Annotation CCCXXVIII

”Who, since he is the splendor of glory.” — Hebrews 1:3.a

Whether the Father is the cause of the Son.

The divine Thomas [Aquinas] notes Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, in the book Against the Errors of the Greeks, because in the commentaries on the epistle to the Hebrews he wrote that the Father is the cause of the Son. Which locution the Latin Church abhors, lest it afford an occasion that the Son be understood [as] “caused” and “made,” according to the understanding of the philosophers — among whom the same is “caused” as “made.” But he [Aquinas] admonishes that this is a custom peculiar to the Greek fathers, that they use the name of “cause” and “caused” in divine [matters], yet not with this end, that they introduce a diversity of nature into the divine persons, and show the Son [to be] a making [factura] of the Father; but that by these words they explain that which we signify by the name of “principle” and “principiate [that-which-is-from-a-principle].” This Gregory of Nyssa openly testifies, saying: “BUT saying ‘cause’ and ‘caused,’ we do not signify nature by these names. For neither [do] these names, in place of essence

—[do we give these names, in place] of essence, or by way of nature; but we demonstrate how [the relation] stands — namely, that the Son is not unbegotten, and that we do not show the Father [to be] from anyone by any generation.”