés in the writings discussed above and his earlier Orations
against the Arians.143 In his Orations, he discusses the difference between the Word or
Son being the ‘ “firstborn of creation” ’ and ‘only-begotten’.144 He says the former
expression applies to someone born first who has siblings, and is related to the created
order, but someone is called monogenés ‘because there are no other brothers’.145 That
someone has no siblings does not say how he or she came into being, so this is not
141
Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, p. 93, see also 81.
This was discussed in the previous chapter. The unknown author was writing in a work called
Athanasius’s fourth discourse against the Arians. Beasley-Murray, p. 14; Colin Gunton, ‘And in
One Lord, Jesus Christ … Begotten, Not Made’, in Nicene Christianity: The Future for a New
Ecumenism, ed. by Christopher R. Seitz (Grand Rapids: MI: Brazos Press, 2001), pp. 35-48 (pp.
39, 230 FN 8); Athanasius, ‘Four Discourses against the Arians’, trans. by Archibald Robertson
and Cardinal Newman, in St. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, NPNF, 2nd series, 4, ed. by
Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, and Archibald Robertson (1892; Oak Harbor: Logos Research
Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]), IV, 24; Athanasius’s ‘Oratio quarta contra Arianos’, 2035.117, 25,
in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae; Lampe, p. 881.
143
Uses of monogenés in his works can be seen by searching the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
144
The expression ‘firstborn of creation’ is from Col. 1. 15. The citations from Athanasius in this
paragraph are from Athanasius, Orations against the Arians (selections), trans. and ed. by Khaled
Anatolios, in Athanasius, by Anatolios, ECF, pp. 87-175 (2.62, pp. 155-156).
145
The Greek is from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Athanasius, Orations, 2.62, pp. 155-156.
142
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necessarily about the Son’s unique mode of generation.
Athanasius also says monogenés, Son, Word, and Wisdom are ‘terms that refer back to
the Father and indicate the fact that the Son belongs to the Father’ [italics added], and he
cites biblical passages that use these terms, including John 1. 14 and Mt. 3. 17 (‘ “This is
my beloved Son” ’).146 He argues that ‘monogenés’ is more appropriate than ‘firstborn’ for
the Word, because there is no other Word or Wisdom (thus, He is one of a kind), and ‘he
alone is the true Son of the Father’,147 which is an earlier instance of his discussing the
‘true Son’ than in the works cited above. His mention of the ‘beloved Son’ and onlybegotten Son ‘in the bosom of the Father’ (John 1. 18) also may hint that he understood
monogenés and agapétos to be related. He does also say that monogenés is used in ‘in
reference to the generation from the Father’.148 However, his overall arguments in this
section suggest that monogenés and the Son’s belonging to the father have other meanings
for him, meanings about how the Son is special and unique, and loved by the Father.
In the previous chapter, it was said that some biblical scholars believe the tradition of
translating monogenés as ‘unigenitus’ (only-begotten) in the Latin text of John started with
Jerome, as a result of his theological interests.149 However, it is possible that the idea that
monogenés means only-begotten came about during the Eunomian controversies. This can
only be argued and conjectured here, but it is noteworthy that Athanasius’s writings, in
which he shows he may have held other ideas about monogenés, were a few decades earlier
than Cappadocian writings and orations against Eunomian ideas.
Basil and Gregory of Nyssa use monogenés frequently in their treatises Against
Eunomius,150 although one has to consider the instances where they are citing Eunomius.
Even so, there are instances where they show that they understand it to relate to the
146
Athanasius, Orations, 2.62, pp. 155-156.
Athanasius, Orations, 2.62, pp. 155-156.
148
Widdicombe cites this section of his Orations, saying ‘it is clear’ Athanasius thinks ‘the prefix
(monos) (“only,” “unique”) gives the interpretative key’ for monogenés. He also says Athanasius
seems to think monogenés ‘was determinative of the sense in which “generated” is to be taken’,
which suggests Athanasius had multiple meanings of monogenés in mind. Giles cites this section,
and thinks monogenés conveys something about the eternal begetting of the Son, a unique way of
coming into being. Giles is ambiguous, given that he also says the correct meaning of monogenés is
unique or only. Widdicombe, ‘The Fathers on the Father’, p. 118; Giles, pp. 81-82.
149
See the arguments in the previous chapter.
150
Examples are numerous. See the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae; Pelikan, What Has Athens...?, p.
102; Lampe, pp. 880-882.
147
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uniqueness of the Son’s mode of origin. In one place, where Basil is responding to what
he considered Eunomius’s misuse of monogenés, Basil argues that ‘in common usage
[monogenés] does not designate the one who comes from only one person [as Eunomius
thought], but the one who is the only one begotten’.151 It is possible that Eunomius’s
position, as reported by Basil, stemmed from what Skarsaune calls the later ‘standard
Arian exegesis’, where ‘monos applies primarily to the Father as sole begetter-creator of
the Son’. However, even if Eunomius was not thinking of the Son in his use of monogenés
here, one sees that Basil himself thought monogenés referred to ‘the only one begotten’.152
Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa argues that ‘Only-begotten’ refers to ‘something unique
and exceptional’ about the generation of the Son, which he says is ‘not in common with all
begetting, and is peculiar to Him’.153 Gregory’s argument is related to the nature of what
comes into being, because he says that if there were no distinctions in the begetting, there
would be ‘mixture and community’ between the Son and ‘the rest of generated things’.154
His argument also is related to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, as evident when he says
that ‘non-existence before generation is proper to all things that exist by generation’, but
‘this is foreign to the special character of the Only-begotten, to which the name “Onlybegotten” bears witness that there attaches nothing belonging to the mode of that form of
common generation which Eunomius misapprehends’.155
Gregory of Nazianzus does not use monogenés often in his theological orations.156
However, in two cases where he may understand it as only-begotten, which is inconclusive
in the texts, he lists it as one of many attributes for the Son or Jesus Christ, without saying
151
This passage is cited by Giles, who supplies the Greek for monogenés. Basil of Caesarea,
Against Eunomius, 2.20, p. 159; Giles, p. 132.
152
Giles says he wrote to DelCogliano to ask why he and Radde-Gallwitz had chosen to use the
translation ‘only-begotten’ for monogenés in Basil’s Against Eunomius. DelCogliano replied that
they had considered using ‘only’ or ‘unique’, to be ‘ “in line with modern biblical translations” ’,
but decided to use only-begotten, because they thought Basil ‘really understood the term in the
sense of the ‘ “only offspring of the Father” ’ or ‘an “only child” ’. DelCogliano said they thought
this was in accordance with ‘the traditional translation of “Only-Begotten” ’. In light of arguments
I am presenting here, one could still say that neither only offspring nor only child speaks of how
the offspring or child came into being. One can also argue, as I am, that other meanings could have
been overlooked, either by Basil himself, or the translators, or both. Giles, p. 145 FN 124.
153
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book VIII, 5.
154
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book VIII, 5.
155
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book VIII, 5.
156
This is shown in searching Gregory’s orations using the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
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it is significant, and it is the translations that say his meaning was ‘only-begotten’.157
Eunomius uses monogenés often, sometimes ambiguously.158 The first instance is in a
‘profession of faith’ at the beginning of his first apology.159 The meaning is ambiguous,
because his wording of the relevant clause is: ‘kai eis hena monogené uion theou, theon
logon…’, where monogené modifies the Son of God, and ‘begotten’ does not appear, nor,
of course, any mention of the Son’s being from the substance of the Father.160 Unless one
knew that Eunomius understood monogenés alone, without other words that it clarified, to
mean ‘only-begotten’, one could ask whether it is Vaggione’s translation that establishes
this meaning: ‘And in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word…’.161 DelCogliano
and Radde-Gallwitz’s translation of Basil’s restatement of Eunomius’s profession of faith
is the same as Vaggione’s.162 This could illustrate that translators make assumptions of
what monogenés means. In this case, the choice of ‘only-begotten’ is not borne out by the
text of Eunomius’s profession of faith, which, unlike Arius’s creed, as cited by Skarsaune,
does not include a reference to the concept of being begotten. Other instances exist where
Eunomius’s use of monogenés may be ambiguous, such as in 12.1, where he says ‘kai eis
uios (monogenés gar)’, which Vaggione translates as ‘the Son too is one, being onlybegotten’, and 15.8, 13, where monogenés is set in the context of broader arguments.163
However, in other instances where Eunomius uses monogenés, he appears to use it as a
title, probably in place of using ‘Son’, given that he did not like ‘Father’ and ‘Son’
terminology,164 as will be evident in the discussions below.
One of Vaggione’s cautions about using Basil’s Against Eunomius as a witness to
Eunomius’s first apology is that he suspects there were ‘mutual influences’ between these
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 17, pp. 84-85; Gregory of Nazianzus,
‘The Fourth Theological Oration: Oration 30’, in On God and Christ: The Five Theological
Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius, trans. by Lionel Wickham, with introduction and notes by
Lionel Wickham, Popular Patristics Series, 23, ed. by John Behr (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2002), pp. 93-116 (20, pp. 109-111); Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
158
Vaggione provides an index entry for monogenés. Vaggione, p. 204.
