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Therefore all these names must be understood as common to deity as a
whole, and as containing the notions of sameness and simplicity and
indivisibility and union: while the names Father, Son and Spirit,
and cause, less and caused, and unbegotten and begotten, and
procession contain the idea of separation: for these terms do not
explain His essence, but the mutual relationship and manner of
existence.
When, then, we have perceived these things and are conducted from
these to the divine essence, we do not apprehend the essence itself but
only the attributes of the essence: just as we have not apprehended the
essence of the soul even when we have learnt that it is incorporeal and
without magnitude and form: nor again, the essence of the body when we
know that it is white or black, but only the attributes of the
essence. Further, the true doctrine teacheth that the Deity is
simple and has one simple energy, good and energising in all things,
just as the sun's ray, which warms all things and energises in each in
harmony with its natural aptitude and receptive power, having obtained
this form of energy from God, its Maker.
But quite distinct is all that pertains to the divine and benignant
incarnation of the divine Word. For in that neither the Father nor
the Spirit have any part at all, unless so far as regards approval and
the working of inexplicable miracles which the God-Word, having
become man like us, worked, as unchangeable God and son of God.
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