The Eastern Orthodox Scholastics?

Some Quotes and Sources

For awhile now, I have been vaguely aware of the phenomenon of some sort of scholastic influence on a bygone era of Eastern Orthodox theology. I didn’t really look a bunch into it except into Macarius Bulgakov (due to Franzelin, Jugie, et al. frequently refuting his arguments for the Filioque).

Decided to do some digging and I came across some other figures. Really looking forward to collecting and reading these authors treatment on select topics since their treatments are, 1. More traditionally orthodox (i.e., not weird slop syntheses done by certain E-Orthodox), 2. Easier to evaluate, and 3. Systematic.

I thought it would be fun to post a few of their treatments on Divine Simplicity to show just how different their view of the matter is from many of the E-Orthodox. Interestingly, there is a mix of praise of and agreement with the Latin Scholastic tradition and condemnation of the same tradition from different authors (although, it seems that some of those authors who condemned did not understand clearly what they were condemning).

I would like to thank @blessedmikko and @stpetermogila from Twitter for their help in some leads on these figures, along with providing some helpful links to translations they have done.

I am not going to pay wall this because much of the research is due to their help and, well, that would be really weird. But, I do appreciate a subscribe from anyone who finds this helpful.

A helpful list is given in the New Catholic Encyclopedia

Russian theologians at this time excelled in theological manuals, and many of these were translated into Greek and used by the Greek Faculties. Popular Russian compendia that had great use in Greece included that of Antony Amphiteatrov, rector of the Academy of Kiev, Dogmatic Theology of the Eastern Catholic Church (Kiev 1848), and that of Macarius Bulgakov, Introduction to Orthodox Theology (St. Petersburg 1847). It was not long, however, before the Greek theologians were producing their own compendia. Nicolaus Damalas, Zikos Rhosis, Crestos Andrutsos, K. J. Dyovuniotis, D. S. Balanos, I. Mesoloras, Nectarios Kephalas, and Nicolaus Ambrazis all made useful compendia for use in Greek-speaking seminaries.

From a (non-sympathetic) Orthodox source,

The Church’s systematic preoccupation with the faith appears during the patristic period for the first time, especially with Origen (his work “On Principles”), and in a strictly organized way with Saint John the Damascene (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith). Ever since that time, this subject has continued to develop in the West during Medieval times (Thomas Aquinatus, SUMMA) and during the post-Reform period, with the blossoming of Confessional Theology, in which Orthodoxy (wrongly) participated (Mogila Confession, Cyril Lucareus, Dositheos etc). In later times (after Eugene Vulgaris), this phenomenon blossomed in the 19th century (Athanasios Parios “Epitome” 1806. Moschopoulos “Epitome of dogmatic and ethical theology”, 1851. Especially among the Russians, we note the Metropolitan Anthony, Makarios of Moscow – both widely acknowledged). In the 20th century, Z. Rossis is in the lead in Greece, with Ch. Androutsos as the central person; I. Karmiris and P. Trembelas follow, basically correcting Androutsos but still maintaining the same method and division. This branch was successfully cultivated in the Theological School of Chalki, by the Metropolitan of Myra, Chrysostom Constantinides. A new boost to Dogmatics was given by John Romanides, with his persistence that the character of the dogma entails the experience of it, and also his search for the patristic roots of the dogmas, as opposed to Western Theology. (https://www.oodegr.com/english/dogmatiki1/A1.htm)

Some Greeks have been listed here and Russians here, some in Western Languages here. There are other helpful articles on this website as well collecting links.

If anyone has links to digitized versions of these manuals, I would be very happy to have them. Thank you!

So, let’s get into a few cool examples.

Christos Androutsos, Dogmatics of the Eastern Church,

§ 12. The Attributes of God in General

It was said above that God is inaccessible to the human intellect, and that we are unable to render His incomprehensible concept by means of a definition. Nevertheless, whether by drawing conclusions from general revelation or by being instructed through supernatural Revelation, we ascribe to Him various attributes, calling Him just, holy, all-wise, and so forth. These attributes of God we call attributes (attributa), in contrast both to the properties of the three Persons (proprietates) and to the predicates by which God is characterized as the subject of various acts—such as Creator, Judge, and the like (praedicata).

