Open Theism Discussion Board

The Coinherence

[perichoresis], circumincessio or coinherence of the Divine Three with each other, is the test at once against Arianism and Tritheism. Arius denies it in his Thalia, [anepimiktoi heautois hai hypostaseis]. It is the point of doctrine in which Eusebius so seriously fails. Vid. art. Eusebius. When Gibbon called this doctrine "perhaps the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss," he made as irrelevant and feeble a remark as could fall from an able man; as if any Catholic pretended that it was on any side of it comprehensible, and as if this was not the very enunciation in which the incomprehensibility lies; as we profess in the Creed, "neque confundentes personas, neque substantiam separantes." This doctrine is not the deepest part of the whole, but it is the whole, other statements being in fact this in other shapes. Each of the Three who speak to us from heaven is simply, and in the full sense of the word, God, yet there is but one God; this truth, as a statement, is enunciated most intelligibly when we say the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, being one and the same Spirit and Being, are in each other, which is the doctrine of the [perichoresis].

"They next proceed," says Athanasius, "to disparage our Lord's words, I in the Father and the Father in Me, saying 'How can the One be contained in the {73} Other and the Other in the One?' &c.; and this state of mind is consistent with their perverseness, who think God to be material, and understand not what is True Father and True Son ... When it is said, I in the Father and the Father in Me, They are not therefore, as these suppose, discharged into Each Other, filling the One the Other, as in the case of empty vessels, so that the Son fills the emptiness of the Father and the Father that of the Son, and Each of Them by Himself is not complete and perfect, (for this is proper to bodies, and therefore the mere assertion of it is full of impiety,) for the Father is full and perfect, and the Son is the Fulness of Godhead. Nor again, as God, by coming into the Saints, strengthens them, is He also thus in the Son. For He is Himself the Father's Power and Wisdom, and, by partaking ([metochei]) of Him, things generate are sanctified in the Spirit; but the Son Himself is not Son by participation ([metousiai], vid. art. Arian Tenets, supr. pp. 39-42), but is the Father's proper Offspring. Nor again is the Son in the Father, in the sense of the passage, In Him we live and move and have our being; for He, as being from the Fountain of the Father, is the Life, in which all things are both quickened and consist; for the Life does not live in Life, else it would not be Life, but rather He gives life to all things." Orat. iii. § 1. And again: "The Father is in the Son, since the Son is what is from the Father and proper to Him, as in the radiance the sun, and in the word the thought, and in the stream the fountain: for whoso thus contemplates the Son, contemplates what belongs to the {74} Father's Substance, and knows that the Father is in the Son. For whereas the essential character ([eidos]) and Godhead of the Father is the Being of the Son, it follows that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son." ibid. § 3.

In accordance with the above, Thomassin observes that by the mutual coinherence or indwelling of the Three Blessed Persons is meant "not a commingling as of material liquids, nor as of soul with body, nor as the union of our Lord's Godhead and humanity, but it is such that the whole power, life, substance, wisdom, essence, of the Father, should be the very essence, substance, wisdom, life, and power of the Son." de Trin. 28, 1. S. Cyril adopts Athan.'s language to express this doctrine. "The Son in one place says, that He is in the Father and has the Father again in Him; for what is simply proper ([idion]) to the Father's substance, by nature coming to the Son, shows the Father in Him," in Joan. p. 105. "One is contemplated in the other, and is truly, according to the connatural and consubstantial." de Trin. vi. p. 621. "He has in Him the Son, and again is in the Son, because of the identity of substance." in Joan. p. 168. Vid. art. Trinity; also, Spirit of God.

The [perichoresis] is the test of orthodoxy, as regards the Holy Trinity, against Arianism. This is seen clearly in the case of Eusebius, whose language approaches to Catholic more nearly than that of Arians in general. After all his strong assertions, the question recurs, Is our Lord a distinct being from God, as we are, or not? he answers in the affirmative, vid. {75} infra. art. Eusebius, whereas Catholics hold that He is literally and numerically one with the Father, and therefore His Person dwells in the Father's Person by an ineffable unity. And hence the strong language of Pope Dionysius, supr. vol. i. p. 45, "the Holy Ghost must repose and dwell in God," [emphilochorein toi theoi kai endiaitasthai]. And hence the strong figure of S. Jerome (in which he is followed by S. Cyril, Thesaur. p. 51), "Filius locus est Patris, sicut et Pater locus est Filii." in Ezek. iii. 12. Hence Athan. contrasts creatures, who are [en memerismenois topois], with the Son. vid. Serap. iii. 4. Accordingly, one of the first symptoms of reviving orthodoxy in the second school of Semi-Arians is the use, in the Macrostich Creed, of language of this character, viz., "All the Father embosoming the Son," they say, "and all the Son hanging and adhering to the Father, and alone resting on the Father's breast continually," supr. vol. i. p. 107.

