{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/208/2080035.htm","path":"chr/ecf/208/2080035.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/208/2080035.htm","text":"That \u201cthrough whom\u201d is said also in the case of the Father, and \u201cof whom\u201d in the case of the Son and of the Spirit.\n7. After thus describing the outcome of our adversaries\u2019 arguments, we shall now proceed to shew, as we have proposed, that the Father does not first take \u201cof whom\u201d and then abandon \u201cthrough whom\u201d to the Son; and that there is no truth in these men\u2019s ruling that the Son refuses to admit the Holy Spirit to a share in \u201cof whom\u201d or in \u201cthrough whom,\u201d according to the limitation of their new-fangled allotment of phrases. \u201cThere is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things.\u201d 734\nYes; but these are the words of a writer not laying down a rule, but carefully distinguishing the hypostases. 735\nThe object of the apostle in thus writing was not to introduce the diversity of nature, but to exhibit the notion of Father and of Son as unconfounded. That the phrases are not opposed to one another and do not, like squadrons in war marshalled one against another, bring the natures to which they are applied into mutual conflict, is perfectly plain from the passage in question. The blessed Paul brings both phrases to bear upon one and the same subject, in the words \u201cof him and through him and to him are all things.\u201d 736 That this plainly refers to the Lord will be admitted even by a reader paying but small attention to the meaning of the words. The apostle has just quoted from the prophecy of Isaiah, \u201cWho hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath p. 6 been his counsellor,\u201d 737 and then goes on, \u201cFor of him and from him and to him are all things.\u201d That the prophet is speaking about God the Word, the Maker of all creation, may be learnt from what immediately precedes: \u201cWho hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?\u201d 738 Now the word \u201cwho\u201d in this passage does not mean absolute impossibility, but rarity, as in the passage \u201cWho will rise up for me against the evil doers?\u201d 739 and \u201cWhat man is he that desireth life?\u201d 740 and \u201cWho shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?\u201d 741 So is it in the passage in question, \u201cWho hath directed [lxx., known] the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath known him?\u201d \u201cFor the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things.\u201d 742 This is He who holds the earth, and hath grasped it with His hand, who brought all things to order and adornment, who poised 743 the hills in their places, and measured the waters, and gave to all things in the universe their proper rank, who encompasseth the whole of heaven with but a small portion of His power, which, in a figure, the prophet calls a span. Well then did the apostle add \u201cOf him and through him and to him are all things.\u201d 744 For of Him, to all things that are, comes the cause of their being, according to the will of God the Father. Through Him all things have their continuance 745 and constitution, 746 for He created all things, and metes out to each severally what is necessary for its health and preservation. Wherefore to Him all things are turned, looking with irresistible longing and unspeakable affection to \u201cthe author\u201d 747 and maintainer \u201cof\u201d their \u201clife,\u201d as it is written \u201cThe eyes of all wait upon thee,\u201d 748 and again, \u201cThese wait all upon thee,\u201d 749 and \u201cThou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.\u201d 750\n8. But if our adversaries oppose this our interpretation, what argument will save them from being caught in their own trap?\nFor if they will not grant that the three expressions \u201cof him\u201d and \u201cthrough him\u201d and \u201cto him\u201d are spoken of the Lord, they cannot but be applied to God the Father. Then without question their rule will fall through, for we find not only \u201cof whom,\u201d but also \u201cthrough whom\u201d applied to the Father. And if this latter phrase indicates nothing derogatory, why in the world should it be confined, as though conveying the sense of inferiority, to the Son? If it always and everywhere implies ministry, let them tell us to what superior the God of glory 751 and Father of the Christ is subordinate.\nThey are thus overthrown by their own selves, while our position will be on both sides made sure. Suppose it proved that the passage refers to the Son, \u201cof whom\u201d will be found applicable to the Son. Suppose on the other hand it be insisted that the prophet\u2019s words relate to God, then it will be granted that \u201cthrough whom\u201d is properly used of God, and both phrases have equal value, in that both are used with equal force of God. Under either alternative both terms, being employed of one and the same Person, will be shewn to be equivalent. But let us revert to our subject.\n9. In his Epistle to the Ephesians the apostle says, \u201cBut speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body.