The original Greek of the following translation is available in Hugo Laemmer’s Scriptorum Graeciae Orthodoxae Bibliotheca Selecta, tomus primus (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1866), pp. 611-621.
Epigraph XI
[611] The following patristic citations are presented, in which the fathers theologized both that the Son is proper to the Father, in that he is from his substance, and, conversely, that he is from him, in that he is proper to his substance. From these things anyone who wishes to may discern that the reason why the Spirit is likewise said to be proper to the Son is because he is from his substance; and again, conversely, that the Spirit is said to be from the Son’s substance, because he is [612] such a substance’s proper good. And this sheds light also upon the consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Son. For if it were upon some other basis of consubstantiality that the Spirit were proper to the Son and from the substance of the Son (such as one finds when there are two consubstantial things, but neither of them is through the other), then, in that case, the Son would also be proper to the Spirit, and from the Spirit’s substance, because such a consubstantiality is reversible — and this is something which neither any of the saints ever said, neither will it ever be said by anyone who chooses the way of piety and Orthodoxy. Now, a consubstantiality like this is not consubstantiality in the strict sense, as occurs when something exists naturally and substantially through or from some other thing, but an adjoining of one thing to another; and [613] the passage of Basil the Great here set forth testifies to that fact, the passage, namely, that plainly states that things that bear the relation of brothers to one another are not called consubstantial. And to these passages yet others are added, which show that the Son is consubstantial with the Father expressly for this reason, that he is from his substance. And to these yet others are adjoined, which show that the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son because he is from the Father through the Son.
[614] St. Cyril in his address to Nestorius, which begins, “Certain people, as I understand, are talking much nonsense about my position,” says:
“For as in the case of a man, and indeed of every other animal, what has come to be from it according to nature is proper to it, in the same way what is from the substance of God may be understood and said to be proper to God.”
11:1 ❖ Not found.
Athanasius the Great in his first Discourse against the Arians, which begins, “Of all other heresies which have departed from the truth it is acknowledged that they have but devised a madness, and their irreligiousness has long since become notorious,” says:
“For since the Word is proper by nature to God’s substance, he is both from him and in him.”
11:2 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 31, PG 26, 212 B.
[615] The same father in the same discourse says:
“He is the Father’s true, authentic Son by nature, proper to his substance; he is not a creature or a work, but the proper offspring of the Father’s substance, and the power and true image of the Father’s substance.”
11:3 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria; the first clause of this is found in Oratio i contra Arianos 9 (PG 26, 28 D); the rest of the citation may allude to the rest of that paragraph, where Athanasius cites Arius and implies that one should accept as true the opposite of what Arius is saying.
And again, in the same discourse:
“Proper to the Father is the Son who is in his bosom.”
11:4 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio i contra Arianos 56; PG 26, 129 A.
And again:
“It ought to be clear that, since God is maker, he also has the creative Word, not from without, but as proper to himself.”
11:5 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 2; PG 26, 152 A.
And a long way after this, in the same work:
“The Word, therefore, is not a creature, but is alone proper to the Father.”
11:6 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 20; PG 26, 189 B.
[616] And a little after this, in the same work:
“Since he is not a creature, but the proper offspring of the substance of the worshipful God, and is the Son by nature, for this reason he is worshipped and is believed to be God.”
11:7❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 24; PG 26, 197 A.
And a little afterwards:
“He is not foreign, but proper to the Father’s substance.”
11:8 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 32; PG 26, 216 B.
And a little afterwards:
“For we see the Word always existing and being from him and proper to the substance of him whose Word he is.”
11:9 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 33; PG 26, 217 A.
And a little after this:
“Like our own word, he is from him, and is not something made, nor like the word of men.”
11:10 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio ii contra Arianos 36; PG 26, 224 B-C. Note that the text in Migne is fuller, and makes more sense than this citation; it is possible that something has fallen out. The passage in Migne reads: “For just as our own proper word is from us, and is not a work from outside us, so also the Word of God is proper to him, from himself, and is not a creature, nor like the word of men.”
And a little after this:
“He who believes in the Son believes in the Father; for he believes in him who is proper to the Father’s substance.”
11:11 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio iii contra Arianos 6; PG 26, 333 Α-Β.
