41. The very statement of the name as our religion
states it gives us a clear insight into the fact. For since it is
condemned to say that the Father and the Son are two Gods, and it is
also accursed to deny that the Son is God, any opinion as to the
substance of the one being different from that of the other in
asserting two Gods is excluded. For there is no other essence,
except that of God the Father, from which God the Son of God was born
before time. For since we are compelled to confess God the
Father, and roundly declare that Christ the Son of God is God, and
between these two truths lies the impious confession of two Gods:
They must on the ground of their identity of nature and name be one in
the kind of their essence if the name of their essence is necessarily
one.