20. By confused and involved expressions the heretics very frequently elude the truth and secure the ears of the unwary by the mere sound of common words, such as the titles Father and Son, which they do not truthfully utter to express a natural and genuine community of essence: for they are aware that God is called the Father of all creation, and remember that all the saints are named sons of God. In like manner they declare that the relationship between the Father and the Son resembles that between the Father and the universe, so that the names Father and Son are rather titular than real. For the names are titular if the Persons have a distinct nature of a different essence, since no reality can be attached to the name of father unless it be based on the nature of his offspring. So the Father cannot be called Father of an alien substance unlike His own, for a perfect birth manifests no diversity between itself and the original substance. Therefore we repudiate all the impious assertions that the Father is Father of a Son begotten of Himself and yet not of His own nature. We shall not call God Father for having a creature like Him in might and activity, but for begetting a nature of an essence not unlike or alien to Himself: for a natural birth does not admit of any dissimilarity with the Father’s nature. Therefore those are anathema who assert that the Father is Father of a nature unlike Himself, so that something other than God is born of God, and who suppose that the essence of the Father degenerated in begetting the Son. For so far as in them lies they destroy the very birthless and changeless essence of the Father by daring to attribute to Him in the birth of His Only-begotten an alteration and degeneration of His natural essence.

VIII. “And if any one understanding that the Son is like in essence to Him whose Son He is admitted to be, says that the Son is the same as the Father, or part of the Father, or that it is through an emanation or any such passion as is necessary for the procreation of corporeal children that the incorporeal Son draws His life from the incorporeal Father: let him be anathema.”

20. Haeretici dolose Patrem et Filium confitentes. Refelluntur Filium negantes a Patre alium ob similitudinem naturae.---Confusis permixtisque verbis veritatem frequentissime haeretici eludunt, et incautorum aures communium vocabulorum sono capiunt, Patrem et Filium solis nominibus, non etiam per veritatem naturalis et genuinae essentiae praedicantes: quia omnium creationum sciant dici Deum patrem, et sanctos quosque nuncupari meminerint Dei filios. Quo exemplo Patrem et Filium secundum communia universitatis 0496B nomina confitentur; ut Pater et Filius dicantur potius, quam sint. Dicuntur enim, non etiam sunt, si in his differentis essentiae discreta natura est: cum non possit paterni nominis veritas nisi ex naturae suae progenie acquiri. Pater itaque non potest alienae a se ac dissimilis substantiae pater dici; quia nativitas perfecta non habeat dissidentem originalis substantiae diversitatem. Repudiatur ergo haec omnis impietas, quae Patrem non secundum naturam suam geniti ex se filii patrem loquatur. Neque enim per id pater dicetur Deus, si habeat virtuti atque efficaciae suae similem creationem; sed si genuerit non dissimilis atque alienae a se essentiae naturam: quia diversitatem paternae naturae nativitas naturalis non recipit. Atque ob id anathema sunt, qui 473 Patrem 0496C asserant dissimilis sibi naturae patrem esse: ut ex Deo aliud quam Deus natus sit, et putent essentiam Patris a se in Filio degenerasse gignendo. Perimunt enim, quantum in se est, ipsam illam innascibilem Patris et indemutabilem essentiam, qui ausi sunt ei in Unigeniti sui nativitate dissimilitudinem degeneratae essentiae naturalis ingerere.

VIII. «Et si quis intelligens similem secundum essentiam Filium ejus, cujus et filius intelligitur; eumdem dicens Filium quem Patrem, aut partem Patris, aut per emanationem aut aliquam passionem, quemadmodum corporales filios, ab incorporali Patre incorporalem Filium subsistentem: anathema sit.»