159
Eunomius, ‘The Apology of Eunomius’, in Eunomius: The Extant Works, text and translation by
Richard Paul Vaggione, Oxford Early Christian Texts, ed. by Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1987), pp. 33-75 (4, p. 37).
160
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 5.3, pp. 38-39.
161
Vaggione, p. 39.
162
Vaggione, p. 39; Basil, Against Eunomius, 1.4, pp. 88-89.
163
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 12.1, pp. 46-47; 15.8, 13, pp. 52-53.
164
See the discussion below and Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz, p. 466.
157
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two works.165 One of these influences could have been what monogenés meant, which
Basil could have imposed on his interpretations of Eunomius, consciously or not.
This cannot be explored further here, but it is possible that Jerome was not the only
theologian in the second half of the fourth century to allow theology or controversies to
influence interpretations of key terminology. It is possible that monogenés took on the
meaning ‘only-begotten’ because of the ways it was used in Eunomius’s writings, and how
Basil and Gregory of Nyssa chose to use it in their rebuttals. If so, the meaning of this
word would have changed, as a result of the intense debates over whether or how the Son
came into being, and the Son’s status with respect to the Father or the ‘Unbegotten’. On
the other hand, it is possible that monogenés meant other things at the time, including to
Eunomius, and it is the English translations that apply the meaning ‘only-begotten’.
The creed adopted by the 381 Council of Constantinople refers to Jesus Christ as ‘ton
uion tou theou ton monogené, ton ek tou patros gennéthenta’.166 Kelly points out that ton
monogené stands in apposition to ‘the Son of God’ and has an article, which he considers
among the ‘minor’ differences between the 325 and 381 creeds.167 However, the clause
that contains monogené is identical to the clause in Alexander’s creed, cited by Skarsaune,
although in the 381 creed, gennéthenta is at the end of the clause that follows, not the
beginning, which further separates monogené from the idea that the Son is begotten. This
could be a significant difference. The 381 creed, with this placement, may not have been
intended to say the Son is ‘only-begotten’ or to refer to the Son’s substance, but may have
held one of the other meanings of monogenés about the Son being unique, one of a kind, or
beloved. If so, monogenés may not support the unity of Father and Son, or ideas about
mode of generation or being of the same substance, but rather may speak of a unique
attribute that distinguishes the Son alone.
2.2.3 Nature, relations of origin, unity, and distinction in Eunomian debates
Here, illustrations and arguments will be presented to offer insights into how Basil of
Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus wrote about ideas related to the consubstantiality and
relations of origin of the three Persons, in their treatises or orations against Eunomian
165
Vaggione, pp. 25-26.
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p. 297.
167
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 303-305.
166
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ideas. Also of interest is how they argue for the unity and distinction of the Persons. It
should be noted that given that many of the debates over Eunomian ideas were related to
Eunomius’s ‘naturalist’ understanding of ‘names’, which will be explained below, some of
these debates also were over terminology to some extent.
Basil’s Against Eunomius and Gregory’s orations will be used on their own merit,
although with the cautions Vaggione advises. Basil’s Against Eunomius is a good source
for understanding his early trinitarian thinking,168 and Gregory’s orations are the sources
for understanding Gregory’s trinitarian thinking.169 Eunomius’s first apology, which is
dated to 360-361, just before Basil started his rebuttal,170 also is used here. Vaggione says
that Eunomius wrote his second apology in ‘intervals’ beginning in 378.171 So Gregory
would have been responding to Eunomian ideas in his orations around the time Eunomius
was writing his response to Basil’s earlier Against Eunomius.
Some of Eunomius’s beliefs were introduced above, especially that he thought that
God was Unbegotten (agennétos), and the Son, who was begotten (gennéthenta) and also
monogenés, was different in substance (heteroousios) from God, ideas which have a legacy
in Arius’s beliefs from earlier in the fourth century.172 Examined here will be Eunomius’s
belief that the substances of the Father and Son were designated by their names, and could
not be the same, because Eunomius held a ‘naturalist position’ in ‘names theory’.173 Also
examined are Eunomius’s related ideas about the Holy Spirit. Of most significance is how
Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus respond, in their arguments against Eunomius’s ideas.
Eunomius’s preferred names, Unbegotten and Begotten or Only-begotten, designated,
for him, not only whether or how the Father and Son had come into being, but also their
168
See Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz, p. 464.
See Beeley, ‘Divine Causality’, pp. 204-211.
170
Vaggione, pp. 5-9.
171
Vaggione, p. 85.
172
See R. Williams, Arius, pp. 97-99; R. P. C. Hanson, The Search, p. 6; Young and Teal, pp. 43,
45, 47; Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, I, pp. 194-195.
173
As described by DelCogliano and Toom, a ‘naturalist position’ held that names reveal the
nature of objects designated, and a ‘conventionalist’ position that names are not necessarily related
to the nature of what they name. Mark DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea’s Anti-Eunomian Theory of
Names: Christian Theology and Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century Trinitarian
Controversy, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, 103, ed. by J. den Boeft and others (Leiden:
Brill, 2010), pp. 25-27, 32; Tarmo Toom, ‘Hilary of Poitiers’ De Trinitate and the Name(s) of
God’, Vigiliae Christianae, 64, (2010), 456-479 (pp. 456-457, 460-461, 471, 479 FN 86).
169
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substance.174 For Eunomius, ‘Unbegotten’ was not an attribute, but a name, for God, and
this meant that being unbegotten or unoriginate was God’s substance. Eunomius believed,
similarly, according to Gregory of Nazianzus, that the Son had to be ‘of a different
substance’ from the Father, because the Son was called ‘begotten’, which designated the
Son’s substance as not being unoriginate, and hence not the same as God’s substance.175
For Eunomius, there also was no possibility of there being more than one unoriginate,176
so, again, the Son’s substance could not be the same as the Father’s.
Basil, in his Against Eunomius, argues against a related Eunomian idea that ‘ “the
unbegotten has no comparison with the begotten” ’, because this idea set up opposition
between ‘the very substance’ of the Father and Son.177 Basil counters that ‘whatever one
may assign to the Father as the formula of his being, the very same also applies to the
Son’, and ‘this is how divinity is one’, and he gives the example of the Father and OnlyBegotten sharing ‘light’ as their substance, an idea that could come from the 325 creed or
prologue to John (John 1. 4-5).178
Basil also argues on behalf of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father in the
context of arguing on behalf of their co-eternity. He rebuts Eunomius’s claim that there is
a temporal ‘order’ of first and second, between the Unbegotten and Only-Begotten, and
says it would be impossible for ‘the God of the universe’ to be without ‘his image who has
radiated light non-temporally’.179 Basil says here that both God and the image are eternal,
and also that the Son or the image is ‘of the same substance’ with God.180 He bases his
arguments on Heb. 1. 3, as can be seen when he says the Son is called ‘the radiance’ and
‘the character of his subsistence’ so that ‘we may learn that he is of the same substance’.181
Here Basil is drawing on scripture as a source for discussing the ontological question
174
See Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz, p. 466.
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, p. 83.
176
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 10, pp. 46-47; Michel René Barnes, ‘Eunomius of Cyzicus and Gregory
of Nyssa: Two Traditions of Transcendent Causality’, Vigiliae Christianae, 52, no. 1 (1998), 59-87
(p. 62).
177
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.18, pp. 118-119.
178
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.19, p. 120; J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p.
215.
179
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.20, p. 120.
180
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.20, p. 120.
181
While this is said by DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz to be the only place in Against Eunomius
where Basil uses homoousios for the Son, it should be said that Heb. 1. 3 uses ‘hupostaseōs’. Basil
of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.20, p. 120; DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, p. 120 FN 112.
175
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of the Son and Father being of the same substance, but Eunomius had drawn on scripture
to argue the opposite view: that the image could not be of the same ‘essence of God’.182
Eunomius quotes the ‘blessed Paul’ and Col. 1. 15-16 (‘ “He is the image of the invisible
God, the first-born of all creation, because in him all things were created…” ’), in order to,
as Eunomius says, ‘safeguard the real meaning of the word “image” ’.183 Eunomius is
arguing here that the Son ‘preserves his similarity to the Father’ because the Son is the
‘image’ of God, and that the idea of ‘image’ refers back to God’s ‘will’, which Eunomius
understands as an ‘action’, not to God’s ‘essence’.184 Eunomius then argues that ‘the word
“image” ’ is used ‘not as comparing the only-begotten Son and first-born to the Father, for
the designation “Son” makes his own essence clear, while that of “Father” manifests the
action of the one who begot him’.185
So here, among his other arguments, Eunomius is saying the Son and Father have
different essences, because of being called ‘Son’ and ‘Father’, and because of the action of
the Father having begotten the Son. His arguments also are based on his understanding of
what the word ‘image’ designates with respect to substance or essence.
The debate between Basil and Eunomius over whether an image is the same substance
as what it images does not appear to be conclusively won on ontological grounds, given
that scriptural sources were cited as justification. However, later orthodox / catholic
authors draw on Heb. 1. 3 and the concept of ‘image’ to support the belief that the Son is
of the same substance as the Father. These authors include Gregory of Nazianzus,186 and
Ambrose, in a hexaemeral sermon,187 although the latter may be dependent on Basil.