There therefore arises the question: what is the nature of these attributes, and what is their relation both to the divine essence and to one another? First, as regards the nature of the attributes, one must decisively reject that crude view according to which the divine attributes are real distinctions within the essence of God, as though that essence were composed of parts or of locally separated domains. This view is clearly a consequence of accepting God as comprehensible; for if the essence of God were accessible to our knowledge, then naturally the attributes of God—within which is contained everything we know about God—would have to be assumed as existing in God as such. On this ground also stood Eunomius, who, while professing that God is wholly inaccessible to us, consistently admitted only one attribute, the unbegotten, as constituting the essence of God.

But the admission of many attributes in God corrupts the elementary and at the same time fundamental concept of God as a simple and absolute being, by dividing the divine essence and transforming God into a finite, composite, and imperfect being. On the other hand, the view that the divine attributes are merely fabrications of our intellect, revealing nothing of the divine essence and amounting to synonymous expressions—as was held by the philosophers of the Middle Ages known as “Nominalists” (Nominalismus)—is likewise unscriptural and untenable in every respect. Scripture and the Fathers, when they ascribe attributes to God—simplicity, infinity, love, and so forth—nowhere indicate that they accept these merely metaphorically or as synonymous and meaningless names.

If the divine names were only subjective conceptions of the divine essence, and if the appellations of God as holy and just did not signify that God is in reality just and holy, but only that we perceive Him as such, then the very notion of Revelation is immediately destroyed, religious feeling is nullified, and faith is deprived of all truth. The religious longing to form some conception of God cannot rest in the general and lifeless notion of God as absolute and infinite, but is directed toward God as a Father full of moral perfections.

Those who regard the divine attributes as mere representations raise objections to the opposing view, advancing the following arguments. The acceptance, they say, of real attributes in God (a) risks introducing something secondary and non-essential into the divine essence; (b) abolishes the unity and simplicity of the divine essence by transforming God into the bearer of a multiplicity of attributes; and (c) undermines the absoluteness of God by subjecting God to the attribute that we ascribe to Him. Thus, when we call God, for example, just, we are said to be accepting justice as a really higher idea in which God participates, just as human beings do.

But these arguments are neither reasonable nor acceptable. The attributes of God do not, in the first place, introduce anything secondary or non-essential into the divine essence, because they are not accidental or non-essential predicates, but—as we shall see—expressions of the essence of God that are, as a whole, identical with the divine essence. That the attributes of God do not transform the divine essence into something composite and multiform is also evident. The divine attributes are not distinctions within the divine essence itself, but express the relations of the simple essence of God to the multiplicity of finite beings and to their condition.

Equally unfounded is the third argument, for when we ascribe justice to God we do not understand Him as a participant in justice; rather, accepting justice as being fulfilled in God in reality, we ascribe it to Him not synthetically but analytically, as justice being fully realized in God in every respect.

The true theory of the divine attributes lies midway between the realist and the nominalist theories: it accepts the divine attributes neither as objective distinctions within the divine essence nor as mere names, but as subjective representations of the real relations of the infinite God to the finite world. Certainly, the divine essence—since it is not revealed in the world in a necessary way, as in Pantheism, and since it remains inaccessible to our intellect—cannot be expressed by any set or multitude of attributes. Hence all the divine attributes, least of all each by itself manifesting the divine essence, do not provide us with full and perfect knowledge of God, nor are they objective predicates of the essence of God considered in itself.

Yet the divine essence, albeit imperfectly, makes itself manifest in its works, which it has created. And just as from works of art we draw conclusions about the artist, so also from created things we are able, analogically and by reasoning, to infer the various relations and references of the divine essence to the world. The human mind, unable to grasp the divine essence at once in its inner unity, derives what pertains to it from its relations to finite beings—various in number and in condition. In these relations of God to the manifold world, the essence of God appears either in similarities and contrasts, or as a power producing manifold operations.

The expressions by which we denote such relations of God to the world—namely, the divine attributes—thus constitute the forms or the inadequate concepts (_inadaequat_) in which, or through which, the real essence of God imperfectly impinges upon our intellect. Thus the divine essence, conceived in contrast to the temporal limitation of beings, is the eternity of God; while omnipotence presents that same essence in contrast to the limited power of finite beings.

