Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 52

The Platonic phrase for the Divine Nature, epekeina pases ousias, adopted by Origen and by Athanasius contra Gentes, appears to retain something of the idea of ousia as implying material existence; and this train of associations had to be expressly disclaimed in defending the Nicene formula. In the sense of homogeneity the word omoousion is expressly applied by Origen, as we have seen, to the Father and the Son: on the other hand, taking ousia in the 'primary' Aristotelian sense, he has heteros kat' ousian kai hupokeimenon In the West (see above on Tertullian and Novatian) the Latin substantia (Cicero had in vain attempted to give currency to the less euphonious but more suitable essentia) had taken its place in the phrase unius substantiae orcommunio substantiae, intended to denote not only the homogeneity but the Unity of Father and Son. Accordingly we find Dionysius of Rome pressing the test upon his namesake of Alexandria and the latter not declining it (below, p. 183). But a few years later we find the Origenist bishops, who with the concurrence of Dionysius of Rome deposed Paul of Samosata, expressly repudiating the term. This fact, which is as certain as any fact in Church history (see Routh Rell. iii. 364 &c., Caspari Alte u. Neue. Q., pp. 161 sqq.), was a powerful support to the Arians in their subsequent endeavours to unite the conservative East in reaction against the council. Scholars are fairly equally divided as to the explanation of the fact. Some hold, following Athanasius and Basil, that Paul imputed the omoousion (in a materialising sense) to his opponents, as a consequence of the doctrine they opposed to his own, and that 'the 80' in repudiating the word, repudiated the idea that the divine nature could be divided by the emanation of a portion of it in the Logos. Hilary, on the other hand, tells us that the word was used by Paul himself ('male omoousion Paulus confessus est, sed numquid melius Arii negaverunt?') If so, it must have been meant to deny the existence of the Logos as an ousia (i.e. Hypostasis) distinct from the Father. Unfortunately we have not the original documents to refer to. But in either case the word was repudiated at Antioch in one sense, enacted at Nicaea in another. The fact however remains that the term does not exclude ambiguity. Athanasius is therefore going beyond strict accuracy when he claims (p. 164) that no one who is not an Arian can fail to be in agreement with the Synod. Marcellus and Photinus alone prove the contrary. But he is right in regarding the word as rigidly excluding the heresy of Arius.

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