Basil expresses ideas about what ‘Son’ and ‘Father’ mean, and about unity and
distinction within the Godhead, in his arguments against Eunomius. According to Basil,
Eunomius called the Only-begotten ‘something begotten and something made’.188 Basil
argues that it does not make sense ‘to designate the Maker of the universe as “something
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 24, p. 65.
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 24, p. 65.
184
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 24, p. 65.
185
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 24, p. 67.
186
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fourth Theological Oration’, 20, p. 110.
187
Ambrose, ‘The Six Days of Creation’, in Saint Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and
Abel, trans. and with an introduction by John J. Savage, FOTC, 42 (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1961), 3-283 (I, 5, 18-19, p. 17).
188
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.1, p. 131.
182
183
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made” ’, and it is illogical to think that different names necessarily suggest differences in
substance.189 He argues, instead, that the names Father and Son ‘do not communicate
substance but instead are revelatory of the distinguishing marks’ (tōn idiōmatōn),190 and
‘begotten and unbegotten’ are ‘distinctive features that enable identification and are
observed in the substance’.191 These names differentiate what is common, without
‘sunder[ing] the substance’s sameness in nature’.192
Here Basil is describing his understanding of how the Son and Father can be of the
same substance, but have distinctive features, and arguing that the names Son and Father
do not refer to substance. Basil’s arguments could be evidence for a position put forth by
Michel Barnes about a change that he argues took place in the second half of the fourth
century, leading to the Father-Son relationship not being understood as being about their
unity of substance, but about their distinctions, which were related to the principle of
causation.193 Barnes, in these arguments, is making subtle distinctions between different
decades in the second half of the fourth century.194
He argues that what he calls ‘Pro-Nicene’ theology, which he believes started later in the
second half of the fourth century, as distinct from ‘Neo-Nicene’ theology, which he
believes began in the 350s,
no longer posited that the Father-Son relationship signified unity of substance, based on
the belief that an offspring must have the same nature as the parent.195
Examples of such beliefs about the Father and Son being of the same nature, because the
Son is the son of a father, are represented in some of the writings of Athanasius examined
That ‘Maker of the universe’ (‘ton poiétén tōn holōn’) refers to the Son will be discussed. Basil
of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.3-2.4, p. 134; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 2040.019, line 27.
190
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.3-2.5, pp. 134-136; DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, p.
136, FN 33.
191
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.28, p. 174.
192
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.28, p. 174, also 2.29, pp. 175-176.
193
Michel René Barnes, ‘Divine Unity and the Divided Self: Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian
Theology in its Psychological Context’, Modern Theology, 18, no. 4 (2002), 475-496 (pp. 383384); M. Barnes, ‘De Trinitate VI and VII’, p. 196 FN 19; see also Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy,
pp. 236, 239-240.
194
Barnes’s colleague, Lewis Ayres, does not agree with Barnes on making these fine distinctions
between the decades, and Ayres views ‘pro-Nicene theologies’ as beginning in the 360s. Ayres,
Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 236, 239-240.
195
M. Barnes, ‘Divine Unity and the Divided Self’, pp. 383-384; M. Barnes, ‘De Trinitate VI and
VII’, p. 196 FN 19.
189
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above, some of which are from the 350s.196 By contrast, Barnes argues that Gregory of
Nyssa relies on whether one Person is the Cause, and another is ‘ “of the Cause” ’, as the
basis for distinguishing between the hypostases of the Father and Son, and that Gregory
does not use the Father-Son relationship to argue for their unity of substance.197
Basil’s arguments could support Barnes’s argument that this position was common
after the 350s. However, Basil is not consistent. His argument about the ‘distinguishing
marks’ or ‘distinctive features’ supports Barnes’s position, but his statement that ‘whatever
one may assign to the Father as the formula of his being, the very same also applies to the
Son’, does argue for Father and Son being of the same substance. Here it is relevant that
Ayres, who takes issue with Barnes’s distinctions between Neo-Nicene and Pro-Nicene
theologies, says, in commenting on Barnes’s arguments, that ‘pro-Nicene authors often
incorporate earlier arguments alongside more fully developed pro-Nicene arguments’.198
Basil ends Against Eunomius by discussing the Spirit, and arguing against Eunomius’s
belief that the Spirit did not have the same nature as the Father.199 Eunomius had argued
that the Spirit is ‘third in nature’. 200 Eunomius draws on 1 Cor. 8. 6 and John 1. 3 to
justify his conviction that the ‘Only-begotten God is not to be compared either with the one
who begot him or with the Holy Spirit who was made through him, for he is less than the
one in being a “thing made”, and greater than the other in being a maker’.201 So while
Eunomius held a somewhat orthodox / catholic view about the role of the ‘Only-begotten’
in creation, he deviates by including the Spirit among the things ‘ made “through him” ’,
which might represent the influence of Origen, who also drew on John 1. 3 to argue that
the Spirit had been created.202 Moreover, this use of John 1. 3 to argue for the creation of
the Spirit was an issue in both East and West in the second half of the fourth century. It is
See Michel René Barnes, ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, in The Trinity: An
Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. by Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald
O’Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; repr. 2004), pp. 145-176 (p. 156 FN 19).
197
M. Barnes, ‘Divine Unity and the Divided Self’, pp. 383-384.
198
Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 236 FN 51.
199
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3, pp. 185-196; Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 25-27, pp. 66-73.
200
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 25, p. 67; Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.1, p. 185.
201
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 26, pp. 69, 71; see also Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.7, pp.
194-196; Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, 16.
202
Eunomius, ‘Apology’, 26, p. 71; Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books
1-10, trans. by Ronald E. Heine, FOTC, 80, ed. by Thomas P. Halton and others (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1989), Book 2, 70-76, pp. 112-114.
196
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alluded to by Gregory of Nazianzus in a 380 oration,203 and by Ambrose, in his 381 The
Holy Spirit, where Ambrose is writing against ‘Macedonians’.204
Basil’s response to Eunomius does not reflect a mature trinitarian theology. He agrees
with Eunomius that the Spirit is ‘below the Son in both rank and dignity’, although Basil
takes issue with the Spirit’s being ‘of a foreign nature’.205 He also addresses the question
of which side of ‘two realities’ the Spirit is on, ‘divinity’ or ‘creation’, and whether the
Spirit has ‘a nature that is third and foreign’ to the nature of the Father and Son.206 He
argues based on the names given to the Spirit, including ‘Holy’ and ‘Spirit’, which he says
the Spirit shares ‘in common’ with Father and Son, and he claims that ‘the communion of
names does not communicate the Spirit’s estrangement of nature, but rather his affinity
with the Father and the Son’.207 However, these arguments do not address the question of
whether or how the Spirit came into being. That his trinitarian thinking is not fully worked
out here, including how the unity and distinctions of the Persons are held together, can be
seen when he says: ‘Indeed, the account of singleness will be preserved in the Trinity in
this way, by confessing one Father and one Son and one Holy Spirit’.208
Gregory of Nazianzus, in his orations, delivered fifteen years or more after Basil wrote
Against Eunomius, responds to Eunomius’s arguments about how the names of the Father
and Son, or Unbegotten and Begotten, say something about their substance. In his third
theological oration, Gregory argues against the Eunomian belief that when one calls God
or the Father ‘unbegotten’ or ‘unoriginate’, one says something about ‘God’s substance or
activity’, which says something about the Son.209 Gregory’s rebuttal is that ‘Father’
designates the relationship between Father and Son, and the names Father and Son indicate
‘kindred and affinity’ and ‘sameness of stock, or parent and offspring’, as with human
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration’, 12, p. 126.
On the dating and Ambrose’s writing against the Macedonians in the West, see Deferrari.
Ambrose, The Holy Spirit, in Saint Ambrose: Theological and Dogmatic Works, trans. and with an
introduction by Roy J. Deferrari, FOTC: A New Translation, 44 (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1963; first paperback repr. 2002), Books I-III, pp. 35-214 (1, 2, 2731, pp. 46-48); Deferrari, pp. xvii, 31-32.
205
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.1, p. 186.
206
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.2-3.3, pp. 187-189.
207
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.3, p. 189.
208
Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 3.6, p. 194.
209
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, pp. 83-84.
203
204
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beings.210 This is similar to Gregory’s saying, earlier, that the designations ‘begetter and
begotten’ must be the same because ‘it is in the nature of an offspring to have a nature
identical with its parent’s’.211 His argument, which combines idea about begetting and
nature, offers evidence that the names Father and Son still said something about the nature
of the Son in the early 380s, at least for Gregory of Nazianzus, if not Gregory of Nyssa.
