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Dogmatic Development Three:

Marius Victorinus and Consubstantiality The Co-Equality of Father and Son

(Circa 281/291-370 A.D.)

“(3) The doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father.

“This was affirmed against Arianism at Nicaea, where the concept—if not as yet the actual term—homoousios [a philosophically defined term that was borrowed from the Enneads of the pagan philosopher Plotinus] (...) as applied to the eternal Son was amply vindicated.  As Athanasius taught, in jealous regard for the divineness of the Christian incarnation and redemption, there was an absolute likeness between the Father and the Son, and also a co-inherence or mutual immanence (...) of their Persons [Jn 17:21]”  (Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, p. 459).

“It is interesting to note that the principal term for substance in the writings of Aristotle is ousia, a word which in earlier Greek writers means “property” in the legal sense of the word, that which is owned.  (This sense is familiar in English in the old-fashioned expression “a man of substance.”)  The word ousia also occurs in philosophical writings before Aristotle as a synonym for the Greek word physis [nature], a term which can mean either the origin of a thing, its natural constitution or structure, the stuff of which things are made, or a natural kind or species.  The Latin word substantia, from which the English term [substance] is derived, is a literal translation of the Greek word hypostasis [usually translated person in the New Testament] (“standing under”).  This term acquired its philosophical connotations in later Greek and occurs principally in controversies among early Christian theologians about the real nature of Christ....” (Substance and Attribute, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, p. 36).

“Thus, what the Greeks call nature [physis or physica, i.e. physics or natural philosophy.  See Catherine Osborne, Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy:  Hippolytus of Rome and the Presocratics, Cornell University Press, 1987, pp. 29, 387] , Victorinus calls substance [substantia], and what the Greeks call hypostasis, Victorinus calls existence.  Apparently a substance has individuality by the character of its action, and so action is self-revelatory.  The term consubstantial is used by Victorinus to safeguard the divine equality.  But even substantia although the common name for Father, Son and Spirit, may be used as a synonym for existentia [existence], for in Victorinus the common names are also the predominant names of each of the Three.  Indeed, he tries to show that each divine Person is the Three, rather than following the more usual way of arguing that all Three are one or even that one God is in three Persons” (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, p. 42). 

“The use to which Victorinus put the word substantia as referring primarily to the pure “To Be [i.e. pure Act transcending every form, the potentiality of the being—the One]” of God necessitated his use of a new word existentia to refer to esse [i.e. to be, a being actualized—the Many or the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit revealed] that is determined by a form.  Of course, substantia is not understood by him in the Aristotelian sense of what is opposed to accidents and qualities.  Substance for him means a concrete being, and this seems to be one of his Plotinian reminiscences (Enn(eads), 6.1.3; 12.8; ch. adv. Ar. I 30).  This may be the individual substance later used by Boethius to define person.  For Victorinus, however, this substantia was pure esse (cf. Adv. Ar. II 4,23), and therefore designated the commonness of the Three Persons.  It is thus used to designate Esse improperly, but the word Esse is used as the proper name of the Father” (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, p. 41).

“In view of the above, Victorinus found it necessary to make use of existentia to indicate what stands outside the commonness.  Hence, existentia means “to be” [the Many] with form or determination and is used to distinguish each of the Three:  one substance [the One] and three existences [the Many].  And so when he is speaking strictly of his own Trinitarian doctrine, Victorinus has bypassed hypostasis and persona (used freely by Hilary of Poitiers [bishop of Poitiers ca. 315-367 A.D.]), perhaps to keep his doctrine distinguished from the Plotinian triad and perhaps because the Sabellians conceived God as triprosopos (of three [non-distinct] persons).  It is not quite certain that Victorinus is the first to use subsistentia.  He generally uses “subsistence” to denote the individual indicated by existentia; thus, subsistentia is properly used of the Son because it designates Esse cum forma (“To Be” with Form)”  (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, pp. 41-42).

The Nicaean Council (325 A.D.)

