The following is an indication of Dionysius’s line of defence against the five points raised against him, other matters which arose more particularly between him and his namesake of Rome being passed over.
(1) As to the charge of separating the Three Persons in the Trinity, he distinctly denies it: all the language he employs and the very names he gives imply the opposite: “Father” must involve “Son” and “Son” “Father”: “Holy Spirit” at once suggests His Source and the Channel.
(2) As to the eternity of the Son, he is equally emphatic. God was always the Father and therefore Christ was always the Son, just as, if the sun were eternal, the daylight would also be eternal.
(3) The charge of omitting the Son in speaking of the Father and vice versa is refuted by what is said under (1): the one name involves the other.
(4) Dionysius’s rejection or non-employment of the term ὁµοούσιος is less easily disposed of. He practically acknowledges that, as it is not a Scriptural word, he had _not_ used it, but at the same time that the figures he employed suggested a similar relationship, _e. g._ the figure of parent and child who are of one family (ὁµογενεῖς) or seed, root and plant which are of one kind (ὁµοφυῆ), and again source and stream, and in another place the word in the heart and the mind springing forth by the tongue (see p. 106): but for the unsatisfactoriness of this defence the reader should consult Bethune-Baker, _Early History of Christian Doctrine_, chap. viii. pp. 113 ff, who points out that Dionysius had not grasped the Western tradition of one _substantia_ (οὐσία) of Godhead existing in three Persons.
(5) But the most serious misunderstanding naturally arose from Dionysius speaking of the Son as ποίηµα (creature), and illustrating the word by the gardener with his vine and the shipwright with his boat. His defence is that though he had undoubtedly used such rather unsuitable figures somewhat casually, he had immediately adduced several others more suitable and apposite (such as those mentioned under (4) above). And he complains that not only here, but throughout, his accusers did not take his utterances as a whole, but slashed his writings about and made what sense of them they liked, not sincerely, but with evil intent. He tries further to explain that in his context ποιεῖν (make) was equivalent to γεννᾶν (beget), as of a Father, not a Creator, which he maintains is legitimate, but the defence is not very convincing all the same.