Gregory continues by arguing that even if ‘Father’ did refer to substance, this idea
‘will bring in the Son along with it, not alienate him’.212 This is a subtle argument for the
unity of substance between Son and Father. Gregory is explicit when he says that if
‘Father’ is taken to refer to an activity or to mean ‘producer’, with the Son his production,
the other option he says his opponents offered, the Father will have actively produced the
‘consubstantiality’ between the Son and Father.213
Gregory speaks of the Spirit as ‘consubstantial’ with God in his fifth theological
oration, and says there is ‘one supreme nature’, even though there is a ‘Trinity’ of Father,
Son, and Spirit.214 He argues that the ‘facts’ of not being begotten, being begotten, and
proceeding ‘safeguard the distinctiveness of the three hypostases within the single nature
and quality of the Godhead’.215 These words illustrate the maturity of his trinitarian
thinking, with the Spirit being consubstantial and coequal with the Father and Son. His
words also illustrate that all Persons are recognised as distinct, if only because of how they
came into being, while they all are a single nature in the Godhead. However, while ‘being
begotten’ and ‘proceeding’ specify relationships of origin, these terms do not suggest what
begetting and proceeding mean, which Gregory admits in another oration is a mystery.216
So he, too, like Basil and Athanasius, leaves this mystery ‘on the table’.
Gregory, in Oration 42, written after his resignation as president of the 381 Council of
Constantinople,217 can be seen as still addressing Eunomian ideas and speaking about
nature, while offering statements that reflect his own trinitarian theology. He writes:
That which is without beginning, and the beginning, and that which is with the
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, pp. 83-84.
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 10, p. 78.
212
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, p. 84.
213
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Third Theological Oration’, 16, pp. 83-84.
214
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration’, 10, pp. 123-124.
215
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration’, 9, p. 123.
216
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration’, pp. 117-147 (8, p. 122).
217
McGuckin, St Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 361-366; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 54-58.
210
211
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beginning – these are one God. Neither lack of beginning, nor lack of generation,
constitutes the nature of that which has no beginning: for an entity’s nature is never
constituted by what it is not, but by what it is; it is defined by positing what it is, not
by removing what it is not. The beginning is not separated, by virtue of its being a
beginning, from that which has no beginning: for beginning is not the nature of the
former, nor is lack of beginning the nature of the latter. These are attributes of the
nature, not the nature itself. … [T]he unoriginate has the name of Father; the originate
has the name of Son; that which is with the originate is called the Holy Spirit. But
these three have the same nature, namely, Godhead. The Father is the principle of
unity; for from him the other two derive their being, and in him they are drawn
together: not so as to be fused together, but so as to cohere. … [U]nity properly
belongs to those who have a single nature and whose essential being is the same.218
As with his rebuttal of Eunomian ideas about names, here Gregory argues that the Son is
not of a different nature from the Father, even though the Son is called ‘Beginning’ (which
may reflect the influence of Origen’s interpretations of Gen. 1. 1 and John 1. 1), and the
Father ‘without beginning’. His point, though, is that the Father’s being unbegotten does
not say something about His nature, but is an ‘attribute’ of his nature, because it speaks of
what He is not, not what He is. Here, Gregory’s understanding of ‘attribute’ may be
similar to Basil’s earlier understanding of ‘distinguishing marks’ or ‘distinctive features’.
What is noteworthy is that Gregory is arguing about the unity of the nature of all three
Persons, while arguing, by contrast with Eunomian ideas, that the Father’s nature cannot
be defined by something lacking, in this case a lack of beginning or generation. The same
nature the Persons share is something that is, which, for Gregory, is ‘Godhead’. This
nature is, moreover, the Father’s nature, ‘for from him the other two derive their being’.
That Gregory argues these points in the early 380s does offer some evidence against
Barnes’s argument that pro-Nicene theologies later in the second half of the fourth century
did not posit that the Father-Son relationship signified unity of substance, based on the
assumption that an offspring must have the same nature as the parent. John McGuckin
does say that Gregory’s arguments here are not typical for him, and that Gregory ‘usually
argues that ingeneracy describes only relationship, not nature’, thus not saying anything
about the Son’s divine nature, but about the Son’s person or hypostasis.219
One might say, however, based on Gregory’s comments in the excerpt from Oration
This excerpt from Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 42.15 is taken from Bettenson’s translation,
which is reprinted by McGuckin. Bettenson, The Later Christian Fathers, pp. 119-120; McGuckin,
We Believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, ACD, 2, ed. by Oden, p. 35.
219
McGuckin, We Believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, ACD, 2, ed. by Oden, p. 35 FN 57.
218
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42 and the discussions above, that, for Gregory, the use of ‘uncaused’ for the Father does
not function as the criterion of the nature of the Father, as it did for Eunomius. It could not
serve as the criterion for Gregory, because it is about something that is not, about a lack of
a cause, not something it is. At the same time, Gregory may be seen as saying that whether
one uses the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or names that specify whether they were
originated, one is speaking of attributes of nature, not about the nature itself. So he is, in
this way, arguing against the connection between names and essence, and he does so by
arguing for both unity and distinction within the Godhead, including unity of nature.
2.2.4 Principles of unity and distinction and the immanent and economic Trinity
Gregory was delivering his orations around the time that Eunomius and Heterousians
were losing battles over Eunomius’s position that the Son and Spirit could not be of the
same substance or nature as God, the Unbegotten.
The creed attributed to the 381 Council of Constantinople does not use ‘homoousios’
in speaking of the Spirit and Father, but the Spirit is called ‘the Lord and life-giver’.220 In
the next year, however, a letter was written in Constantinople and sent to Pope Damasus
and bishops in the West, and the letter says that the Spirit is of the same substance as the
Father and Son, and condemns positions held by Eunomians and others.221 The letter says
that, according to the faith of Nicaea, ‘ “there is one Godhead (theotés), Power (dunamis),
and Substance (ousia) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; the dignity being
equal, and the majesty being equal in three perfect hypostases, i.e. three perfect persons
(prosōpa).” ’ It condemns ‘ “the blasphemy of the Eunomians, of the Arians, and of the
Pneumatomachi” ’, which ‘ “divides the substance (ousia), the nature (phusis), and the
godhead (theotés), and superimposes onto the uncreated consubstantial and coeternal
Trinity a separate nature, created, and of a different substance.” ’222
It has been observed that this letter does not use the actual expression ‘ “one ousia,
three hypostaseis” ’, which often is attributed to the Cappadocians, even though it rarely
220
The Greek and English words are from J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 297-298.
The citations are from Ayres’s translation. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 258; Theodoret, The
Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, trans. by Blomfield Jackson, in Theodoret, Jerome,
Gennadius, Rufinus: Historical Writings, Etc., NPNF, 2nd series, 3, ed. by Philip Schaff and Henry
Wace (1892; Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]), Book V, ch. IX.
222
Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, p. 258.
221
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appears in their writings.223 It also has been said that being of one substance is only one of
the ways in which the letter says the Father, Son, and Spirit are ‘one’: they also are one
Godhead and one power.224 One can see, though, that the letter does address the principle
of consubstantiality, stating it in different ways: there is one ousia, neither the ousia nor
the nature is divided, the Trinity is the ‘uncreated consubstantial and coeternal Trinity’.
The letter also implies that that Son and Spirit could not have been created, on the grounds
that if they were, the substance would be divided.
Gregory of Nazianzus also offers a summary of trinitarian principles in his Oration 20,
which he may have given in 379 or 380.225 His principles are helpful for the discussions
here, because, in stating how ‘both to maintain the oneness of God and to confess three
individual entities, or Persons, each with his distinctive property’,226 he offers principles
that apply to both the immanent and economic Trinity.
Gregory summarises some of his principles of unity when he writes:
The oneness of God would … be maintained if both Son and Spirit are causally related
to him alone without being merged or fused into him and if they all share one and the
same divine movement and purpose [kinéma te kai bouléma] … and are identical in
223
This is pointed out by Lienhard. Hildebrand says Basil never uses the phrase, although he
worked out many of the ideas. Beeley and Toom cite Gregory of Nazianzus’s use of the phrase in
his Oration 21, which Beeley dates to 380. Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘Ousia and Hypostasis: The
Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of “One Hypostasis” ’, in The Trinity: An
Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. by Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald
O’Collins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; repr. 2004), pp. 99-121 (pp. 99-100, 120);
Stephen M. Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek
Thought and Biblical Truth (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), p. 99;
Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 277-279; Toom, Classical Trinitarian Theology, pp. 135-136;
Gregory Nazianzus, ‘Oration 21: On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria’, trans. by
Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, in S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory
Nazianzen, NPNF, 2nd series, 7, ed. by P. Schaff and H. Wace (1894; Oak Harbor: Logos Research
Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]) (Oration 21, 35).
224
See Lienhard. Barnes argues that belief that the Persons are of one power (as well as of one
substance), as evidenced in the unity of works, is characteristic of Latin thinking, beginning with
Tertullian. Lienhard, ‘Ousia and Hypostasis’, p. 100; M. Barnes, ‘Latin trinitarian theology’.
225
Vinson says the dating is uncertain but could be 380, and that this oration is linked with
Gregory’s theological orations. Beeley gives the date as 379. Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20:
On Theology and the Office of Bishops’, in St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations, trans. and
with an introduction by Martha Vinson, FOTC, 107 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2003), pp. 107-116 (7, p. 111); Martha Vinson, translation and introduction, St.
Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations, by Gregory of Nazianzus, FOTC, 107 (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 2003), p. 107 FN 1; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 35.
226
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20’, 6, p. 111.
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essence [tés ousias tautotéta].227
Here, unity is maintained within the Godhead because of the ‘causal’ relations that
exist between the Father, who is their cause, and the Son and Spirit, and all three are the
same in essence. These principles speak of relations of origin and consubstantiality, and
are related to the immanent Trinity. Unity also is maintained by the three being one in
‘divine movement and purpose’. This illustrates the economic principle of ‘unity of
operations’, assuming the movement and purpose expresses itself in external acts. (The
expression ‘unity of operations’ is used here because it is compatible with terminology
used by Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, and does not entail all the principles Ayres associates
with ‘inseparable operation’.228)
For Gregory, distinctions among the Persons are posited by preserving the ‘individual
properties’ (idiotétes) of the ‘three individually existing entities’ (treis hupostaseis), which
includes avoiding thinking of them as ‘fusing or dissolving or mingling’, and accepting
that the Father is ‘both source and without source’ (kai anarchou, kai archés), and the Son,
who is not without source, is ‘the source of all things’ (archés de tōn holōn).229 He says he
is using ‘the term’ source here ‘in the sense of causal agent, fount, and eternal light’.230
The idea that the Father is the arché (beginning, origin, principle, source, first cause)
or aitia (cause) of the Son and Spirit is attributed to Cappadocian thinking.231 The concept
of causation (from aitia) can come from Aristotle’s ideas about the four causes of things,232
and can be used with meanings related to arché, including source or origin.233 Gregory’s
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20’, 7, p. 111; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
For Ayres, the principle of ‘inseparable operations’ is one of three principles of ‘pro-Nicene’
theologies, and requires ‘clear’ statements that the Persons ‘work inseparably’, even if acts are
attributed to one Person through ‘appropriation.’ The other two principles are that they offer ‘clear’
expressions of ‘the person and nature distinction’, and of ‘the eternal generation of the Son’
occurring ‘within the unitary and incomprehensible divine being’. Ayres sees a close connection
between the principles of inseparable operations, appropriations, and divine simplicity. Ayres,
Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 236, 278-282, 286-288, 296-300.
229
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20’, 7, pp. 111-112; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
230
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20’, 7, pp. 111-112.
231
Lampe, pp. 54, 234-235.
232
Aristotle’s four causes are the material, formal, efficient, and final causes. R. J. Hankinson,
‘Philosophy of Science’, in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, Jonathan Barnes, ed. (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1995; 11th printing 2006), pp. 109-139 (pp. 120-121).
233
Van Winden says, in discussing ‘the mutual influence’ of arché and aitia and Basil’s use of four
archai instead of four aitia, that a study of the concepts of arché and aitia would be welcome. J. C.
M. Van Winden, ‘In the Beginning: Some Observations on the Patristic Interpretations of Gen. 1,
227
228
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use of ‘source’ for the Son as ‘source’ of ‘all things’ may represent a mix of Aristotelian
ideas and terminology, and words and ideas from John 1. 3.
In looking at the economic acts of the Persons in creation, it is relevant that aitia or
cause can be used of both the Father and Son in Patristic writings, as can arché, when it is
intended to mean ‘First Cause’ or ‘Creator’ of creation.234 Gregory’s use of ‘source’ or
‘archés’ for Father and Son is similar. However, this use of the same word for Father and
Son with respect to economic acts of creation can cause confusion. Similar confusion can
arise when Athanasius and Basil write of both Father and Son as ‘Creator’ or ‘Maker’, as
illustrated above and here. The questions to be discussed here are whether speaking of
both Father and Son as source, Creator, or Maker could suggest, inadvertently, that there
are two first principles, and whether this language is consistent with scripture (e.g., John 1.
3), Nicene credal language, and the principle of the unity of operations.
Athanasius, as seen above, refers to the Son as ‘Creator like the Father’.235 The letter
attributed to him uses ‘Artificer and Maker [démiourgos and poiétés]’ to speak of the Son
or Word, in response to the 359 Council of Ariminum having called the Son or Word ‘a
creature and one of the things that are made’.236 Similarly, Basil, also as noted earlier, uses
‘Maker of the universe’ [‘ton poiétén tōn holōn’] for the Son, in response to Eunomius’s
having said that the Son was ‘something made’.237 Thus, ‘Maker’ is used at times for the
Son or Word in response to charges made by others, who called him something ‘made’.
This might be an appropriate rebuttal, perhaps a good ‘turn’ on words.
One can ask, however, whether it is acceptable for the Son to be called ‘Creator’ or
‘Maker’. The Father is known as Creator or Maker, and the 325 and 381 creeds call Him
the ‘maker’ of all things, and the Son the one ‘through whom’ all things came into being
(or existence).238 If both Father and Son are ‘Creator’ or ‘Maker’, without the use of
‘through whom’ terminology for the Son, this could be construed as setting up two first
1’, in Arche: A Collection of Patristic Studies by J. C. M. Van Winden, J. Den Boeft and D. T.
Runia, eds., Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, 41, ed. by J. den Boeft and others (Leiden: Brill,
1997), pp. 61-77 (pp. 61, 64) (first publ. in Vigiliae Christianae, 17 [1963], pp. 105-121).
234
Lampe, pp. 54, 234-235.
235
Athanasius, ‘Letters to Serapion’, 2.13.4-2.14.1, pp. 123-124.
236
Athanasius, ‘To the Bishops of Africa’, 4; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
237
See Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 2.3-2.4, p. 134; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae,
2040.019, line 27.
238
On the creeds, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, pp. 215-216, 297.
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principles or causes of creation, even two Creator Gods. This clearly was not the intention
of Athanasius or Basil, but it does suggest inconsistencies in terminology and thinking.
By contrast, the use of ‘through whom’ language for the Son in speaking of his role in
creation, as in the creeds and John 1. 3, distinguishes his role from the Father’s. This type
of language also is reflected in the principle of unity of operations, as it is written of by
Basil, in his On the Holy Spirit, and by Gregory of Nyssa. Examples from Basil’s work
will be offered below, so Gregory of Nyssa’s words will be given here:
But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does
anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son
has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which
extends from God to the Creation ... has its origin from the Father, and proceeds
through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.239
Gregory of Nazianzus’s understanding of ‘source’ as ‘causal agent’ may be sufficient
to justify seeing both Father and Son as source or causal agent for creation.240 Gregory can
be seen as distinguishing between the Father as source or causal agent of the Son and Spirit
within the Godhead, and the Son’s role as source or causal agent of ‘all things’ that are
created. Thus, the Father’s role as ultimate source of all is preserved. However, Gregory
does not use the ‘through whom’ language of the creeds, John 1. 3, or principle of unity of
operations for the Son’s role, but rather is drawing on other ideas and terminology.
2.3 Case study: the immanent and economic Trinity in Basil’s hexaemeral homilies
With this major section, attention moves to the third primary question, ‘how are the
Persons said to be involved in acts of creation in writings about creation, and what is said
about relations within the Godhead and between God and creation?’, again a question
related to both the immanent and economic Trinity. Basil’s hexaemeral homilies will be
used in an extended case study for these discussions. The dating of these homilies is
unknown, but many scholars believe Basil may have delivered them in 377 or 378, after he
wrote On the Holy Spirit and not long before his death, which, if true, would mean these
Italics added. Gregory of Nyssa, ‘On “Not Three Gods”’, trans. by William Moore and Henry
Austin Wilson, in Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc., NPNF, 2nd series, 5, ed. by P.
Schaff and H. Wace (1893; Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997 [on CD-ROM]).
240
Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 20’, 7, p. 112.
239
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homilies would reflect his mature thinking.241 It also would mean that Basil was delivering
his homilies only two or three years before Gregory’s orations. However, one clue will be
offered here which might suggest that the homilies are earlier than On the Holy Spirit.
Basil’s hexaemeral homilies, as the name indicates, are on the first six days of creation
according to Gen. 1, and thus are about creation, although they offer only a few insights
about Basil’s trinitarian thinking. A few possibilities for why this is so can be offered, but
these are reasoned conjectures. On the other hand, it will be shown that his homilies do
offer more examples of the Son working in creation than often thought.242 It also will be
seen that he offers an example of relations that can develop between people and God,
because of what people see in, and can infer from, creation.
One reason for Basil’s homilies not reflecting many trinitarian ideas may be that while
principles of the doctrine of creation had influenced the development of the doctrine of the
Trinity in the second half of the fourth century, the reciprocal influence of trinitarian
principles on the doctrine of creation had not occurred. This possibility will be evaluated
in the next chapters, in looking at Augustine’s writings about creation and the Trinity.
One also could conjecture that there may have been differences between how Basil
expressed his ideas in homilies, which were used in pastoral settings, and in dogmatic,
theological, or polemical works, like Against Eunomius. Basil did deliver his hexaemeral
homilies to people from a variety of educational levels and employment, and he liked to
use homilies to encourage people to adopt moral ideas or behavior.243 In his hexaemeral
homilies, Basil uses examples from nature to support his moral arguments, and these
examples would be ‘familiar’ to people in ‘their daily life’, as Agnes Way points out.244
Nonetheless, Basil’s hexaemeral homilies contain theological, scriptural, and philosophical
241
On the Holy Spirit is dated to the mid-370s. Hildebrand, On the Holy Spirit, pp. 20-21.