“At Nicaea (A.D. 325) the Council Fathers had expressed in the language of reason [philosophy] what Scripture said of the Son’s equality [homoousion in Greek Neoplatonic Philosophy and consubstantialitas in Latin Neoplatonic Philosophy and consubstantial in English] with the Father and, his status as true Son really begotten by the Father in the way in which spirits beget.  That the Son is consubstantial [although they had no philosophic construct for the concept] with the Father was declared at the Council of Nicaea.  It does not follow that this statement was clearly understood.  There was no ready-made philosophy to clarify it.  The word homoousion appears in the Enneads of Plotinus [a third century Chaldean Philosopher], but there it refers to the Intelligible Triad [the Many], not to the One.  Victorinus translated the Greek word homoousion [homoousion is a philosophic construct and as such is not found in the New Testament] used at Nicaea into the Latin word consubstantialitas.  The word homoousion was used to express the relations of the Father and the Son within the Godhead in order to exclude the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of the Son.  Arius [ca. 250-336], a Libyan by birth and ordained at Alexandria, championed a subordinationist [hierarchical] teaching which was condemned, first at Alexandria, then at Nicaea.  Arianism held that the Son of God was not eternal but created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world; although a changeable creature, the Son was dignified with the title of Son because of his righteousness.  The Arians divided into three groups:  the Anomoeans (dissimilar) spoke of the Son as unlike the Father; the Homoeans (similar) spoke of the Son as like the Father in all things according to the Scriptures; the semi-Arians or Homoiousians (of similar substance [with the Father]) thought that similarity rather than consubstantiality left more room for distinctions in the Godhead”  (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, pp. 10-11). 

In a footnote the author adds:  “Three Greek roots underlie the terminology, ancient and modern, concerned with the Son’s relationship with the Father. (1) homo, same; (2) homoi- (or homeo-), similar; (3) ousia, being (as a noun) [in the Greek New Testament ousia is used either as a masculine, feminine or neuter present participle of the verb eimi but not as a noun] or substance.  The first root plus the third yields homoousios-homoousion, signifying identity in substance [with the consequence that the gods are co-eternal and co-equal].  The second root plus the third yields homoiousios-homoiousion or homoeousios-homoeousion, signifying similarity in substance [with the consequence that one God is subordinate to another—in divine hierarchical fashion].  These terms apply either to the Son himself or to a doctrinal position concerning him in relation to the Father.  The theologians and their followers who espouse these terms with their theological implications are called Homoousians, those holding identity in substance [Athanasius of Alexandria and his supporters], or Homoiousians (Homoeousians), those holding similarity in substance [Arius of Alexandria and his supporters].  Furthermore, the ousia element can be left out, yielding Homoeans (Homoians).  Those who hold total dissimilarity in substance are called Anomoians, a word formed by combining a negative prefix with homo”  (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, p. 10).  

The Syncretistic Nature of the Nicaean and Athanasian Creeds

“The trinitarian doctrine of the Christians was neither an outright adoption of the philosophic triads popular among the Middle and Neoplatonists, nor was it any mere adaptation of triadic thought.  At the moment of the Nicene formulation the acceptance of the Christian dogma of the Trinity meant a rejection of the philosophic triads as they were understood.  Arius did not rise to this rejection.  The statements he offered were reasonable [that is, they conformed completely with recognized and accepted Neoplatonic principles of logic] but were contrary to the mystery revealed in Scripture [actually, contrary to the Chaldean mysteries].  Victorinus found nothing ready at hand within his philosophical milieu that did not require some good, hard, creative interpretation on his part.  When he tried to interpret, he turned to the tradition of Neoplatonism, where many of the best insights in Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism had come together.  In some Neoplatonic source he found a reconciliation of Plotinus and Numenius, and it was Numenius who had influenced the ‘Chaldaean Oracles’ “  (Clark, Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, pp. 17-18).

The Nicaean Creed Violated an Absolute Principle of Neoplatonism

“...in quarrels concerning the nature of the Trinity—which set Arius and his supporters, who believed that the Son was a creation of the Father, against orthodox [Catholic] Christians, such as St. Athanasius [of Alexandria, Egypt] and the Cappadocians [of Asia Minor], who accepted the consubstantiality of the persons—it seems that the question posed is completely alien to philosophy.  Generation and procession, words used by the Christians to designate relations between the Son or Spirit and the Father, by no means retain the precise meaning that they have for Plato and the Platonists.  This meaning, if preserved, would imply a doctrine such as Arianism since one of the absolute principles of Neo-Platonism is that the reality that proceeds is inferior to the reality from which it proceeds.  But belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ contradicts this principle and prescribes a dogma that no longer has the slightest affiliation with philosophical speculation”  (Brehier, The History of Philosophy:  The Hellenistic and Roman Age, pp. 245-246). 

