George Bull on auotheos

The English Theological Works of George Bull

Oxford : John Henry Parker - 1844 [Page 371]
http://books.google.com/books?id=BDkHAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8
DEFENSIO FIDEI NICÆNÆ - Vol. II
BOOK IV.

ON THE SUBORDINATION OF THE SON TO THE FATHER,

AS TO HIS ORIGIN AND PRINCIPLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST PROPOSITION TOUCHING THE SUBORDINATION OF

THE SON TO THE FATHER AS TO HIS ORIGIN AND PRINCIPLE,
STATED. THIS IS ALSO CONFIRMED BY THE UNANIMOUS
CONSENT OF THE ANCIENTS. IT IS SHEWN, THAT THAT
EXPRESSION OF CERTAIN MODERN WRITERS, BY WHICH THEY
DESIGNATE THE SON, aὐτόθεος, THAT IS, OF HIMSELF GOD, IS
QUITE REPUGNANT TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE NICENE
COUNCIL ITSELF, AND ALSO TO THAT OF ALL THE CATHOLIC
DOCTORS, BOTH THOSE WHO WROTE BEFORE, AND THOSE
WHO WROTE AFTER, THAT COUNCIL.

1. RESPECTING the subordination of the Son to the Father,

His origin and principle, we have incidentally, and THE SON, when
engaged on other points, spoken not a little in the preceding books ; it
is, however, an argument not unworthy of a more careful discussion
by itself in a separate book ; especially as at the beginning of our
work we put it forward as a distinct head of doctrine delivered in the
Nicene Creed, and which we proposed to establish by testimonies out
of the ancients. Respecting this subordination,, then, let the following
be our first proposition :

THE FIRST PROPOSITION.

THAT decree of the council of Nice, in which it is laid

down that the Son of God is 'God of God,' is confirmed by
the voice of the catholic doctors, both those who wrote be
fore, and those who wrote after, that council. For they all
with one accord taught, that the divine nature and per-

[page 556]

fections belong to the Father and the Son, not collaterally or

coordinately, but subordinately ; that is to say, that the Son has
indeed the same divine nature in common with the Father, but
communicated by the Father ; in such sense, that is, that the Father
alone hath the divine nature from Himself, in other words, from no
other, but the Son the Father; consequently that the Father is the
fountain, origin, and principle, of the Divinity which is in the Son.

2. To prove that part of our proposition which relates to the doctors

who preceded the Nicene council, there is no need that we should
spend much trouble ; forasmuch as it is already sufficiently
established by most of the testimonies respecting the generation of
the Son, which we have adduced from them in our second and third
books. What shall be said to the fact, that the very words themselves,
Son, and Generation, which the same doctors use throughout, do on
their very manifestly suggest the subordination of the Son to the
Father, who begets Him. Certainly the common sentiment of these
ancients is that which is expressed by Novatian, or the author of the
Treatise on the Trinity among the works of Tertullian, in a passage
which we have already cited more than once, from chap. 31,
"Whatsoever He (the Son) is, He is not of Himself, because neither is
He unborn, but He is of the Father, because He is begotten ; whether
as He is the Word, or as He is Power, or as He is Wisdom, or as He is
Light, or as He is the Son, and whatsoever of these He is, He is from
no other source than from the Father, owing His origin to His
Father."
[page 557]

DEFENSIO FIDEI NICÆNÆ

The Works of Geroge Bull VOL. V.II

SECTIO IV.

DE SUBORDINATIONE FILII AD PATREM, UT AD SUI ORIGINEM

AC PRINCIPIUM.CAP. I.

Proponitur thesis prima, de subordinatione Filii ad Patrem, ut ad sui

originem ac principium. Quæ et unanimi veterum consensu confirmatur.
Ostenditur, locutionem ittam quorundam Neotericormn, qua Filium dicunt
aὐτόθεον, hoc est, a seipso Deum, sententice synodi ipsius Nicænæ,
adeoque catholicorum doctorum omnium, turn qui ante, turn qui post istam
scripsere synodum, prorsus repugnare.