Ayres and Radde-Gallwitz cite two places where Basil speaks of the roles of the Son (Homily
9.2) or Spirit (Homily 2.6) in creation. Similarly, Gunton says he ‘seems to overlook the role of the
Son in creation’, and that he refers to the Spirit’s role twice, including in Homily 2.6. Ayres and
Radde-Gallwitz, p. 463; Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study,
Edinburgh Studies in Constructive Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 71.
243
One of Gregory of Nyssa’s defenses against criticisms of Basil’s homilies was that Basil was
speaking to people in a church from mixed backgrounds, many of whom would not have
understood complicated arguments. Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 1 pp. 37-38;
Way, pp. x-xi; Gregory of Nyssa, Traité sur les six jours, 65A-65B.
244
Way, pp. xi, also xii-xiii; see also Ludlow, ‘Power and Dominion’, pp. 141, 145; Rousseau,
Basil of Caesarea, pp. 323-324, 327, 331, 334-335.
242
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ideas, even if not many trinitarian ideas, as will be seen, which suggests his audience may
have been more sophisticated than supposed.245
Also hard to find in Basil’s hexaemeral homilies are examples of how the principle of
the unity of operations works, as applied to acts of creation, and here one can compare this
absence with what Basil says in his On the Holy Spirit. In his homilies, Basil does not
explicitly show all three Persons working together, nor does he state, as in On the Holy
Spirit, a belief in ‘the unity and indivisibility in every work of the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the Son’.246 It is possible that the reasons have to do with the scriptures upon
which Basil was drawing. The homilies are on an Old Testament book that would reveal
only a few trinitarian examples, if read through Christian eyes. In On the Holy Spirit, by
contrast, Basil’s examples of the unity of operations are about acts in the life of Jesus of
Nazareth, as seen through Basil’s interpretation of New Testament scriptures. It also is
possible that Basil’s omission in illustrating the principle of unity of operations in writing
of creation in his homilies is a sign that the homilies are earlier than On the Holy Spirit.
Here a few examples will be given of how Basil writes of the roles of the Son, Word,
or monogenés in creation, and one about the Spirit’s role. The English translation cited
here renders ‘monogenés’ as ‘only-begotten’, and Basil uses it as a title, as did Eunomius.
Basil speaks of the Son in Homily 9.6, where he argues, based on the plural in ‘ “And
God said, ‘Let us make mankind’ ” ’ and ‘ “In our image” ’, from Gen 1. 26, that ‘the
Second Person was being indicated mystically, but not yet clearly revealed’.247 He says
here (as in Against Eunomius248) that the Son is ‘the image of [the Father’s] substance’.
That the Son is the image of God and God is seen when he suggests that the word ‘God’,
in ‘ “And God created Man” ’, refers to the Father and Son, but the ‘singular form’ is used
to avoid ‘the risk of polytheism’, which, although he does not say this, would have arisen if
This perspective is similar to those held by Sandwell and Blowers. Sandwell argues that ‘moral
and pastoral matters’ were not Basil’s primary interests in these homilies. She emphasises his
theological and philosophical interests, and desire to explain something about the world, nature,
and God. Sandwell, pp. 547-548, also 539, 550, 552, 557-558, 564; see also Blowers, pp. 126-129.
246
This statement is from 16, 38. In 16, 39, Basil writes of the Spirit being ‘joined to the very flesh
of the Lord [Jesus Christ] as his anointing’ and says the Spirit is ‘inseparably present to him’. Basil
is not writing here about creation, but rather about acts done by Jesus of Nazareth. St. Basil the
Great, On the Holy Spirit, 16, 38, p. 70; 16, 39, p. 73.
247
The citations here and for the rest of the paragraph, unless noted, are from Basil of Caesarea, On
the Hexaemeron, Homily 9, 6, pp. 147-149.
248
This was discussed above. See Basil of Caesarea, Against Eunomius, 1.20, p. 120.
245
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the Father and Son were referred to as ‘two Gods’. Here he shows how the Father and Son
worked in acts of creation, as ‘one’ God and ‘substance’, through the unity of operations.
Basil also speaks of the role of the second Person when he says, ‘For, He Himself
spoke, it is said, and He Himself made.’249 He does not explain this here, but in Homily 3,
he says the reason it is said that after God gave a ‘command’ (e.g., ‘ “Let there be a
firmament …” ’), that God made something (e.g., ‘God made the firmament’), is that ‘the
Spirit’ is calling through the scripture about the involvement of the ‘Only-begotten’
(monogenés) in creation.250 He offers a similar example in Homily 6 and asks: ‘Who
spoke and who made? Do you not notice in these words the double Person? Everywhere
in history the teachings of theology are mystically interspersed.’251 Here Basil reads Old
Testament scripture through at least a christological lens, while he is faithful to the text,
which does say that God spoke and God made, opening a door for his discussion.
Basil may have borrowed this example of the involvement of the first two Persons in
creation from Origen, who gives similar examples in Commentary on John, where Origen
discusses the meanings of ‘ “In the beginning was the Word” ’.252 Basil, unlike Origen,
gives an explanation, saying that scripture, in showing God ‘commanding and speaking’,
indicates ‘silently Him to whom He gives the command and to whom He speaks’, and thus
‘leads us on to the idea of the Only-begotten in a certain orderly way’.253 He says that
scripture also shows God speaking and giving commands to suggest that ‘the divine will
joined with the first impulse of His intelligence is the Word [Logos] of God’.254 Basil
gives the Logos or Only-begotten a name for His role in creation, God’s ‘Co-worker’.255
Basil does not defend himself here, as he does in Homily 9, against a possible charge
of speaking of ‘two Gods’ working together, which especially is at issue because of his use
of ‘Co-worker’.256 Basil also does not address the implication of subordination of the one
249
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 9, 6, p. 147.
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 4, pp. 43-44; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
251
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 6, 2, p. 85.
252
Origen, Commentary on John, trans. and ed. by Joseph W. Trigg, in Origen, by Joseph W.
Trigg, ECF, ed. by Carol Harrison (London and New York: Routledge, 1998; transferred to digital
printing, 2005), pp. 104-149 (Book 1, 109-110, p. 123).
253
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 2, pp. 38-39.
254
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 2, p. 38. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
255
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 2, pp. 38-39.
256
Gregory of Nazianzus says his opponents used the names Creator, Co-Worker, and Minister,
which were reflective of differences in rank and ‘the qualities of the realities’ of the Persons. These
250
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who is responding to the commands to the one giving them, although this concern might be
mitigated by how he shows the two Persons sharing ‘their plans’ through thought. On the
other hand, he does not address how the Word or Only-Begotten, who is ‘joined with’
God’s intelligence or will, and shares God’s thoughts, is distinct from God or not a part of
God. This concern was raised in discussing Philo’s ideas about the Logos, but is a greater
concern for trinitarian thinking, which needs to establish the unity and the distinction of the
Persons, including in their economic acts. Basil seems to be interested in demonstrating
that scripture does reveal the role of the Word or Only-begotten in creation,257 rather than
in discussing some of the trinitarian issues that might be raised.
In Homily 2, Basil argues against Platonist ideas, probably from the Timaeus, which
suggest that God was a ‘Craftsman’ (ho technités258) who took over ‘matter’ and then
‘formed it by His own intelligence, reduced it to order, and thus through it gave visible
things existence’.259 It is clear here that there are not two first principles, God and matter,
because otherwise matter would be ‘considered worthy of the same superior ranking as the
wise and all powerful and all-good Craftsman and Creator (démiourgō kai ktsité) of all
things’, terminology reminiscent of Philo’s.260 Yet in what seems to be an obvious place to
write of the role of the Word, Basil says God, ‘having cast about in His mind and resolved
to bring into being things that did not exist, at one and the same time devised what sort of a
world it should be and created the appropriate matter together with form’.261 His objective
seems to have been to be clear that ‘matter and substance’ had not co-existed with God in
the beginning, with God providing only the ‘plan and form’ for what was created, which
would have suggested ‘the great God is not the author of the formation of all beings’.262
A role for the Holy Spirit in creation is discussed in Homily 2, where Basil gives an
interpretation of Gen. 1. 2 borrowed from a ‘Syrian’.263 Basil says the use of the Syrian
language, which was closer to the Hebrew, allowed the ‘Syrian’ to translate ‘ “was stirring
above” ’ (which translates epephereto) as ‘ “warmed with fostering care” ’, like ‘a bird
may have been Eunomians. Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fifth Theological Oration’, 5, p. 120.
257
See Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 3, 2, pp. 38-39.
258
From the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
259
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 2, pp. 22-23; Way, p. 23 FN 2.
260
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 2, pp. 22-23; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
261
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 2, p. 23.
262
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 2, pp. 23-24.
263
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 6, pp. 30-31.
