Victor Vitensis

“Therefore, the substance of the Father is designated as the Son by the prophetic oracles long ago, as Solomon says: For you showed your substance and sweetness, which you have for your sons (Wis. 16:21), which appeared to have flowed down to the people of Israel from heaven in the form and image of heavenly bread. The Lord Himself explained this in the Gospel, saying: Moses did not give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you bread from heaven (Jn. 6:32); clearly designating Himself as the bread when He says: I am the living bread which came down from heaven (Ibid. 41). Of whom also the prophet David says: Man ate the bread of angels (Ps. 77:25). For in order to show even more clearly the unity of substance and equality of divinity between the Father and the Son, He Himself says in the Gospel: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. And: I and the Father are one (Jn. 10:38, 30). This refers not only to the unity of will, but to one and the same substance.”

“From the books of the Old Testament and then also from those of the New, we are taught that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of a single substance. Indeed, the book of Genesis begins, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was invisible and shapeless, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters." He was the beginning, he who spoke to the Jews who had asked him who he was, saying, "The beginning, who speaks to you." The Spirit of God, then, moved over the waters as creator, sustaining the creation by the virtue of his power, so that, producing from them all the living species, he gave the heat of his own fire to the crude elements, and the nature of water (suggesting even then the mystery of baptism) received sanctifying power and for the first time brought forth animated bodies to life. David, inspired by God, testifies, "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were fixed, and by the Spirit of his mouth all of their power." See how rich his brief words are, and how he clearly returns to the mystery of unity: by "Lord" indicating the Father, indicating the Son with the term "Word" and designating the Holy Spirit with the expression "from the mouth of the Most High." And so the term "Word" would not be understood as the emanation of the voice, he says that the heavens were fixed through him. And so the term "Spirit" would not be understood as breath, he showed in him the fullness of the power of heaven. In fact, where there is power, there must be a person. By saying "all" he means not a power taken from the Father or from the Son but a power perfect in the Holy Spirit, not in such a way that he alone would have that which is in the Father and in the Son, but that he would have it fully, together with them both.”