15. It is here insisted that the nature is indistinguishable and entirely similar. For since He is the Only-begotten Son of God and the image of the invisible God, it is necessary that He should be of an essence similar in species and nature. Or what distinction can be made between Father and Son affecting their nature with its similar genus, when the Son subsisting through the nature begotten in Him is invested with the properties of the Father, viz., glory, worth, power, invisibility, essence? And while these prerogatives of divinity are equal we neither understand the one to be less because He is Son, nor the other to be greater because He is Father; since the Son is the image of the Father in species, and not dissimilar in genus; since the similarity of a Son begotten of the substance of His Father does not admit of any diversity of substance, and the Son and image of the invisible God embraces in Himself the whole form of His Father’s divinity both in kind and in amount: and this is to be truly Son, to reflect the truth of the Father’s form by the perfect likeness of the nature imaged in Himself.

IV. “And if any one hearing this text, For as the Father hath life in Himself so also He hath given to the Son to have life in Himself10    John v. 26.; denies that the Son is like the Father even in essence, though He testifies that it is even as He has said; let him be anathema. For it is plain that since the life which is understood to exist in the Father signifies substance, and the life of the Only-begotten which was begotten of the Father is also understood to mean substance or essence, He there signifies a likeness of essence to essence.”

15. Item eo quod sicut Pater, ita ipse vitam habet in semetipso. Vita Patris et Filii, ipsa utriusque essentia. ---Indiscreta confirmatur indissimilisque natura. Cum enim unigenitus filius Dei, et imago invisibilis Dei sit; necesse est per speciem atque naturam similis essentiae sit. Aut quomodo inter Filium atque Patrem natura discernitur generis indifferentis; cum in his, quae Patris sunt propria, subsistens Filius 0491C per naturam in se genitam consistat, gloriae scilicet, 0492A virtutis, potestatis, invisibilitatis, essentiae? Atque ita in his paribus divinitatis bonis intelligitur neque ille minor esse, cum filius sit; neque hic praestare, cum pater sit: cum patri filius et coimaginatus ad speciem sit, nec sit dissimilis in genere; quia diversitatem substantiae geniti ex substantia patris filii similitudo non recipit, et omnem in se divinitatis paternae, qualis et quanta forma est, invisibilis Dei filius et imago complectitur: et hoc vere est esse filium, paternae scilicet formae veritatem coimaginatae in se naturae perfecta similitudine retulisse.

IV. «Et si quis audiens hoc, Quomodo enim Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic et filio dedit vitam habere in semetipso (Joan. V. 26); similem non dicat etiam juxta essentiam Filium Patri, testantem 0492B quod sic habet quemadmodum 469 dixit: anathema sit. Manifestum est enim, quod quae vita in Patre intelligitur, substantia significata; vita quoque Unigeniti, quae ex Patre generata est, essentia intellecta, ita similitudinem essentiae ad essentiam significat.»