Although in this sense the character of the divine attributes is subjective, this subjectivity must not be understood as an arbitrary and unsubstantial construction of our mind, but as faithfully rendering the real relations and references of God to the world. Just as a ray of sunlight, according to the common image, though essentially one, nevertheless—depending on the differing nature of the objects upon which it falls—illuminates, warms, softens, and hardens, so also the one simple essence appears to our intellect under different relations and references.

This truth was set forth by Basil the Great and other Fathers, and was later repeated by those around Thomas Aquinas through the well-known formulas of Scholastic theology. The attributes ascribed to God, Basil observed—refuting Eunomius, who understood the attributes as expressions of the same thing—despite their subjective form, are “a confession of what truly belongs to God.” The things said to exist _according to conception_ (_kat’ epinoian_) are divided, on the one hand, into empty images of imagination or arbitrary representations, such as centaurs, and, on the other hand, into representations of things formed by right reason, such as the divine attributes. The former are false and unreal, whereas the latter, even though they do not exist in things in the same way as in our knowledge, nevertheless correspond to something real in what exists.

In this way also do those holy Fathers agree who call the essence of God incomprehensible and ineffable, while describing our concepts of God as “being about God.” Those around Thomas Aquinas, distinguishing the merely subjective representation (_distinctio rationis ratiocinantis_) from the representation grounded in the relations of God (_distinctio rationis ratiocinatae_), accept the divine attributes in the latter sense, as expressions of real relations in God. Not very differently speak those around Duns Scotus, who accept the divine attributes as distinctions not real but formal (_formaliter_), that is, existing in God according to form.

Accordingly, the divine attributes are the subjective forms of the real relations of the simple being, God; and their relation both to the whole divine essence and to one another may be summarized as follows. Considered objectively, these attributes, as being the essence of God itself under different aspects and relations, cannot naturally be distinguished from one another, nor can there be any question of whether they are akin to or exclude one another. Rather, their relation both to one another and to the divine essence is—according to the observation of Scheeben—like that of a colorless diamond to the colors of other precious stones: just as the colorless diamond contains within itself the colors of all other precious stones and can in fact be represented by each of them, so also the divine attributes, although not separated in God, nevertheless possess a specific power and significance corresponding to their reflection in the world.

Theophan Prokopovich’s *Christiana Orthodoxa Theologia*, pg. 136ff

§ 92. In this question, simple means that which is not composite and does not consist of parts. Now, the more various the kinds of parts, the more various is the kind of composition—and likewise the simplicity opposed to it must be distinguished.

For some parts are substantial, such as matter and form, from which a substance is composed; and if either is lacking, the thing neither is nor is called a thing of the sort it ought to be in its genus. Thus in man the parts are body and soul; remove either and there is no man. The composition of such parts may be called substantial, and the simplicity opposed to it is likewise substantial simplicity, that is, being without substantial parts.

Again, there are what are called integral or integrating parts (as the schools stammer), which supply the integrity of a thing, and if even one of them is removed, the thing does not cease to be a thing, but it ceases to be whole. Such in man are an eye, a hand, feet, and so on. If the eye is torn out or a hand cut off, a man does not cease to be a man; but he ceases to be whole—he no longer has everything which, in his constitution, he ought to have. The composition of such parts, and the simplicity opposed to it, may likewise be called integral: integral composition is that which consists of such parts; integral simplicity is that which lacks such parts.

Further, parts are called either homogeneous or heterogeneous. Homogeneous parts are of the same kind and nature as the whole, as in water individual drops are water, and have smaller parts in turn that are likewise homogeneous. Heterogeneous parts are not of the same nature or kind as the whole, as the body of a man is not a man; likewise the individual integrating parts—foot, hand, eye—cannot be called “man.” The composition of such parts can also be called homogeneous or heterogeneous. But the simplicity opposed to them cannot be expressed by these names, but only by some circumlocution; for example, a simplicity lacking both homogeneous and heterogeneous parts.