1. DE subordinatione Filii ad Patrem, ut ad sui originem ac

principium, non pauca quidem obiter et aliud agentes diximus ad
sectiones præcedentes ; sed non indignum est argumentum, quod
seorsim et separata sectione accuratius explicetur ; prsesertim cum
ipsum in operis nostri initio, tanquam distinctum caput doctrinae in
symbolo Nicseno traditum, et veterum testimonies a nobis
confirmandum proposuerimus. De ilia igitur subordinatione haec
esto thesis prima :

THESIS PRIMA.

Decretum illud synodi Nicaenae, quo statuitur, Fi

lium Dei esse θεὸν ἐκ θεοῡ, Deum de Deo, suo calculo
comprobarunt doctores catholici, turn qui ante, cum
qui post synodum illam scripsere. Nam illi omnes
[page 685]

uno ore docuerunt, naturam perfectionesque divinas Patri Filioque

competere non collateraliter aut coordinate, sed subordinate ; hoc est,
Filium eandem quidem naturam divinam cum Patre communem
habere, sed a Patre communicatam ; ita scilicet ut Pater solus
naturam illam divinam a se habeat, sive a nullo alio, Filius autem a
Patre ; proinde Pater divinitatis, quse in Filio est, fons, origo ac
principium sit.

[page 686]
DEFENSIO FIDEI NICÆNÆ - Vol. II
BOOK IV.

ON THE SUBORDINATION OF THE SON TO THE FATHER,

AS TO HIS ORIGIN AND PRINCIPLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST PROPOSITION TOUCHING THE SUBORDINATION OF

THE SON TO THE FATHER AS TO HIS ORIGIN AND PRINCIPLE,
STATED. THIS IS ALSO CONFIRMED BY THE UNANIMOUS
CONSENT OF THE ANCIENTS. IT IS SHEWN, THAT THAT
EXPRESSION OF CERTAIN MODERN WRITERS, BY WHICH THEY
DESIGNATE THE SON, aὐτόθεος, THAT IS, OF HIMSELF GOD, IS
QUITE REPUGNANT TO THE JUDGMENT OF THE NICENE
COUNCIL ITSELF, AND ALSO TO THAT OF ALL THE CATHOLIC
DOCTORS, BOTH THOSE WHO WROTE BEFORE, AND THOSE
WHO WROTE AFTER, THAT COUNCIL.

Lastly, the ancients did not shrink from calling God the Father the
one and only God, as being the principle, cause, author, and fountain
of the Son. For thus the Nicene fathers themselves commence their
creed : "We believe in
one God the Father Almighty,"; &c. and then subjoin, "And in one
Jesus Christ, .... God of God." And the great Athanasius, than whom
no one better understood the mind and view of the Nicene synod, in
his Oration against the Sabellians, not far from the beginning, allows
that the Father is rightly designated "the only God, because He alone
is unbegotten, and alone is the fountain of Godhead." (Vol. 2, Book
IV, p. 564)
But this proposition is especially worthy of attention on account of
certain moderns, who obstinately contend that the Son may properly
be called aὐτόθεος, i. e. God of Himself. This view is inconsistent
both with the hypotheses of those who maintain it, and with catholic
consent. They say, I mean, that the Son is from God the Father, as He
is Son, and not as He is God ; that He received His Person, not His
essence, or Divine Nature, from the Father. But this is self
contradictory; for, as Petavius rightly says, "The Son of God cannot
be begotten by the Father, unless He receive from Him His nature
and Godhead." For what else is it 'to be begotten,' than to be sprung
from another, so as to have a like nature ? he who is begotten must
necessarily have [his] nature in such wise communicated by him
[who begets,] as in it to be like him who begets [him.] Unless indeed
Christ, in that He is the Son of God, is not God; or receives a relation
only from the Father without [receiving] Godhead. I add, that in this
case Person cannot be conceived of without essence, unless you lay
down Person in the Godhead to be nothing else than a mere mode of
existence, which is simple Sabellianism. (Vol. 2, Book IV, p. 565)

http://archive.org/details/defensiofidei02bulluoft

[Volume 1 - http://archive.org/details/defensiofidei01bulluoft]

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