God Has No Body
Tatian the Syrian
Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and He himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit [Jn 4:24], not pervading matter, but the maker of material spirits and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being himself the Father of visible and invisible things [Address to the Greeks 4 (c. A.D. 170)].
Athenagoras of Athens
That we are not atheists—as we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended only by the understanding and the reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is kept in being—I have sufficiently demonstrated [Plea for the Christians 10 (c. A.D. 177)].
St. Irenaeus of Lyons
For the Father of all is far from the affections and passions that operate among men. He is a simple being, not compounded together, without diverse members, and completely like and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good—just as the religious and pious speak about God [Against Heresies 2:13:3 (c. A.D. 189)].
St. Clement of Alexandria
The first substance is everything that subsists by itself, as a stone is called a substance. The second is a substance capable of increase, as a plant grows and decays. The third is animated and sentient substance, as an animal, a horse. The fourth is animate, sentient, rational substance, as man. Therefore each one of us is made of all, having an immaterial soul and a mind, which is the image of God [fragment from On Providence (c. A.D. 200)].
Being is in God. God is divine being, eternal and without beginning, unbodied and limitless, and the cause of what exists. Being is what wholly subsists. Nature is the truth of things, or their inner reality. According to others, it is the production of what has come into existence; and according to still others, it is the providence of God that causes the being, and the manner of being, in the things that are produced [ibid.].
What is God? “God,” as the Lord says, “is a spirit.” Now spirit is properly substance, incorporeal and without limit. What does not consist of a body, or whose existence is not according to breadth, length, and depth, is incorporeal. What has no place, what is wholly in all, and in each entire, and the same in itself, is limitless [ibid.].
No one can correctly express Him wholly. Because of His greatness He is ranked as the all, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are there any parts of Him. For the One is indivisible; therefore it is also infinite, and without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name [Miscellanies 5:12 (c. A.D. 207)].
Origen of Alexandria
Though our understanding is unable to behold God as He is, it knows the Father of the world from the beauty of His works and the comeliness of His creatures. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as being a body or existing in a body, but as an uncompounded intellectual nature, admitting in Himself no addition of any kind [Fundamental Doctrines 1:1:6 (c. A.D. 225)].
John, in his Gospel, when asserting that “no one has seen God at any time,” declares to all who are capable of understanding that there is no nature to which God is visible: He is not a being who is visible by nature, but escaped or baffled the view of a frailer creature; by the nature of His being it is impossible for Him to be seen [ibid. 1:1:8].
St. Hilary of Poitiers
First, it must be remembered that God is incorporeal. He does not consist of certain parts and distinct members, making up one body. For we read in the Gospel that God is a spirit: invisible, therefore, and an eternal nature, immeasurable and self-sufficient. It is also written that a spirit does not have flesh and bones. Of these, the members of a body consist, and of these, the substance of God has no need. God, however, who is everywhere and in all things, is all-hearing, all-seeing, all-doing, and all-assisting [Commentaries on the Psalms 129(130):3 (c. A.D. 365)].
Didymus the Blind
God is simple and of an incomposite and spiritual nature, having neither ears nor organs of speech. A solitary essence and without limit, He is composed of no numbers and parts [The Holy Spirit 35 (c. A.D. 371)].
St. Basil of Caesarea
The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence [Letters 234:1 (A.D. 376)].
St. Ambrose of Milan
[H]ow can there be any created nature in God? God has an uncompounded nature; nothing can be added to Him, and only what is divine is in His nature; filling all things, yet nowhere Himself compounded with anything; penetrating all things, yet Himself nowhere to be penetrated; present in all His fullness at one and the same moment, in heaven, in earth, in the deepest depth of the sea, to sight invisible, by speech not to be declared, by feeling not to be measured; to be followed by faith, to be adored with devotion; so that whatever title excels in depth of spiritual import, in setting forth glory and honor, in exalting power, this belongs to God [Faith 1:16:106 (c. A.D. 379)].
St. Gregory of Nyssa
But there is not, neither shall there be, in the Church of God a teaching such as that which can make One who is single and incomposite not only multiform and patchwork, but also the combination of opposites. The simplicity of the true faith assumes God to be what He is [Against Eunomius 1:42 (c. A.D. 382)].
Evagrius of Pontus
To those who accuse us of a doctrine of three gods, let it be stated that we confess one God, not in number but in nature. For what is said to be one numerically is not one absolutely, nor is it simple in nature. It is universally confessed, however, that God is simple and not made of parts [Dogmatic Letter on the Most Blessed Trinity 8:2 (c. A.D. 383)].
St. Augustine of Hippo
For in created and changeable things, what is not said according to substance must, by necessary alternative, be said according to accident. But in God nothing is said to be according to accident, because in Him nothing is changeable [The Trinity 5:5:6 (c. A.D. 408)].
St. Cyril of Alexandria
We are not by nature simple; but the divine nature, perfectly simple and incomposite, has in itself the abundance of all perfection and is in need of nothing.
[Dialogues on the Trinity 1 (c. A.D. 421)]
