Sixth Wednesday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

OT: 2 Samuel 12:1-11

NT: 2 Corinthians 11

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    the only Son of God,
    eternally begotten of the Father,
    God from God, Light from Light,
    true God from true God,
    begotten, not made,
    of one Being with the Father.
    

Above is the first part of the section of the Nicene Creed that deals with Jesus Christ. The Arian controversy is stamped all over it. You remember that Arius and his followers believed that Jesus was subordinate to God. The Nicene Fathers believed that Jesus and God were co-equal persons of the Trinity. The principal Nicene Fathers were Athanasius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea. The first thing to note is that these are all from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire and all were first language Greek. Although the Emperor was the Latin speaking Constantine, he saw the controversy as essentially Eastern. He didn't particularly care which side prevailed. He just wanted the controversy resolved. Eusebius of Caesarea, who had written a flattering biography of Constantine, was chiefly influential in choosing the bishops who were to come to the Council. He chose overwhelmingly bishops who favored the Nicene position.

 

Here are the major concepts in this section of the Creed:

 

1. Christ was begotten (gennethenta), not created or made (poiethenta) by God.  The distinction, which is very real and hugely significant in Greek, is difficult to define or describe in English. We understand words like created and made. Begotten is not a word we use in everyday speech. My best explanation would be something like "co-brought into being." The concept defies analogy.

 

2. "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God," might be described as anti-Arian overkill. The Nicene Fathers wanted to make sure we understood that Jesus was God--in every respect, in every way imaginable and unimaginable. In no way was Jesus anything less than God.

 

3. "Of one being with the Father." Here is another key point. Many have said that the whole history of the church hinged on a single letter, an iota. There was a choice of two Greek words homoiousian (with the iota. The first i in the word). This means "of similar substance," and was the Arian preferred word. The other word is homoousian (without the first iota, English i), This means "of the same substance". It was the preferred word for the Nicene Fathers. We Western Protestant English speakers have no closely corresponding words to these two. Moreover, we have no way fully to express the concept of ousia, nor of the Latin word substantia. "Being" is a better translation than "substance." The word ousia is a noun form of the verb "to be." English has no such word. Being doesn't really get it. The closest thing I can come up with would be "be-ness."

One thing we can learn from this is that God is not fully defineable. Perhaps our English word divinity best expresses what God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit consist of. 

Blessed Trinity,

Although your three-in-oneness defies all our logic and all our best efforts to explain it, we can feel it. Help us to feel it more deeply. Amen

Faithfully,

Christian