Relating the Three Dogmatic Developments to the Trinitarian Formulation:

(3) The Consubstantiality of the Son

“There are then (as the statement may run) three Persons (Hypostases) or real distinctions in the unity of the divine Nature or Substance, which is Love.  The Persons are co-equal, inasmuch as in each of them the divine Nature is one and undivided, and by each the collective divine attributes are shared.  As a ‘person’ in Trinitarian usage is more than a mere aspect of being, being a real ground of experience and function,  each divine Person, while less than a separate individuality, possesses His own hypostatic character or characteristic property (...).” 

(1) The Philosophic Logos of the Greeks

“The hypostatic characters of the Persons may be viewed from an internal and an external standpoint, i.e. with reference to the inner constitution of the Godhead or to the Godhead as related to the cosmos or world of manifestation. “

(2) The Philosophic Eternal Generation of the Logos 

“Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic character of the Father is ingeneration (...), of the Son; filiation, of the Spirit procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’ [Westminster Confession, ii,3].  Viewed ab extra (for Love functions externally as well as internally, is centrifugal as well as centripetal [Cf. S.A. McDowall, Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity, Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.], the hypostatic character of the Father is made manifest in creation, whereby a world is provided for beings who should be capable of experiencing fellowship with the divine Love; the hypostatic character of the Son in redemption, whereby the alienating power of sin is overcome; and the hypostatic character of the Spirit in sanctification, whereby human nature is quickened and renewed and shaped to the divine likeness.  Yet, while this is said, as there is no separation in the unity of the Godhead, so the one God is manifested in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; moreover, each of the Persons as sharing the divine attributes is active in the threefold work, if with varying stress of function.  Verily the doctrine of the Trinity exit in mysterium”  (Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pp. 459-460).

Dogmatic Development Four:

Basil of Caesarea Cappadocia Gregory of Nyssa Cappadocia Gregory of Nazianzus Cappadocia

(Circa 330-395 A.D.)

“(4) The doctrine of eternal distinctions within the divine Nature, according to the formula of ‘three Hypostases [persons in the philosophic, not the natural or legal sense] in one Ousia or Substance’ (...).

“To the Cappadocian theologians (Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa) we owe the final settlement, for which this formula stands, of the dogmatic terminology.  In distinguishing between hypostasis and ousia, the former denoting a real principle of distinction [but not a being with personality] within the divine Nature and the latter the divine Substance or Nature (ousis) itself, they sought to lift the orthodox doctrine out of the Sabellian modalism which recognized no distinction in reality between the Father and the Son, so impairing the significance of the historical Christ, and at the same time to vindicate it against the opposite error of heathen polytheism (tritheism) [the belief in three indistinguishable Gods in the Godhead], of which it was so often accused.  Moreover, the Cappadocians gave to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the definite place and character which He now possesses in Eastern orthodoxy, as being also a Hypostasis in the Godhead, consubstantial with the Father, and proceeding from the Father through the Son” (Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, p. 459).

Concerning the error of linking a plurality of Gods in the Godhead with heathen polytheism, remember what we have already studied.  It is not polytheistic to believe in more than one God in the Godhead.  Notice again:

“The notion of unity has appeared in Chapter IV, where I discussed some theoretical implications of Aristotle’s theology.  It remains to consider how this notion was actually treated by the early Christian writers and their pagan contemporaries; and this for two reasons; first, because unity was considered to be an important property, or even the distinctive property, of the godhead; and secondly, because discussions of God’s ‘substance’ were increasingly influenced by the claim that one substance was common to the three divine persons.

“Christians of course discovered the notion of unity in the Bible; the Old Testament claims that God is one; the New Testament endorses this claim, but also lays down that there is only one Lord Christ, and refers to the unity of the Christian fellowship in the Holy Spirit.  There is no need to review this biblical material, which is no doubt familiar; in particular, the emergence of monotheism in Israelite and other religions has been thoroughly investigated.  But it is perhaps worth noting that there seem to be in principle two ways in which a monotheistic belief can replace an earlier polytheism.  Polytheism rarely implies a strictly equal society of gods; some divinities will normally be greater and more powerful than others.  Thus it is possible for one divine being to take the lead so decisively that the others are degraded to the status of attendant spirits, or of mere manifestations or powers of the supreme god.  He then is ‘the one God’ in the sense of the only being who can rightfully claim this dignity” (Stead, Divine Substance, pp. 180-181).