St. Jerome's figure above might seem inconsistent with S. Athanasius's disclaimer of material images; but Athan. only means that such illustrations cannot be taken literally, as if spoken of physical subjects. The Father is the [topos] or locus of the Son, because when we contemplate the Son in His fulness as [holos theos], we only view the Father as Him in whom God the Son is; our mind for the moment abstracting His Substance which is the Son from Him, and regarding Him merely as Father. Thus Athan. [ten theian ousian tou logou henomenen physei toi heautou patri]. in illud Omn. 4. It is, however, but a mode of speaking in theology, and not a real emptying of Godhead from the Father, {76} if such words may be used. Father and Son are both the same God, though really and eternally distinct from each other; and Each is full of the Other, that is, their Substance is one and the same. This is insisted on by S. Cyril: "We must not conceive that the Father is held in the Son as body in body, or vessel in vessel; ... for the One is in the Other." [hos en tautoteti tes ousias aparallaktoi, kai tei kata physin henoteti te kai homoioteti]. in Joan. p. 28. And by S. Hilary: "Material natures do not admit of being mutually in each other, of having a perfect unity of a nature which subsists, of the abiding nativity of the Only-begotten being inseparable from the verity of the Father's Godhead. To God the Only-begotten alone is this proper, and this faith attaches to the mystery of a true nativity, and this is the work of a spiritual power, that to be, and to be in, differ nothing; to be in, yet not to be one in another as body in body, but so to be and to subsist, as to be in the subsisting, and so to be in, as also to subsist," &c. Trin. vii. fin.; vid. also iii. 23. The following quotation from S. Anselm is made by Petavius, de Trin. iv. 16 fin.: "Though there be not many eternities, yet if we say eternity in eternity, there is but one eternity ... And so whatever is said of God's Essence, if repeated in itself, does not increase quantity, nor admit number ... Since there is nothing out of God, when God is born of God ... He will not be born out of God, but remains in God."

"There is but one Face ([eidos], character) of Godhead, which is also in the Word, and One God, the Father, existing by Himself according as He is above all; and {77} appearing in the Son according as He pervades all things; and in the Spirit according as in Him He acts in all things through the Word. And thus we confess God to be One through the Trinity." Orat. iii. § 15. And so: "The Word is in the Father, and the Spirit is given from the Word." iii. § 25. "That Spirit is in us which is in the Word which is in the Father." ibid. "The Father in the Son taketh the oversight of all." § 36 fin.; vid. art. The Father Almighty, 2. "The sanctification which takes place from Father through Son in Holy Ghost." Serap. i. § 20; vid. also ibid. 28, 30, 31, iii. 1, 5 init. et fin., also Hil. Trin. vii. 31. Eulogius says, "The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father, having the Father as an Origin, and proceeding through the Son unto the creation." ap. Phot. cod. p. 865. Damascene speaks of the Holy Spirit as [dunamin tou patros proerchomenen kai en toi logoi anapauomenen], F. O. i. 7; and in the beginning of the ch. he says that "the Word must have Its Breath (Spirit) as our word is not without breath, though in our case the breath is distinct from our substance." "The way to knowledge of God is from One Spirit through the One Son to the One Father." Basil. de Sp. S. 47. "We preach One God by One Son with the Holy Ghost." Cyr. Cat. xvi. 4. "The Father through the Son with the Holy Ghost bestows all things." ibid. 24. "All things have been made from Father through the Son in Holy Ghost." Pseudo-Dion. de Div. Nom. i. p. 403. "Through Son and in Spirit God made all things consist, and contains and preserves them." Pseudo-Athan. c. Sab. Greg. 10. {78}

Since the Father and the Son are the numerically One God, it is but expressing this in other words to say that the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, for all They have and all They are is common to Each, excepting their being Father and Son. A [perichoresis] of Persons is implied in the Unity of Substance. This is the connection of the two texts so often quoted: "the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son," because "the Son and Father are one." And the cause of this unity and [perichoresis] is the Divine [gennesis]. Thus S. Hilary: "The perfect Son of a perfect Father, and of the Ingenerate God the Only-generate Offspring, (who from Him who hath all hath received all, God from God, Spirit from Spirit, Light from Light,) says confidently 'The Father in Me and I in the Father,' for as the Father is Spirit so is the Son, as the Father God so is the Son, as the Father Light so is the Son. From those things therefore which are in the Father, are those in which is the Son; that is, of the whole Father is born the whole Son; not from other, &c. ... not in part, for in the Son is the fulness of Godhead. What is in the Father, that too is in the Son; One from the Other and Both One (unum); not Two One Person ('unus,' vid. however the language of the Athan. Creed, which expresses itself differently after S. Austin,) but Either in Other, because not Other in Either. The Father in the Son because from Him the Son ... the Only-begotten in the Ingenerate, because from the Ingenerate the Only-generate," &c. Trin. iii. 4.

And so [ergazomenou tou patros, ergazesthai kai tou {79} huion]. in illud Omn. 1. "Cum luce nobis prodeat, In Patre totus Filius, et totus in Verbo Pater." Hymn. Brev. in fer. 2. Ath. argues from this oneness of operation the oneness of substance. And thus S. Chrysostom thinks it right to argue that if the Father and Son are one [kata ten dunamin], They are one also in [ousia]. in Joan. Hom. 61, 2. Tertullian in Prax. 22, and S. Epiphanius, Hær. 57, p. 488, seem to say the same on the same text. Vid. Lampe, Joan. x. 35. And so S. Athan. [trias adiairetos tei physei, kai mia tautes he energeia]. Serap. i. 28; [en thelema patros kai huiou kai boulema, epei kai he physis mia]. in illud Omn. 5. Various passages of the Fathers to the same effect, (e.g. of S. Ambrose, "si unius voluntatis et operationis, unius est essentiæ," de Sp. ii. 12 fin., and of S. Basil, [on mia energeia, touton kai ousia mia], of Greg. Nyss. and Cyril. Alex.) are brought together in the Lateran Council. Concil. Hard. t. 3, p. 859, &c. The subject is treated at length by Petavius, Trin. iv. 15, § 3.

As to the very word [perichoresis], Petavius observes, de Trin. iv. 16, § 4, that its first use in ecclesiastical writers was one which Arianism would admit of; its use to express the Catholic doctrine was later. {80}