11 June 2020
On the Rule of Faith
On the Rule of Faith
Bear always in
mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the
Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so
will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that
the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that they are
distinct from each other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every
uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a
diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the
Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when they contend for
the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of
diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not
by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not
the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their
being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and
portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than
I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the
angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son,
inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too,
who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is
one, and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord Himself
employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a
division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead);
for He says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another
Comforter...even the Spirit of truth,” thus making the Paraclete distinct from
Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that
He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is
in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the
very fact that they have the distinct names of Father and Son amount to a
declaration that they are distinct in personality?
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