There are also, though less properly, so-called accidental parts, namely the accidents themselves that inhere in a substance: in bodies, color, light, hardness, softness, taste, smell, etc. In a spirit too there are certain passions and actions (which can not inappropriately be placed here), such as joy, sadness, contemplation, recollection, and the like. The composition that regards such parts is called accidental; but the simplicity opposed to it is not well called “accidental simplicity,” but rather “simplicity free from every accident,” or by some other name.

Finally, metaphysicians also posit essential parts, which are understood to constitute an essence, such as genus and difference; and one may even imagine “integral parts” of an essence, such as properties, which are not really distinct but are the same thing, though they are distinguished by our reason. Yet these are not parts properly so called, since they are not really distinct from one another; and therefore they do not belong to the present question.

Here, rather, we treat of the simplicity that excludes real and proper parts: substantial and integral, homogeneous and heterogeneous, and finally accidental.

Nor can potency and act be called parts (as some would have it). For if a thing is considered in potency, that is, in its being able to be, then it is not; and if it is considered in act, that is, as existing, then its non-being is not, nor can existence and non-existence be parts of the thing, but only of its coming-to-be (as they say, in fieri). But the potency of a thing, which is opposed not to non-existence but to action, pertains to the fourth genus mentioned above, namely accidental composition.

Nor does “supposit” or “subsistence of a nature” have a place here: it is nothing other than the thing itself not united to another, and therefore is not a part. A special consideration of the divine supposits will come later, and will be touched upon below in an objection.

§ 93. We therefore say that God is so simple as to exclude all the real parts enumerated above—contrary to what the ancient Anthropomorphites thought, who attributed to God a head, eyes, hands, feet, in short the whole stature of a man. Hence they were called Anthropomorphites, that is, “introducers of human form.” Likewise contrary to what certain recent “theologasters” sprung up in Macedonia have mistakenly imagined: for they maintained that there are in God certain actions or energies and certain other uncreated accidents, distinct from God Himself and co-eternal with Him—whose nonsense and madness we shall explode in the next chapter.

Here, however, we shall first demonstrate our assertion; then we shall dissolve the difficulties raised against it; and then we shall inquire into the use of the doctrine—all briefly....

§ 96. Here, then, note these axioms.

First: God is purest act; that is, whatever He does, He does it not with something adhering to Him, but through Himself and by Himself.

Second: all God’s attributes are not habits, nor are they acts of God, but God Himself in His entirety; hence they are rightly predicated of God even in the abstract, thus: God is wisdom, omnipotence, etc.

Third: whatever is in God is not, nor ever was, in Him as potency—that is, it is not such that it could at some time have been, and yet was not; nor such that it exists indeed, yet could not exist; nor even such that it exists indeed and cannot not exist, and yet at least by our thinking is understood as though it were something potential: since whatever is in God is God Himself—the whole substance and essence of God....

§ 98. Objection 2) Whatever consists of a subject and attributes is not most simple. But God is so: for we have said that in God there are attributes—wisdom, omnipotence, etc. Reply. The major must be limited by this distinction: “what consists of a subject and attributes,” properly speaking, is granted; but improperly—i.e., that which has attributes distinguished from itself only by reason—is not therefore not most simple: this is denied. God’s wisdom can be distinguished from God by our concept; but in reality God Himself, whole and entire, is that.

Antony Amphiteatrov’s *Dogmatic Theology*:

God is a most simple and most pure Being. The simplicity or purity of the divine essence consists.

a) in the fact that there is in God no material composition whatsoever — that He is a completely incorporeal being and not subject to the senses....

b) The simplicity of the divine essence consists not only in the absence of material composition, but also in the absence of intellectual composition. In God there is no genus and species, no accidental properties, no real division of attributes. We distinguish different attributes in Him only because of the weakness of our intellect; in Himself He is perfect unity and identity — the most pure and most simple Spirit.

