Annotation CLXXV

”The life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” — John 1:4–5

Whether the Son, as regards the divinity, is less than the Father.

Origen, in the second tome on John, elucidating this clause, seems to have pronounced that the Son, as regards the divinity, is less than the Father, and divided from the paternal essence — speaking in this manner:

“Since in this place the Savior is simply called ‘light,’ but in the catholic epistle of John himself¹ God is said to be ‘light’; a certain [author] thinks that hence it is gathered that the Father is not distinct in essence from the Son. But he who observes more diligently, and speaks more rightly, will say that by nature the ‘light which shineth in the darkness, not apprehended by the darkness itself’ is not the same as the ‘light in which there is in no way any darkness.’” And below: “This light is called ‘the true Light,’ by which the Father, the God of truth, is ampler [more] than the Word; and greater than the truth; and, because he is the Father of wisdom, is better and more excellent than wisdom itself, and by this reasoning the true Light excels [it],” etc.

In these Origenic words, two [things] are to be inspected: first, that Origen does not deny the Son to be of the same substance or essence with the Father — which he openly affirms in many places, and most constantly proclaims; but he says [that] it cannot be gathered from this passage so plainly as some think. Then it is to be observed that the Greek fathers do not shrink from this Origenic manner of speaking, by which the Son is asserted [to be] less than the Father — not, indeed, in substance, but in origin. According to which reasoning, very frequently among the Greek theologians the Father is said to excel the Son by the dignity, authority, and majesty of [being the] principle [source]. But if to anyone it seems that faith is not to be given to me [in this], let him read Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, in book 1 of the Thesaurus, chapter 10 — where, explaining that [text] from John’s gospel, “The Father is greater than I,” he writes thus: “In a certain place Christ says,² ‘The Father is greater’; and of him again we read,³ ‘He thought it not robbery to be equal with God’: it must be diligently investigated how he is at once both equal, and has a greater Father — for these seem mutually to conflict. But we, weighing them piously, will neither deny the Son to be equal, because the Father is greater; nor say the Father not to be greater, because the Son is equal; but by a pious interpretation we will confirm both. Since, then, the nature of the divinity is simple and uncomposed, it could never have been distinguished in thought into Father and Son, unless a certain difference were applied — not in the essence itself, but extrinsically — by which each person, remaining in its own hypostasis, might be joined, on account of the same nature of both, in one divinity, so that no confusion or commingling of the Father and the Son should be made. Which indeed would happen, if the persons of the Father and the Son — on account of [their] exquisite likeness, which would not allow those twin [persons] to be seen [as distinct] — should run together into one hypostasis. For hence some have suspected that the Father and the Son are the same, and not two distinct persons. Therefore it behooved us to recognize both the begetting nature, and the hypostasis begotten from it. On this account Scripture set before us the names of ‘Father’ and ‘Son,’ that we might understand [them as] ‘light from light,’ and both in their own hypostasis, and the same essence in both. But, imitating our custom, does it call the Father ‘greater,’ that on every side we may recognize the persons [as] distinct, and the one from the other? — yet it attests the same equality, lest we should suspect any dissimilarity of the essence of the Father and the Son. The Son, therefore, since by reason of essence he is equal to the Father, and in all [things] like [him], calls him ‘greater’ as [being] the principle without principle — that he may declare that he [the Son] is from him [the Father], although he has one and the same [nature] with him

he has one and the same nature with him.” These [things] Cyril [says]; with whom Chrysostom agrees, in homily 74 on John, where, expounding that [text], “The Father is greater than I,” he says: “If anyone should call the Father greater than the Son, inasmuch as [he is the] principle of the Son, neither would we contradict this: yet this does not make the Son to be of another substance.” Nor does Hilary dissent from these, in book 9 On the Trinity: where, expounding the same passage of John, he says that the Father is greater than the Son by the authority of generation, [but] that the Son, nevertheless, is not less than the Father by the nature of the divinity. In the same manner St. Thomas notes, in the book Against the Errors of the Greeks, that Basil said [that] the Son is second to the Father in dignity, and the Holy Spirit second to the Son in dignity — that is, in the dignity of hypostasis, not of nature.

Observe these [things] carefully, reader, that thou mayest be able to interpret piously all passages of this kind, in which Origen, on account of the unusual form of [his] words, seems to have thought ill of the Homoousion [consubstantial] Son of God. But in the other passages, which cannot be defended by an interpretation of this kind, remember that Origen was most wickedly corrupted by the Arians, especially in this topic — as very many and most luminous testimonies of his concerning the consubstantial and coeternal deity of the Son and the Father, cited in the Apology of Pamphilus the Martyr, show more clearly than the light.