| Table of Contents | Words: Alphabetical - Frequency - Inverse - Length - Statistics | Help | IntraText Library |
| St. Hilary of Poitiers On the Councils, or the Faith of the Easterns IntraText CT - Text |
74. I am aware, dear brethren, that there are some who confess the likeness, but deny the equality. Let them speak as they will, and insert the poison of their blasphemy into ignorant ears. If they say that there is a difference between likeness and equality, I ask whence equality can be obtained? If the Son is like the Father in essence, might, glory and eternity, I ask why they decline to say He is equal? In the above creed an anathema was pronounced on any man who should say that the Father was Father of an essence unlike Himself. Therefore if He gave to Him whom He begat without effect upon Himself a nature which was neither another nor a different nature, He cannot have given Him any other than His own. Likeness then is the sharing of what is one's own, the sharing of one's own is equality, and equality admits of no difference . Those things which do not differ at all are one. So the Father and the Son are one, not by unity of Person but by equality of nature.