“The Godhead is simple and uncompounded,” says Saint John of Damascus. “If we call uncreatedness, beginninglessness, incorporeality, immortality, eternity, goodness, creative power, and the like essential properties of God, then the Godhead would be composed of many parts — which would be extreme impiety. All these must be understood of the whole Godhead identically, simply, indivisibly, and conjointly.” (§21. Simplicity)

Eugentius Voulgaris, Compendium of Theology,

Simplicity is the negation of composition; and simple is that which is superior to composition. Composition is twofold: actual and conceptual or according to thought. Actual composition is an aggregate of parts really divided, such as in man, of soul and body. Conceptual composition is a conjunction of things divided according to thought, such as from genus and difference, the metaphysical parts. Actual composition is either from essential parts really divided, such as from soul and body; or from integral parts wholly restoring the composite, such as the members of an animal. To these some add a third, from essence and hypostasis; and a fourth, from subject and accident. Conceptual and logical division, opposed to conceptual composition, the Scholastics wish to be twofold: one with basis and reason, such as is contemplated in the simplest being, becoming many and different through superabundance of power, such as in the human soul, one, into physical, sensitive, and rational; the other logical and without reason, which I would more properly call irrational, according to which one might divide the Apostle into Simon, Peter, and Cephas, or a garment into its remnant.

Men, theologizing, have been led into many absurd opinions, following their own conceptions more than the Scriptures and the divinely inspired Fathers in divisions and distinctions concerning God. Some unreasonably did not hesitate to divide the simplest essence actually into many. Others, fearing composition greatly and thinking to avoid it even where there was no fear, made the attributes themselves continuous with the essence, almost showing it devoid of properties. And indeed the Scholastics have fallen into so many verbal disputes: tropic, specific, logical, actual, and of these some greater, some lesser; some actual from the nature of the thing, others from the nature of the thing but not actual, which they invented, so that to enumerate all accurately would be troublesome and superfluous, let alone to set forth and record clearly. Concerning these, the learned Coressius discusses extensively in his handbook on the procession of the Holy Spirit (chapters 13 and 14)... For us it will suffice, having selected and refuted the opinions holding more notable absurdities concerning divisions in God, to choose and establish the more pious one.

Actually, therefore, and from many essences an aggregative composition was impiously attributed to God by all the pagans, among whom stars, earth, cattle, reptiles, and almost all creatures were honored as gods. Similar were afflicted among the Jews the Sadducees, who, like Epicurus, thought there is no spirit at all unmixed with matter, nor such a God (Acts 23). But also from the flock of Christians around the fourth century many wild beasts arose in the Church, vomiting bitter poison against the simplest nature and circumscribing the formless nature with human form, who were also called Anthropomorphites from the heresy. No less impious is the thorn introduced in recent times by Spinoza, according to which the matter of the universe is posited instead of God, to which belong magnitude and thought; but all things from which this universe is composed, whether bodies or spirits, are modes and dispositions of this immeasurable and eternal essence, subject to various alterations, changes, motions, passions, and wretched affections, with which this universe is carried along and confused, the same alone acting and suffering. To set forth these is as if to refute them.

But Aetius and Eunomius in the fourth century held the opposite absurdity, admitting no division at all between the divine essence and its attributes; and no less calling the Son God than unbegotten, because they said unbegottenness is in no way divided from being God. For supposing, according to the orthodox confession, that the Son is not unbegotten, from this they impiously inferred that He is not God, conspiring with Arius. From the same impious indivisibility they boasted to bear a comprehensive concept of God; for if the attributes are in no way divided from the divine essence according to them, nor interchangeably, nor these from one another, then one who understands unbegottenness, as they strongly asserted, will accurately understand God Himself. Children of Latins follow this opinion, and among them the Nominalists, who divide the divine essence from its attributes only by name. But to speak the truth, those starting from the school of Thomas seem to hold opinions not far different from the nonsense of Eunomius, strongly asserting that everything in God is the essence of God; and distinguishing the properties of the essence and from one another only by our conceptions.

