EXCURSUS ON THE WORD HOMOUSIOS.

(4)

The Fathers of the Council at Nice were at one time ready to accede to 

the request of some of the bishops and use only scriptural expressions 

in their definitions. But, after several attempts, they found that all 

these were capable of being explained away. Athanasius describes 

with much wit and penetration how he saw them nodding and winking 

to each other when the orthodox proposed expressions which they had 

thought of a way of escaping from the force of. After a series of 

attempts of this sort it was found that something clearer and more 

unequivocal must be adopted if real unity of faith was to be attained; 

and accordingly the word homousios was adopted. Just what the 

Council intended this

expression to mean is set forth by St. Athanasius as follows: "That the 

Son is not only like to the Father, but that, as his image, he is the same 

as the Father; that he is of the Father; and that the resemblance of the 

Son to the Father, and his immutability, are different from ours: for in 

us they are something acquired, and arise from our fulfilling the divine 

commands. Moreover, they wished to indicate by this that his 

generation is different from that of human nature; that the Son is not 

only like to the Father, but inseparable from the substance of the 

Father, that he and the Father are one and the same, as the Son himself 

said: 'The Logos is always in the Father, and, the Father always in the 

Logos,' as the sun and its splendour are inseparable."(1)

The word homousios had not had, although frequently used before the 

Council of Nice, a very happy history. It was probably rejected by the 

Council of Antioch,(2) and was suspected of being open to a Sabellian 

meaning. It was accepted by the heretic Paul of Samosata and this 

rendered it very offensive to many in the Asiatic Churches.      On the 

other hand the word is used four times by St. Irenaeus, and Pamphilus 

the Martyr is quoted as asserting that Origen used the very word in the 

Nicene sense. Tertullian also uses the expression "of one substance" 

(unius substanticoe) in two places, and it would seem that more than 

half a century before the meeting of the Council of Nice, it was a 

common one among the Orthodox.

Vasquez treats this matter at some length in his Disputations, (3) and 

points out how well the distinction is drawn by Epiphanius between 

Synousios and Homousios, "for synousios signifies such an unity of 

substance as allows of no distinction: wherefore the Sabellians would 

admit this word: but on the contrary homousios signifies the same 

nature and substance but with a distinction between persons one from 

the other. Rightly, therefore, has the Church adopted this word as the 

one best calculated to confute the Arian heresy."(4)

It may perhaps be well to note that these words are formed like 

 omobios   and  omoiobios  ,  

 omognwmwn   and  omoiognwmwn  , 

etc., etc.

The reader will find this whole doctrine treated at great length in all 

the bodies of divinity; and in Alexander Natalis (H.E. t. iv., Dies. 

xiv.); he is also referred to Pearson, On the Creed; Bull, Defence of the 

Nicene Creed; Forbes, An Explanation of the Nicene Creed; and 

especially to the little book, written in answer to the recent criticisms 

of Professor Harnack, by H. B. Swete, D.D., The Apostles' Creed.