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Translated by Frederick Crombie.
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This Part: 66 Pages
Page 55
Summary (of Doctrine) Regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Other Topics Discussed in the Preceding Pages.
28. It is now time, after the rapid consideration which to the best of our ability we have given to the topics discussed, to recapitulate, by way of summing up what we have said in different places, the individual points, and first of all to restate our conclusions regarding the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Seeing God the Father is invisible and inseparable from the Son, the Son is not generated from Him by "prolation," as some suppose. For if the Son be a "prolation" of the Father (the term "prolation" being used to signify such a generation as that of animals or men usually is), then, of necessity, both He who "prolated" and He who was "prolated" are corporeal. For we do not say, as the heretics suppose, that some part of the substance of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things non-existent, [2961] i.e., beyond His own substance, so that there once was a time when He did not exist; but, putting away all corporeal conceptions, we say that the Word and Wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal without any corporeal feeling, as if it were an act of the will proceeding from the understanding. Nor, seeing He is called the Son of (His) love, will it appear absurd if in this way He be called the Son of (His) will. Nay, John also indicates that "God is Light," [2962] and Paul also declares that the Son is the splendour of everlasting light. [2963] As light, accordingly, could never exist without splendour, so neither can the Son be understood to exist without the Father; for He is called the "express image of His person," [2964] and the Word and Wisdom. How, then, can it be asserted that there once was a time when He was not the Son? For that is nothing else than to say that there was once a time when He was not the Truth, nor the Wisdom, nor the Life, although in all these He is judged to be the perfect essence of God the Father; for these things cannot be severed from Him, or even be separated from His essence. And although these qualities are said to be many in understanding, [2965] yet in their nature and essence they are one, and in them is the fulness of divinity. Now this expression which we employ--"that there never was a time when He did not exist"--is to be understood with an allowance. For these very words "when" or "never" have a meaning that relates to time, whereas the statements made regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all eternity. For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds the comprehension not only of temporal but even of eternal intelligence; while other things which are not included in it [2966] are to be measured by times and ages. This Son of God, then, in respect of the Word being God, which was in the beginning with God, no one will logically suppose to be contained in any place; nor yet in respect of His being "Wisdom," or "Truth," or the "Life," or "Righteousness," or "Sanctification," or "Redemption:" for all these properties do not require space to be able to act or to operate, but each one of them is to be understood as meaning those individuals who participate in His virtue and working.
[2961] Ex nullis substantibus.
[2962] 1 John i. 5.
[2963] Cf. Heb. i. 3.
[2964] Cf. Heb. i. 3.
[2965] Quae quidem quamvis intellectu multa esse dicantur.
[2966] Quae sunt extra Trinitatem.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/principles.asp?pg=55