Relating the Four Dogmatic Developments to the Trinitarian Formulation:

(4) The Philosophic Eternal Distinctions of Pater, Logos and Pneuma in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“There are then (as the statement may run) three Persons (Hypostases) or real distinctions in the unity of the divine Nature or Substance [ousia], which is Love.”

(3) The Philosophic Consubstantiality of the Logos in the Trinitarian Formulation      

“The Persons are co-equal, inasmuch as in each of them the divine Nature is one and undivided, and by each the collective divine attributes are shared.  As a ‘person’ in Trinitarian usage is more than a mere aspect of being, being a real ground of experience and function, each divine Person, while less than a separate individuality, possesses His own hypostatic character or characteristic property (...).” 

(1) The Logos of Greek Philosophy in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“The hypostatic characters of the Persons may be viewed from an internal and an external standpoint, i.e. with reference to the inner constitution of the Godhead or to the Godhead as related to the cosmos or world of manifestation. “

(2) The Philosophic Eternal Generation of the Logos in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic character of the Father is ingeneration (...), of the Son filiation, of the Spirit procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’ [Westminster Confession, ii,3].  Viewed ab extra (for Love functions externally as well as internally, is centrifugal as well as centripetal [Cf. S.A. McDowall, Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity, Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.], the hypostatic character of the Father is made manifest in creation, whereby a world is provided for beings who should be capable of experiencing fellowship with the divine Love; the hypostatic character of the Son in redemption, whereby the alienating power of sin is overcome; and the hypostatic character of the Spirit in sanctification, whereby human nature is quickened and renewed and shaped to the divine likeness.  Yet, while this is said, as there is no separation in the unity of the Godhead, so the one God is manifested in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; moreover, each of the Persons as sharing the divine attributes is active in the threefold work, if with varying stress of function.  Verily the doctrine of the Trinity exit in mysterium”  (Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pp. 459-460).

Dogmatic Development Five: St. Augustine of Hippo (Circa 354-430 A.D.)

“(5)  The doctrine of the double procession from the Father and the Son (the filioque clause, added to the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed on canonically indefensible grounds)

“—a doctrine which represents the difference between Western orthodoxy and Eastern (with its view of procession as from the Father alone, the unitary source of deity); which was conceived, in the interests of the divine unity, as counteractive of the subordinationism contained in the Eastern formulas; and which under Augustine’s influence found its way into the Athanasian Creed. Curiously enough, the Athanasian Creed (so called) thus differs theologically from the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed in its original Eastern form on a point on which Athanasius’s own sympathies would have lain with the Eastern symbol.  The Greek (Athanasian) theology found the divine unity, in the Father, the one fountainhead of Son and the Spirit as subordinate to the Father.  The Roman (Augustinian) theology found the divine unity in the divine Nature or Substance, with the result that, as the distinctions between the three Hypostases or Persons became weakened under the doctrine of the co-inherence, so attractive to the non-metaphysical Westerns, there remained no proper foothold—so to speak—for the doctrine of subordination”   (Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, p. 459).

Relating the Five Dogmatic Developments to the Trinitarian Formulation:

(4) The Philosophic Eternal Distinctions of Pater, Logos and Pneuma in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“There are then (as the statement may run) three Persons (Hypostases) or real distinctions in the unity of the divine Nature or Substance [ousia], which is Love.”

(3) The Philosophic Consubstantiality of the Logos in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“The Persons are co-equal, inasmuch as in each of them the divine Nature is one and undivided, and by each the collective divine attributes are shared.  As a ‘person’ in Trinitarian usage is more than a mere aspect of being, being a real ground of experience and function, each divine Person, while less than a separate individuality, possesses His own hypostatic character or characteristic property (...).” 

(1) The Logos of Greek Philosophy in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“The hypostatic characters of the Persons may be viewed from an internal and an external standpoint, i.e. with reference to the inner constitution of the Godhead or to the Godhead as related to the cosmos or world of manifestation.” 