And a little after this:
“For if the Word [617] were not the proper offspring of the Father’s substance, like the ray of a light, but had the Son been different from the Father in nature, it would have sufficed that the Father alone should give.”
11:12 ❖ Athanasius of Alexandria, Oratio iii contra Arianos 12; PG 26, 345 B.
Basil the Great in his Letter to the Canonicae, which begins, “As much as we were troubled earlier by the sad report that resounded in our ears,” says:
“Since then the Father is light without beginning, and the Son begotten light, but each of them light and light; they would rightly say ‘consubstantial,’ in order to set forth the equal dignity of the nature. For things that bear the relation of brothers to each other are not said to be consubstantial, as some people suppose; but when both the cause and that which has existence from the cause exist of the same nature, they are called ‘consubstantial.’”
11:13 ❖ Basil of Caesarea, Epistola 52.2; PG 32 393 B-C.
[618] The same father, in the oration that begins, “Judaism fights with Hellenism,” says:
“For we do not say that Father and Son are things bearing the relation of ‘brothers’ to one another; but we confess Father and Son, and the identity of the substance, since the Son is from the Father, not made at his command, but begotten from his nature.”
11:14 ❖ Basil of Caesarea, Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos, 4; PG 31, 605 B.
St. Cyril on the text, “But when the Comforter is come” (John 15:26):
“Therefore in saying that we received, “not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God” (1 Cor 2:12), it was not the Only-begotten who taught this to the world, but the Holy Spirit who exists of the divine substance.”
11:15 ❖ Not found. There may be some corruption to the text, which, as given, is not very cogent.
[619] The same father, on the text, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will” (John 6:38), says:
“For the fact that the Son has been begotten from the Father will compel us, even if we are unwilling, to ascribe consubstantiality to him.”
11:16 ❖ Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarii in Joannem IV.1, in: P. E. Pusey, ed., Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini in D. Joannis evangelium, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1872), p. 494.
The same father in the first book of his Dialogues with Hermias says:
“For if in fact the Son is truly consubstantial with the Father, he is by nature and substantially from him and in him.”
11:17 ❖ Cyril of Alexandria, De SS. Trinitate dialogus i, PG 75, 693 C.
The same father in the third book of his Dialogues with Hermias says:
“There is absolutely nothing, therefore, that stands in the way of us surmising and thinking truly that, since according to us the Son sprang up from the very substance of God the Father, he would not be thought to exist as other than him, so far as natural identity is concerned.”
11:18 ❖ Cyril of Alexandria, De SS. Trinitate dialogus iii, PG 75, 849 B.
[620] In the passage where St. Maximus expounds what the Prophet Zechariah means by the golden candlestick and the candelabra that is upon it (Zech ch. 4), he states:
“For just as the Holy Spirit, by nature, according to substance, exists from God the Father, [so he] proceeds substantially, in an ineffable way, through the begotten Son.”
11:19 ❖ Maximus the Confessor, Quaestio LXIII ad Thalassium, PG 90, 672 C. Fuller citation at Epig. 1:57.
St. Cyril in book two of his Dialogues with Hermias:
“You will address as Holy Spirit the one who is shed forth naturally from the Father through the Son, and who indicates to us his own proper existence as though by the figure of an exhalation from the mouth; and in this way you will worship as one and consubstantial the nature that rules over all things, maintaining clear and unconfused the property of the three hypostases, in their own proper existences.”
11:20 ❖ Cyril of Alexandria, De SS. Trinitate dialogus ii, PG 75, 421 D – 424 A.
[621] In book six of his Dialogues with Hermias, the same father says, as though advancing the conversation by way of a question to Hermias:
“To whom do we say that the Holy Spirit is proper? Is it only of God the Father, or is it also of the Son? Or does he belong to each of them separately, and to both together, as he is one thing from the Father through the Son on account of the identity of the substance?”
Then Hermias: “That’s what I would say.”
Again the Saint: “You are right, my friend, and I admire your sagacity, and I would say that your opinion expressed upon this matter is entirely in keeping with the divinely inspired Scriptures.”
11:21 ❖ Cyril of Alexandria, De SS. Trinitate dialogus vi, PG 75, 1009 B.
De unione ecclesiarum 