First, therefore, it must be determined that there is no actual composition in God from many essences, such as in man from soul and body, nor from parts granting wholeness, such as from so many members; nor physical from matter and form; nor from subject and accident. For God is most simple, and unmixed with any matter, outside passion, beyond alteration. But to the aforementioned compositions matter attends, and alteration and passion follow, as is clear to those who have in any way fixed their mind upon it. And the divine Scriptures proclaim Him spirit (John chapter 4): “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”. Greatly differs, as Irenaeus says (book 6, chapter 16), “the Father of all from human passions and dispositions; He is simple and uncompounded, wholly spirit and wholly reason”. And Origen (On First Principles, book 1, chapter 1): Therefore one must not suppose God to be body or in body, but an intellectual nature, simple, admitting no addition at all in itself, so as to be everywhere a monad, and, if I may say so, wholly intellect. “What will you suppose the divine to be?” Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 34): “Body? And how infinite, unbounded, formless, intangible, invisible? Or are these also bodies? Oh the audacity; for this is not the nature of bodies. Or body, but not these of grossness, so that the divine has nothing more than we? For how is it venerable if circumscribed? Or how will it escape being composed of elements and again dissolved into them and altogether destroyed? For composition is beginning of conflict, conflict of separation, separation of dissolution, dissolution altogether alien to God and the first nature. Therefore no separation, lest dissolution; no conflict, lest separation; no composition, lest conflict. Therefore neither body, lest composition.” Reason also allies against composition in God; for if the first nature were composed of parts really distinct, there would be some cause higher and prior assembling the parts into one, and the first nature would not be first, which is contradictory.

Second, these parts must be posited finite, and nothing infinite will subsist from finite parts; or from infinites; therefore it will not be infinite from infinites, and consequently falls from the infinity into which it is posited. Nor say that at least from subject and accidents, if no composition at all aggregated from parts belongs to God; for nothing in God is accidental. For the accidental belongs contingently; what belongs contingently can be and not be; what is such, present or absent, brings change. But God is immutable. Therefore all properties in God are necessary and essential. Hence the perfections of creatures, being by participation in them, are predicated by comparison, not by abstraction; for there is intellect, will, wisdom, life in man, but man is living and not life, wise and not wisdom, having intellect but least of all intellect, and will but in no way will. But concerning God the divine attributes are predicated even in abstraction, as essential and not accidental, and from Himself and not by participation. For which reason (Prov. chapter 8) “I, wisdom, says, have dwelt in counsel, and knowledge and understanding”; and (Dan. 9) Christ is called eternal righteousness; and (John 14) “I am, He says, the way and the truth and the life”. As also the holy Augustine (On the Trinity, book 5, chapters 8 and 10): To be God, he says, is to be great; for He is His own greatness; the same be said concerning His goodness, eternity, and the rest of His attributes. But from this those around Thomas wrongly understood to identify and unite the divine attributes, both relative and absolute, with the essence of God, and to depart little or nothing from the babbling of Eunomius and Aetius. For they too do not wish the being of relations, such as fatherhood, sonship, and the characteristics of hypostases, such as unbegottenness, begottenness, and the like, to be other than the essence. For in divine things, they say, there is only one being, and the being of relation is not divided really from the being of essence, but only by reason and conception. Of which opinion the leaders are Bonaventure, Aegidius, Richard, Henry, Hervaeus, Peter Aureolus, William Ockham, and others of the Scholastic order.

But a cloud of Fathers and Theologians stands against them (Basil, book 2 against Eunomius): “What is not ridiculous if someone determines that the power of begetting and foreknowledge and every activity is essence? For it is necessary, as in polyonymous things, to have the same meaning for all names, as when we call the same man Simon, Peter, and Cephas.” Similar are those of Gregory of Nyssa (book 12) against the same Eunomius, and of Augustine (On the Trinity, book 8, chapter 4): For it is one thing, he said, to be God, and another to be father; and though fatherhood and essence are one, yet it is not lawful to say that the father is wise by fatherhood... From which it is clear that he considered fatherhood and essence not to be two essences; yet fatherhood to be something other than divinity, and other than wisdom... And Gregory the Theologian in the first oration on the Son distinguishes generation from the generator, and will from the willer, as motion from the mover. And John Damascene in his work on the energies of our Lord (book 3, chapter 16): “Know, he says, that activity is one thing, the active another, the effect another, and the agent another.” Whence the Great Basil in his works against Eunomius: If, he said, we place all divine names into the divine essence, we will show God not only composite but composed of dissimilar parts, because something different is signified by each name. On which also Justin (question 129) posits coexistence between essence and property; but coexistence indicates at least two things coexisting; therefore properties in God are other than the essence and than one another. From this also the Great Basil in his letter to his brother calls properties in the plural, and characteristics, and contemplated, and shining upon; and hypostasis the individuating. As also the Theologian by synecdoche from one the whole. And the sixth synod (act 6) defining hypostasis to be essence with properties, and thus recognizing properties other than essence.