(2) The Philosophic Eternal Generation of the Logos in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic character of the Father is ingeneration (...), of the Son; filiation, of the Spirit procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’ [Westminster Confession, ii, 3].” 

(5) The Philosophic Double Procession in the Trinitarian Formulation 

“Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic character of the Father is ingeneration (...), of the Son; filiation, of the Spirit procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’ [Westminster Confession, ii, 3].”

Viewed ab extra (for Love functions externally as well as internally, is centrifugal as well as centripetal [Cf. S.A. McDowall, Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity, Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.], the hypostatic character of the Father is made manifest in creation, whereby a world is provided for beings who should be capable of experiencing fellowship with the divine Love; the hypostatic character of the Son in redemption, whereby the alienating power of sin is overcome; and the hypostatic character of the Spirit in sanctification, whereby human nature is quickened and renewed and shaped to the divine likeness.  Yet, while this is said, as there is no separation in the unity of the Godhead, so the one God is manifested in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; moreover, each of the Persons as sharing the divine attributes is active in the threefold work, if with varying stress of function.  Verily the doctrine of the Trinity exit in mysterium”  (W. Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pp. 459-460). 

The Chaldean Mystery of the One and the Many 

“What lends a special character to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is its close association with the distinctive Christian view of divine incarnation.  In other religions [”...we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahma, Siva, and Visnu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, constituting a divine family, like the Father, Mother, and Son in mediaeval Christian pictures” (W. Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, p. 458)] and religious philosophies [”...the Neo-Platonic view of the Supreme or Ultimate Reality, which was suggested by Plato in the Timaeus; e.g., in the philosophy of Plotinus the primary or original Realities (...) [Enn(eads), v.1, cited by C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality (Gifford Lectures), London, 1918, p. 43] are triadically represented as the Good or (in numerical symbol) the One, the Intelligence or the One-Many, and the World-Soul or the One and Many.  The religious Trinity associated, if somewhat loosely, with Comte’s [the father of modern Sociology—modern humanism] philosophy might also be cited here:  the cultus of humanity as the Great Being, of space as the Great Medium, and of the earth as the Great Fetish [Comte’s view of the Chaldean Many].” 

While the philosophical connection of Trinitarianism with ancient Greece is openly acknowledged by both historical and theological authors, the true origin of that philosophy has been grossly overlooked and ignored.  Few have been honest or thorough enough in their research to trace this so-called “Western philosophy” back to its original roots in the ancient Near East.  However, sufficient historical evidence can be found in reference libraries to show that the highly acclaimed philosophers of ancient Greece acquired their ideas of the nature of God and the Universe from the Magi of Persia, who in turn received these teachings from the Chaldeans.  This Chaldean connection is clearly revealed in a study of the life of the famous Greek philosopher Plato.

The Canaanite Ancestry of Plato

In 2189 B.C., Arcadius and Emathius, white sons of Canaan, began to move their peoples into Greece under the leadership of Eber, father of the Hebrews.  Emathius settled his people in the region of Emathia in Macedonia.  He is the father of the Hamathites (Gen 10:18).  According to Trogus, early Macedonia was made up of many different tribes.  Their names were Emathia, Paeonia and Pelasgoi (Trogus, VII,1).   By 1707 B.C., the sons of Emathia had migrated south from Macedonia and had settled in the Argolis of Peloponnese, where they became known as Achaeans.  The Achaeans settled with the Pelasgoi and Ionians in Attica, founding Athens under Cecrops in 1556 B.C.  Herodotus states that the Pelasgoi were also the ancestors of the Aeolians (Herodotus 12, 231).  As the Achaeans, Ionians and Pelasgoi freely mixed or co-habited the same regions, they are undoubtedly peoples of the same ancestor, Emathius.  In the 1100’s the Dorians [Midianites from Spain and Italy] forced the Ionians to migrate into what became Achaia Peloponnese. 

“Now these Ionians, during the time that they dwelt in the Peloponnese and inhabited the land now called Achaea [which was before the arrival of Danaus and Xuthus in the Peloponnese], were called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or ‘Pelasgi of the Sea-shore’; but afterwards, from Ion the son of Xuthus, they were called Ionians [western philosophy began with these Ionians in the sixth century B.C.  This beginning corresponds with the arrival of the Persians and the Magi]”  (Herodotus, 231).

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