\u201d 752\nAnd again in the Epistle to the Colossians, to them that have not the knowledge of the Only Begotten, there is mention of him that holdeth \u201cthe head,\u201d that is, Christ, \u201cfrom which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered increaseth with the increase of God.\u201d 753 And that Christ is the head of the Church we have learned in another passage, when the apostle says \u201cgave him to be the head over all things to the Church,\u201d 754 and \u201cof his fulness have all we received.\u201d 755 And the Lord Himself says \u201cHe shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.\u201d 756 In a word, the diligent reader will perceive that \u201cof whom\u201d is used in diverse manners. 757 For instance, the Lord says, \u201cI perceive that virtue is gone out of me.\u201d 758 Similarly we have frequently observed \u201cof whom\u201d used of the Spirit. \u201cHe that soweth to the spirit,\u201d it is said, p. 7 \u201cshall of the spirit reap life everlasting.\u201d 759 John too writes, \u201cHereby we know that he abideth in us by (\u1f10\u03ba) the spirit which he hath given us.\u201d 760 \u201cThat which is conceived in her,\u201d says the angel, \u201cis of the Holy Ghost,\u201d 761 and the Lord says \u201cthat which is born of the spirit is spirit.\u201d 762 Such then is the case so far.\n10. It must now be pointed out that the phrase \u201cthrough whom\u201d is admitted by Scripture in the case of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost alike. It would indeed be tedious to bring forward evidence of this in the case of the Son, not only because it is perfectly well known, but because this very point is made by our opponents. We now show that \u201cthrough whom\u201d is used also in the case of the Father. \u201cGod is faithful,\u201d it is said, \u201cby whom (\u03b4\u03b9\u1fbd \u03bf\u1f56) ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son,\u201d 763 and \u201cPaul an apostle of Jesus Christ by (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac) the will of God;\u201d and again, \u201cWherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.\u201d 764 And \u201clike as Christ was raised up from the dead by (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac) the glory of God the Father.\u201d 765 Isaiah, moreover, says, \u201cWoe unto them that make deep counsel and not through the Lord;\u201d 766 and many proofs of the use of this phrase in the case of the Spirit might be adduced. \u201cGod hath revealed him to us,\u201d it is said, \u201cby (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac) the spirit;\u201d 767 and in another place, \u201cThat good thing which was committed unto thee keep by (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac) the Holy Ghost;\u201d 768 and again, \u201cTo one is given by (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac) the spirit the word of wisdom.\u201d 769\n11. In the same manner it may also be said of the word \u201cin,\u201d that Scripture admits its use in the case of God the Father. In the Old Testament it is said through (\u1f10\u03bd) God we shall do valiantly, 770 and, \u201cMy praise shall be continually of (\u1f10\u03bd) thee;\u201d 771 and again, \u201cIn thy name will I rejoice.\u201d 772 In Paul we read, \u201cIn God who created all things,\u201d 773 and, \u201cPaul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father;\u201d 774 and \u201cif now at length I might have a prosperous journey by (\u1f10\u03bd) the will of God to come to you;\u201d 775 and, \u201cThou makest thy boast of God.\u201d 776 Instances are indeed too numerous to reckon; but what we want is not so much to exhibit an abundance of evidence as to prove that the conclusions of our opponents are unsound. I shall, therefore, omit any proof of this usage in the case of our Lord and of the Holy Ghost, in that it is notorious. But I cannot forbear to remark that \u201cthe wise hearer\u201d will find sufficient proof of the proposition before him by following the method of contraries. For if the difference of language indicates, as we are told, that the nature has been changed, then let identity of language compel our adversaries to confess with shame that the essence is unchanged.\n12. And it is not only in the case of the theology that the use of the terms varies, 777 but whenever one of the terms takes the meaning of the other we find them frequently transferred from the one subject to the other. As, for instance, Adam says, \u201cI have gotten a man through God,\u201d 778 meaning to say the same as from God; and in another passage \u201cMoses commanded\u2026Israel through the word of the Lord,\u201d 779 and, again, \u201cIs not the interpretation through God?\u201d 780 Joseph, discoursing about dreams to the prisoners, instead of saying \u201cfrom God\u201d says plainly \u201cthrough God.\u201d Inversely Paul uses the term \u201cfrom whom\u201d instead of \u201cthrough whom,\u201d when he says \u201cmade from a woman\u201d (A.V., \u201cof\u201d instead of \u201cthrough a woman\u201d). 781 And this he has plainly distinguished in another passage, where he says that it is proper to a woman to be made of the man, and to a man to be made through the woman, in the words \u201cFor as the woman is from [A.V., of] the man, even so is the man also through [A.V., by] the woman.