(1.) ‘From the essence’ and ‘of one essence’ are materialist expressions, implying either that the Son is a separate part of the essence of the Father, or that there is some third essence prior to both.  This objection was a difficulty in the East, and still more in the West, where ‘essence’ was represented by the materializing word substantia, from which we get our unfortunate translation ’of one substance.’

(2.) ‘Of one essence’ is Sabellian.  This was true; and the defenders of the word did not seem to care if it was true.  Marcellus almost certainly used incautious language, and it was many years before even Athanasius was fully awake to the danger from the Sabellian side.

(3.) The words ‘essence’ and ‘of one essence’ are not found in Scripture.  This is what seems to have influenced the bishops most of all.

(4.) ‘Of one essence’ is contrary to church authority.  This also was true, for the word had been rejected as materializing by a large council held at Antioch in 269 against Paul of Samosata.  The point, however, at present raised was not that it had been rejected for a good reason, but simply that it had been rejected; and this is an appeal to church authority in the style of later times.  The question was one of Scripture against church authority.  Both parties indeed accepted Scripture as supreme, but when they differed in its interpretation, the Arians pleaded that a word not sanctioned by church authority could not be made a test of orthodoxy.  If tradition gave them a foothold (and none could deny it), they thought themselves entitled to stay; if Scripture condemned them (and there could be no doubt of that), Athanasius thought himself bound to turn them out.  It was on the ground of Scripture that the fathers of Nicaea took their stand, and the works of Athanasius, from first to last, are one continuous appeal to Scripture.  In this case he argues that if the disputed word is not itself Scripture, its meaning is.  This was quite enough; but if the Arians chose to drag in antiquarian questions, they might easily be met on that ground also, for the word had been used or recognised by Origen and others at Alexandria.  With regard to its rejection by the Syrian churches, he refuses all mechanical comparisons of date or numbers between the councils of Antioch and Nicaea, and endeavours to show that while Paul of Samosata had used the word in one sense, Arius denied it in another.

[Sidenote:  Hesitation of the council.]

The council paused.  The confessors in particular were an immense conservative force.  If Hosius and Eustathius had been forward in attacking Arianism, few of them can have greatly wished to re-state the faith which had sustained them in their trial.  Now the creed involved something like a revolution.  The idea of a universal test was in itself a great change, best softened as much as might be.  The insertion of a direct condemnation of Arianism was a still more serious step, and though the bishops had consented to it, they had not consented without misgiving.  But when it was proposed to use a word of doubtful tendency, neither found in Scripture nor sanctioned by church authority, it would have been strange if they had not looked round for some escape.