6. It may however be thought that the
account here given of the hypostasis does not tally with the sense of
the Apostle’s words, where he says concerning the Lord that He is
“the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His
person,”
Heb. i. 3. for if we have
taught hypostasis to be the conflux of the several properties; and if
it is confessed that, as in the case of the Father something is
contemplated as proper and peculiar, whereby He alone is known, so in
the same way is it believed about the Only-begotten; how then does
Scripture in this place ascribe the name of the hypostasis to the
Father alone, and describes the Son as form of the hypostasis, and
designated not by His own proper notes, but by those of the
Father? For if the hypostasis is the sign of several existence,
and the property of the Father is confined to the unbegotten being, and
the Son is fashioned according to His Father’s properties, then
the term unbegotten can no longer be predicated exclusively of the
Father, the existence of the Only-begotten being denoted by the
distinctive note of the Father.