\u201d 782 Nevertheless in the passage in question the apostle, while illustrating the variety of usage, at the same time corrects obiter the error of those who supposed that the body of the Lord was a spiritual body, 783 and, to shew that the God-bearing 784 flesh was formed out of the comp. 8 mon lump 785 of human nature, gave precedence to the more emphatic preposition.\nThe phrase \u201cthrough a woman\u201d would be likely to give rise to the suspicion of mere transit in the generation, while the phrase \u201cof the woman\u201d would satisfactorily indicate that the nature was shared by the mother and the offspring. The apostle was in no wise contradicting himself, but he shewed that the words can without difficulty be interchanged. Since, therefore, the term \u201cfrom whom\u201d is transferred to the identical subjects in the case of which \u201cthrough whom\u201d is decided to be properly used, with what consistency can these phrases be invariably distinguished one from the other, in order that fault may be falsely found with true religion?\nIf Catholic Theology does not owe to St. Basil the distinction between the connotations of \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 and \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 which soon prevailed over the identification obtaining at the time of the Nicene Council, at all events his is the first and most famous assertion and defence of it. At Nic\u00e6a, in 325, to have spoken of St. Paul as \u201cdistinguishing the hypostases\u201d would have been held impious. Some forty-five years later St. Basil writes to his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (Ep. xxxviii.), in fear lest Gregory should fall into the error of failing to distinguish between hypostasis and ousia, between person and essence. cf. Theodoret Dial. i. 7, and my note on his Ecc. Hist. i. 3.\n5:736 6:737 6:738\nIsa. 40:12, 13.\n6:739 6:740 6:741 6:742 6:743\n\u1f30\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe4& 191\u00b7\u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03b1. cf. Plat. Ph\u00e6d. 109, A.\n6:744 6:745\n\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae. cf. Arist. de Sp. i. 1.\n6:746 6:747 6:748 6:749 6:750 6:751 6:752 6:753 6:754 6:755 6:756 6:757\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9. cf. the cognate adverb in Heb. i. 1.\n6:758\n\u201c\u1f10\u03be \u1f10\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6 \u201d The reading in Luke 8.46 is \u1f00\u03c0\u1fbd \u1f10\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6. In the parallel passage, Mark v. 30, the words are, \u201cJesus knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him,\u201d \u1f10\u03be \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 which D. inserts in Luke viii. 45.\n7:759 7:760 7:761 7:762 7:763 7:764\nGal. iv. 7. A.V. reads \u201can heir of God through Christ;\u201d so \u05d0CD. R.V. with the copy used by Basil agrees with A.B.\n7:765\nRom. vi. 4. It is pointed out by the Rev. C.F.H. Johnston in his edition of the De Spiritu that among quotations from the New Testament on the point in question, St. Basil has omitted Heb. ii. 10, \u201cIt became him for whom (\u03b4\u03b9\u1fbd \u1f45\u03bd) are all things and through whom (\u03b4\u03b9\u1fbd \u03bf\u1f57) are all things,\u201d \u201cwhere the Father is described as being the final Cause and efficient Cause of all things.\u201d\n7:766\nIs. xxix. 15, lxx.\n7:767 7:768 7:769 7:770 7:771 7:772\nFor \u201cshall they rejoice,\u201d Ps. lxxxix. 16.\n7:773 7:774 7:775 7:776 7:777\nAccording to patristic usage the word \u201ctheology\u201d is concerned with all that relates to the divine and eternal nature of Christ, as distinguished from the \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1, which relates to the incarnation, and consequent redemption of mankind. cf. Bishop Lightfoot\u2019s Apostolic Fathers, Part II. Vol. ii. p. 75, and Newman\u2019s Arians, Chapter I. Section iii.\n7:778\nGen. iv. 1, lxx. A.V. renders \u201cshe conceived and bare Cain and said,\u201d and here St. Basil has been accused of quoting from memory. But in the Greek of the lxx. the subject to \u03b5\u1f36\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd is not expressed, and a possible construction of the sentence is to refer it to Adam. In his work adv. Eunom. ii. 20, St. Basil again refers the exclamation to Adam.\n7:779\nNum. xxxvi. 5, lxx.\n7:780\nGen. xl. 8, lxx.\n7:781 7:782 7:783\nThe allusion is to the Docet\u00e6. cf. Luke xxiv. 39.\n7:784\nThe note of the Benedictine Editors remarks that the French theologian Fronton du Duc (Duc\u00e6us) accuses Theodoret (on Cyril\u2019s Anath. vii.) of misquoting St. Basil as writing here \u201cGod-bearing man\u201d instead of \u201cGod bearing flesh,\u201d a term of different signification and less open as a Nestorian interpretation. \u201cGod-bearing,\u201d \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, was an epithet applied to mere men, as, for instance, St. Ignatius. So Clement of Alexandria, I. Strom. p. 318, and Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. xxxvii. p. 609. St. Basil does use the expression Jesus Christ \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u0398\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd in Hom. on Ps. xlix.\n8:785\n\u03c6\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1. cf. Rom. ix. 21.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. VIII: De Sp...","type":"page"}