Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J. F.

Buch: The Way to Nicea

Titel: The Way to Nicea

Stichwort: homoousion; Eusebius (Anhänger des Arius): Brief an Paulinus; eg: Dialektik: Geist körperhaft - Geist rationalistisch

Kurzinhalt: nor do we believe, that the one infinite (unbegotten) being was divided in two, or that anything at all happened to him, that can happen only to bodies. There is one who is unbegotten,

Textausschnitt: 3. Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who had enjoyed great influence at the court of the Emperor Licinius, was more a politician than a theologian. He was a friend and supporter of Arius, having been a fellow-student of his at the school of Lucian of Antioch. He died in 341 or 342. For editions and studies of his writings see Altaner, p. 240. (Fs)

73b Among the extant writings of Eusebius there is a letter (written about 321-22) to Paulinus, bishop of Tyre, in which he said:

"We heard nothing, my Lord, about two infinite (unbegotten) beings; neither did we learn, nor do we believe, that the one infinite (unbegotten) being was divided in two, or that anything at all happened to him, that can happen only to bodies. There is one who is unbegotten, and one who is truly begotten of him, but not begotten of his substance, and in no way unbegotten. He was made, totally different in nature and in power, though constituted in a perfect likeness to the nature and the power of him who made him. We believe that the manner of his coming to be is not only beyond the power of words to express, but also beyond the capacity of any mind, whether human or superhuman, to grasp in thought. We are not affirming here what we have thought out for ourselves, but what we have learned from scripture. For we learned that he was created, constituted and born in his substance, in nature immutable and ineffable, and in the likeness of his maker, as the Lord himself says: 'God created me, the beginning of all his ways; before all ages he constituted me, and before all the hills he begot me' (Prov 8, 22). But if he had come out of the Father, in the sense that he was of the Father, namely, as a part of him or an outflow of his substance, then it would not be right to say that he had been established or constituted in being. ...".1

Kommentar (11/12/07): "... that can happen only to bodies." Dialektik zwischen Geist, irgendwie körperlich gedacht (Tertullian), und Geist, rationalistisch gedacht. das Homoousion ist für den Rationalisten undenkbar, weil er letztlich über das "Körperliche" nicht hinauszugehen vermag.

73c Holding such a view, Eusebius-and with him four other bishops, Theognis of Nicea, Maris of Chalcedon, Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais-was unwilling to subscribe to the formula of Nicea, because it contained the word homoousion. Socrates explains their reasoning thus:

"They said that 'consubstantial' applies to what comes out of something else, either as a part of it, or as an outflow, or as an eruption from it. By eruption, as shoots sprout from roots; by outflow, as children come from parents; by division, as two or three philae are taken from a lump of gold. In none of these ways, they asserted, did the Son of God come from the Father, and therefore they could not assent to that teaching. ...".1 (notabene)