125. What other reason can there be for their
unwillingness to have the Son spoken of as “ὁμοούσιος,”
of the same substance, with the Father, but that they are unwilling
to confess Him the true Son of
God? This is betrayed in the letter of Eusebius of
Nicomedia. “If,” writes he, “we say that the
Son is true God and uncreate, then we are in the way to confess Him to
be of one substance (ὁμοούσιος)
with the Father.” When this letter had been read before the
Council assembled at Nicæa, the Fathers put this word in their
exposition of the Faith, because they saw that it daunted their
adversaries; in order that they might take the sword, which their
opponents had drawn, to smite off the head of those opponents’
own blasphemous heresy. Cf. 1 Sam. xvii. 51.