On the Orthodox Faith against the Arians
De fide orthodoxa contra Arianos (De Filii divinitate et consubstantialitate)
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Contents
- 0The work opens with the Nicene Creed and a preface in which the author explains that he has rewritten an earlier book against the Arians to remove doubts that he confused the persons of Father and Son.
- 1The author warns that heretics who share much with the Catholics are the most dangerous, and argues that the removal of the word “substance” is meant to bring in the Arian teaching that the Son was made from nothing.
- 2The author argues that the Arians replace “of one substance” with “like” in order to make the Son a creature, and shows from Scripture that the Son, as Word and Wisdom, was eternally born of the Father and is the Creator, not a creature.
- 3The author answers the objection that homoousion is not in Scripture: the Arians themselves use the unscriptural “God from God, light from light,” but in a sense that makes the Son a creature, as some heretics speak of resurrection while denying the resurrection of the flesh.
- 4The author answers the Arian objection that God cannot be called “substance,” arguing that God’s substance is his own simple being, and that the Son, born of it, is homoousios with the Father.
- 5The author argues that the unity of substance is taught in Scripture, and that comparisons such as “light from light” illustrate but cannot define the Son’s birth from the Father.
- 6The author argues that God cannot be defined or compared, and explains the many Scriptural names of the Son (Word, Wisdom, rock, lamb, lion, way, and others) as pointing to his works, not defining his majesty.
- 7The author explains that Father and Son are two persons but one God and one substance, citing Baruch and Isaiah, and rejects both Sabellius and the Arians.
- 8The author answers the Arian argument that the visible and changing appearances of the Son prove a different substance from the Father’s, explaining the theophanies and the incarnation as God showing himself without change, and closes with a confession of the Trinity and of Nicaea.