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brooding on eggs’, an activity the Spirit undertook to prepare ‘the nature of the water for
the generation of living beings’.264 This interpretation appears in Greek, perhaps Syrian,
and Latin texts, as will be seen, and goes beyond Nicene theologies, which makes this
example interesting and somewhat unusual.
The identity of the ‘Syrian’ is not known, but is said not to be Ephrem, an older
contemporary of Basil’s to whom a commentary on Genesis is attributed.265 Basil’s source
often is said to be Diodore of Tarsus, who was drawing on Eusebius of Emesa’s writings
on Gen. 1. 2.266 However, it has been argued, conversely, that Diodore could not have
been Basil’s source.267 The ‘Syrian’ ideas Basil cites may stem from Eusebius’s writings
on Gen. 1. 2, but it is not known how Basil learned of his ideas, and Eusebius’s writings
are said not to be trinitarian.268 On the other hand, the ideas Basil cites do appear in a
commentary on Genesis that is (wrongly) attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, even though
Ephrem is known to have believed that Gen. 1. 2 is referring to the ‘wind’ (not the Holy
Spirit), which is not a trinitarian interpretation.269 Even so, the ideas in this commentary
264
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 6, pp. 30-31; Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.
Mathews, Jr. says it is now ‘certain’ the Syrian could not have been Ephrem. See Brock on the
Syrian commentary attributed to Ephrem or his followers. Edward G. Mathews, Jr., translation,
introduction, and notes, The Armenian Commentary on Genesis Attributed to Ephrem the Syrian,
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 573 (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, 1998), p. 6 FN 35;
Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Ephrem and the Syriac Tradition’, in CHECL, pp. 362-372 (pp. 363, 365); see
also Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 229-230; Young and Teal, pp. 174-178.
266
Mathews, Jr. says Basil was drawing on Eusebius, with Diodore as intermediary. Brock thinks
ideas often attributed to Ephrem in Basil’s work are likely from Eusebius. Winn, drawing on
François Petit’s work, says Diodore drew on Ephrem’s biblical commentaries and often offered
‘identical’ opinions on passages (p. 11). Mathews, Jr., p. 6 FN 35; Sebastian Brock, The Luminous
Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem, Cistercian Studies, 124 (Kalamazoo, MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1992), p. 145, including FN 2, and pp. 179-180, FN 2; Robert E. Winn,
Eusebius of Emesa: Church and Theology in the Mid-Fourth Century (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 2011), pp. 11, 37-41.
267
Haar Romeny says L. Van Rompay has shown that Diodore could not have been Basil’s source
for the Syrian’s ideas, even though Basil knew Diodore. R. B. ter Haar Romeny, A Syrian in Greek
Dress: The Use of Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac Biblical Texts in Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary
on Genesis, Traditio Exegetica Graeca, 6 (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1997), pp. 179-180, 27-28.
268
See Haar Romeny’s citation of texts, including Basil’s, that relate to Eusebius’s interpretation of
Gen. 1. 2, and his discussion of lines of transmission. Hanson, however, says that Eusebius did not
believe in the divinity of the Spirit, and regarded the Spirit as inferior to the Son, who was inferior
to the Father. Haar Romeny, pp. 174-183, 27-28; Hanson, The Search, pp. 395-398.
269
Elowsky and Louth quote passages with words similar to the words Basil cites, attributing them
to a commentary by Ephrem on Genesis, and citing as the source a 1737 edition of Ephrem’s works
by J. A. Assemani. The passage, as quoted by Elowsky, is: ‘The Holy Spirit warmed the waters
with a kind of vital warmth, even bringing them to a boil through intense heat in order to make
265
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(wrongly) attributed to Ephrem and those held by Eusebius of Emesa are similar, which
suggests further study of lines of transmission is warranted.270 It is possible for there still
to have been a connection between Basil and Syrian theology, because Eusebius came
from a Syrian region and knew Syriac, although he wrote in Greek.271
Basil draws on the ‘Syrian’s’ interpretation to offer ‘sufficient proof’ that the Spirit
did have a role in creation, and Basil is clear that the spirit in Gen. 1. 2 is ‘the Holy Spirit
which forms an essential part of the divine and blessed Trinity.’272 Given that this is the
primary example of the Spirit’s role in creation in Basil’s homilies, it would be interesting
to know whether this trinitarian interpretation of creation, and not just the turn of phrase
about ‘warming with fostering care’, was adapted from the ‘Syrian’ source, or whether
Basil already held similar ideas, and was drawing on this source for support.
Similar interpretations of the role of the Holy Spirit in Gen. 1. 2 were known in Latin
writings. Ambrose, who drew on Basil’s homilies in his hexaemeral homilies, cites similar
phrases to Basil’s from a ‘Syrian text’, to support the belief that ‘the Holy Spirit, too, is
them fertile. The action of a hen is similar. She sits on her eggs, making them fertile through the
warmth of incubation.’ Mathews, Jr. says the 1737 edition is ‘unreliable’, and is an edited version
of a ninth century Catena on Genesis by Severus, purported to contain passages from Ephrem and
Jacob of Edessa. It is clear from comparing the passages quoted by Elowsky and Louth to passages
from the commentary on Genesis attributed to Ephrem published by Dembski, Downs, and
Frederick (taken from vol. 91 of the FOTC series), that two different commentaries are cited. The
latter, which is understood to be by Ephrem or his followers, is explicit that Gen. 1. 2 is not
referring to the Holy Spirit, but to ‘the wind’ (an element) of God, and that the Holy Spirit could
not have a role in creation. Joel C. Elowsky, ed., We Believe in the Holy Spirit, Ancient Christian
Doctrine, 4, ed. by Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), p. 39; Louth,
Genesis 1-11, pp. 6, xxxvii; William A. Dembski, Wayne J. Downs, and Justin B. A. Frederick,
eds., The Patristic Understanding of Creation: An Anthology of Writings from the Church Fathers
on Creation and Design (Riesel, TX: Erasmus Press, 2008), p. 228, also p. 225 and the
‘Permissions Acknowledgements’ page in the front matter; Mathews, Jr., pp. xxxvi, 5-7; Brock,
The Luminous Eye, p. 145, including FN 2, and pp. 179-180, FN 2; Haar Romeny, pp. 181-182.
270
As to ideas that seem to be established as Ephrem’s, more work may be needed. Ayres’s idea
that Ephrem may have been writing in support of Nicene theology may be true, based on Ephrem’s
other works, which Ayres cites, but Ephrem’s ideas about the Spirit not having a role in creation,
according to Gen. 1. 2, do not suggest Nicene influences. Ayres does say that work needs to be
done on studying Ephrem’s trinitarian theology. Young and Teal say his theology ‘in some respects
bears comparison with that of the Cappadocians’, although he expressed his theology in poetry.
Brock says it is because Ephrem wrote in Syrian and did his ‘most important work’ in poetry,
including expressing his ‘theological vision through the medium of poetry’, that Ephrem is both
neglected and important today. Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, pp. 229-235; Young and Teal, p.
175; Brock, The Luminous Eye, p. 13, also 23; see also Ludlow, The Early Church, pp. 140-143.
271
Haar Romeny, pp. 180-181, 5, 9; Hanson, The Search, p. 387.
272
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 2, 6, pp. 30-31.
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called Creator’.273 As a result of this interpretation, Ambrose argues that Gen. 1. 2 offers
evidence that ‘the operation of the Holy Trinity clearly shines forth in the constitution of
the world’ [italics added].274 This wording suggests that he held an understanding of the
principle of the unity of operations and applied it here, even though Basil had not done so.
Jerome, in a work published in the early 390s, also knew of Hebrew translations of
Gen. 1. 2, which, instead of using ‘moved’ in ‘the Spirit of God moved over the waters’,
rendered the idea as ‘ “was brooding over” or “was keeping warm”, in the likeness of a
bird giving life to its eggs with warmth.’275 Jerome is trinitarian in his thinking, and he
understands Gen. 1. 2 to apply to the Spirit, the ‘Life-giver of all things’, which may
reflect the influence of the 381 creed and John 1. 3.276 Jerome goes beyond the creed in
arguing for the divinity of the Spirit based on the Spirit’s role in creation: ‘If, then, He is
the Life-giver, He is therefore also the Author [of life]; and if the Author, then He is also
God…’277 Jerome knew Ambrose’s work, so Basil could have been one of his sources, or
he could have used one of the sources discussed for Basil or Origen’s works, although
Jerome studied Hebrew himself.278 Jerome also, like Ambrose, passed the Hebrew ideas
on in his writings on Genesis, during a period when Augustine also was writing.
Moving to consideration of what Basil says about relations between God as Creator
and Trinity and creation, there are not many explicit examples in his homilies. It may be
that expecting examples is anachronistic, because of assumptions about Cappadocian
trinitarian thinking that emphasise ideas about communion or community.
With this said, Basil encourages his listeners to respond to God because of what they
see in creation. He asks them to ‘recognize grandeur in the tiniest things’, such as the
variety of plant life, and, as a result, to ‘continue always in your admiration, and increase, I
Ambrose, ‘The Six Days of Creation’, in Saint Ambrose: Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and
Abel, trans. and with an introduction by John J. Savage, FOTC, 42 (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1961), 3-283 (Book 1, ch. 8, 29, pp. 32-33).