Of the same opinion among the Scholastics are Durandus, Francis Mayron, James, Viterbo, Urban Nicholas, Marsilius, John Basil, John Wigos, and above all John Scotus.

And the otherness of properties from essence and from one another is shown by various arguments not subsisting by bare conception alone, thus: First: Essence is in the Son, but fatherhood is not; therefore this is not identified with that, for it is impossible for the same to be and not be.

Second: The Father and the Son are the same in essence and not the same in properties; therefore properties in God differ from essence.

Third: Properties are many; essence is one; if therefore properties were identified with essence and essence with properties, these would be many and not many, and that one and not one.

Fourth: Things receptive of different definitions are other in nature; for definition is unfolding of nature. But divine attributes are defined differently; for compassion is defined one way, justice another, and they are productive of contrary effects. For one pities, the other disciplines; therefore divine attributes are different in nature; therefore they cannot be the same in nature. And the Thomist cannot say that things differing in nature differ by reason and conception; for the actual definition unfolds the nature of the defined according to first conception, not second.

Wherefore, to summarize briefly the whole with George Coressius in his handbook on procession (chapter 16): Since difference is threefold, verbal, logical, and actual, between divine properties and essence, verbal is to be rejected like crow-scaring; for these do not differ as remnant and garment. No less logical, which is taken not from otherness of natures of the differing things but from conception. And actual difference reeks of impiety, introducing different subjects and different essences. How therefore shall we name the division between properties and essence, and these from one another? Scotus called it specific otherness, and we would name it ontic. For every positive perfection is being, and for this reason perfections in God differing from essence and from one another not only by bare reason, as shown, but ontically, are multiplied and divided....

...You will say on behalf of the Thomists: Only the essence and nature of God is hymned and worshiped as uncreated, but the attributes are also uncreated and worshipful; therefore attributes are essence. I reply: Only essence and nature with its attributes: I concede; without these: I deny. One therefore is God, abounding in infinite perfections and glorified with them, not because these are altogether identified with His essence, but because they are perfections befittingly belonging to the supreme nature in a divine manner, and ontically coexisting and differing, as set forth.

They object: If relation differs from essence, either essentially or personally. But if the first, there will be two essences or many; if the second, as many persons as attributes; great absurdity follows either way; therefore... I reply: Neither essentially is relation or attributes distinguished from essence; for they are not other essences besides the essence, as our reasoning maintains; nor personally; for not each divine attribute and property is one person, but ontically; for being is essence, being is relation, being is goodness, and the rest. For they are not non-beings but attributes, as the name indicates, other than essence and coexisting with it.

Objection: If attributes are ontically other than essence, either they will be essences or accidents; for every being is either essence or accident. But we say these are beings, essential and divinely befitting perfections. Let the followers of Gennadians tell us whether the rational, posited as constitutive difference in man, is essence or accident, and similarly the risible and receptive of intellect and knowledge, accompanying the essence. If therefore these in man, being other than human essence, differ neither as essences from it nor as accidents, how in God, if we say the belonging perfections differ, do they fabricate for us essences or accidents?

One might inquire whether composition from genus and difference is admitted in God. To which it is easy to reply that this is not granted, nor definition; for God, as Clement of Alexandria says (Stromata, book 5) and Cyril of Alexandria (dialogue 2 on the Trinity), is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual.

The divine, therefore, is simple and beyond composition aggregated from many essences, and from matter and form, and from integral parts, and from subject and accidents, and from genus and difference, as least of all belonging to Him who is infinite and most perfect. Yet it has that from essence and hypostasis, and again from essence and attributes: either coexistence, which harming nothing of His simplicity most exalts and establishes the treasures of His infinite perfections.

(Book 1, Chapter 6, Concerning the simplicity of God)

If you want Bulgakov, it is found here in Théologie dogmatique orthodoxe, vol. 1, pgs. 178ff