274
Ambrose, The Six Days of Creation’, Book I, ch. 8, 29, p. 32.
275
The dating is from Hayward. Jerome, Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis, trans. by
and with an introduction and commentary by C. T. R. Hayward, Oxford Early Christian Studies,
ed. by Henry Chadwick and Andrew Louth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; repr.
2001), 1: 2, p. 30; C. T. R. Hayward, translation, introduction, and commentary, Saint Jerome’s
Hebrew Questions on Genesis, Oxford Early Christian Studies, ed. by Henry Chadwick and
Andrew Louth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; repr. 2001), pp. 23-27.
276
Jerome, Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis, 1: 2, p. 30.
277
Jerome, Saint Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis, 1: 2, p. 30.
278
See Hayward, pp. 103-104.
273
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pray you, your love for the Creator’.279 He says they can conceive ‘an idea of the Creator
of the universe’ and infer ‘the invisible Creator’ from the beauty or wonders of creation,
while, by observing the city and life around them, they can understand the ‘first origin of
man and death’ and ‘the source of evil’.280 By observing these things, Basil says ‘we shall
learn to know ourselves, we shall know God, we shall Worship the Creator, we shall serve
the Lord, we shall extol the Father, … we shall not cease adoring the Author of our
present and future life…’. 281 This is an example of how making inferences from creation
leads people to love their Creator (God the Father) and adore the Son, ‘the Author’ of our
present and future life.282 This is not, however, an example of mutually loving relations
between God, understood as Creator and Trinity, and human beings or creation.
In summarising a few points from this case study, one can say that Basil does illustrate
the roles of the Son and Spirit in creation, but does not explicitly convey the trinitarian idea
that the Persons work together through unity of operations. The Spirit’s role in Gen 1. 2 of
preparing ‘the nature of the water for the generation of living beings’ might be seen as
completing or perfecting the work of creation undertaken by God and the Word or Son, but
he does not say this. By contrast, in On the Holy Spirit, he does apply the principle of the
unity of operations, in the example cited above and an example of how it works in an act of
creation. He writes, speaking of the creation of the ‘heavenly powers’: ‘In their creation,
consider for me the initial cause of their existence (the Father), the Maker (the Son), the
Perfecter (the Spirit).’283 Here he says the Spirit perfects the work of Father and Son, and
this example is similar to Gregory of Nyssa’s application of this principle, cited earlier.
Although Basil does not illustrate the principle of unity of operations in his homilies,
he does discuss how the Son and Father can be seen to work together in economic acts of
creation, in ways that illustrate how they may be related within the immanent Trinity. This
can be seen in the ways in which he writes of God speaking and God making, which must
have taken place within the Godhead in some way, and which resulted in acts of the initial
creation of the world. Also of special interest is that Basil passed on an unusual, and to
some extent maternal, understanding of the Spirit’s role in creation, one that was known in
279
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 5, 9, p. 81.
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 6, 1, p. 84.
281
Basil of Caesarea, On the Hexaemeron, Homily 6, 1, p. 84.
282
On the ‘Author’ being the Son, see Way, p. 84 FN 1.
283
St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 16, 38, pp. 70-71.
280
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multiple traditions and may have been known to Augustine.
The examples offered above can be said, on balance, to reveal more about relations
between Father and Son, although not so much the Spirit, within the Godhead, than they do
about relations between God as Creator and Trinity and God’s creation. Even so, Basil’s
example of relations between God and people, which is about how people can examine
nature and come to ‘Worship the Creator’ and adore ‘the Author of our present and future
life’, will be relevant in looking at Augustine’s writings on creation.
Conclusions
As discussed in the introductory chapter, the Cappadocians are criticised, along with
Augustine, by Colin Gunton and Catherine Mowry LaCugna, for creating a ‘breach’ in
trinitarian doctrine between ideas about the immanent Trinity, and economic ideas related
to the doctrines of salvation or redemption, and, for Gunton, also creation.284 It is because
of these criticisms that this chapter was designed to enable examination of ideas about the
immanent and economic Trinity.
This chapter continued to develop the main hypothesis of this thesis: ideas, principles,
and terminology associated with the doctrine of creation influenced the development of
trinitarian doctrine. Given the lens of looking at the Trinity in light of creation, and related
restrictions on the writings examined, one cannot assess the claim that the Cappadocians
contributed to a breach between ideas about the immanent Trinity and the economy of
salvation. One might assess whether they contributed to a breach either between ideas
about the immanent Trinity and economic acts of creation, or between principles of
trinitarian doctrine and principles of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.
One conclusion to be drawn is that consistency existed, in the second half of the fourth
century, between trinitarian principles, particularly of consubstantiality and relations of
origin within the Godhead, and already-accepted principles of the doctrine of creatio ex
nihilo. A related conclusion is that critiques of Cappadocian ideas about the immanent
Trinity should be reconsidered in view of influences of ideas about creation on these
principles. A third conclusion is that continuity exists in Basil’s hexaemeral homilies
284
See the introductory chapter for a discussion of these criticisms. Catherine Mowry LaCugna,
God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1991; HarperSanFrancisco,
1993), pp. 9, 24-30, 143; Gunton, The Promise, p. xii.
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between what he thinks Gen. 1 suggests about the roles of the Son or monogenés with God
(the Father) in creation, within the Godhead and in acts of creation. Just a few points will
be summarised here, which were made in support of some of these conclusions.
Athanasius, in writing on the 325 creed and in Letters to Serapion, posited differences
between being begotten and being made, between coming ‘from’ the Father ‘by nature’ as
a ‘genuine’ Son and coming from ‘nothing’, and between being a Father and a Maker. He
also argued, based on the principle of divine simplicity, that the Spirit is not a creature, and
implied that the Spirit is of the same essence as the Son and Father, because, otherwise,
God would be comprised of parts. Athanasius argued, again based on the principle of
divine simplicity, that the Trinity could not be ‘composed of Creator and creature’, and is
‘entirely given to creating and making’. Here he makes a clear statement about God
understood as Creator and Trinity.
As seen in Basil’s Against Eunomius, Eunomius’s First Apology, and Gregory of
Nazianzus’s orations, there were agreements on the differences between being unbegotten
or uncaused, as God (the Father) is, and having come into being. However, for Eunomius,
the Son and Spirit were creatures, while for the Cappadocians, they had the Father as their
cause, beginning, or source within the Godhead. Other disagreements were over whether
the Father, Son, and Spirit could be of the same nature. For Eunomius, they could not,
because their names, such as Unbegotten and Only-Begotten, designated their natures, in
addition to whether or how they came into being. For Basil, unbegotten and begotten, and
Father and Son, say something about ‘distinctive features’ in the substance, but the Father
and Son are of the same nature. Gregory argued that the Father, Son, and Spirit are
consubstantial, with distinctions posited about whether they are not begotten, begotten, or
proceeding, or without or with beginning or source. These arguments and ideas are about
substance and relations of origin, and unity and distinctions, within the Godhead, but they
are related to ideas about what it means to come into being, or not.
There may have been developments in trinitarian doctrine, as opposed to breaches or
discontinuities, in the second half of the fourth century, and these examples will be offered.
First, if Michel Barnes is mainly correct, despite some of the evidence offered above,
the Cappadocians, at least at times, saw the idea that the Son has the Father as cause as
representing a distinction between Father and Son, rather than arguing that the Father-Son
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relationship establishes that they are of the same nature. If this is true, it is a change in
ideas related to the immanent Trinity, from an idea about unity to an idea about distinction,
although, as can be seen in Athanasius’s writings, arguments about the Father and Son
being of the same nature stemmed from beliefs about human parents and offspring. With
that said, given that Athanasius may not have influenced the Cappadocians, one cannot
propose that that Cappadocians were changing Athanasius’s ideas.
Second, if some of the arguments and conjectures offered about how monogenés was
interpreted, misinterpreted, or given new meanings are correct, one could say that giving
this word the meaning ‘only-begotten’, as Eunomius, Basil, and Gregory of Nyssa may
have done, represents a change in terminology that occurred in trinitarian debates. If this
change took place, and the word was not originally intended to mean only-begotten, this is
a development in thinking on relations and modes of origin within the immanent Trinity,
which also was influential in debates over nature. However, this potential development is
complex, because, as argued in this and the previous chapter, monogenés may have been
intended to say something unique about Jesus Christ, the Son, not related to how he came
into being. This is an area where further research is called for, to add to the arguments that
were presented above. The task of reinterpreting or changing the translation of monogenés
could affect interpretations of fourth century texts and the 381 creed, which is known as
the Nicene Creed today.
Third, in keeping with the ongoing interest in assessing how God is understood as
Maker and Father, it was argued that the titles ‘Maker’ and ‘Creator’ were applied to the
Son, in addition to the Father, by Athanasius and Basil. This, too, is a development, and in
this instance, these titles, used for the Son as well as the Father, do relate to their economic
acts of creation, and to their names with respect to creation.