Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 2/23

For how could they not be as far as possible from every wise and unimpeachable mind, having supposed that they could overthrow the doctrines of truth by cold inventions of reasoning? For our truly holy and most wise Paul--or rather the whole choir of the saints together--have come to know and set forth for us a twofold account, as it were, concerning the Son: one after he was united to flesh, that is, after he became like us according to the whole likeness, apart from sin alone;

Accordingly, weaving for us their varied instruction in the mysteries, at one time they present the Only-begotten as still unclothed, standing apart from the measures of creation and altogether unmingled with our nature, while at another time, again, as though almost overshadowed by the form of a servant, yet holding fast and clinging firmly to the good things befitting his own nature, and crowned unfalsified with the dignities of Godhead.

For the Spirit-bearer declares that he remains always the same, and knows no shadow of turning or change, when he says:

'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever.' {B.} What, then, does this have to do with what they say? {A.} That one ought not to bring to the sacred Scriptures a lazy and slack mind, as it were toying with things so reverend, somehow turning aside--I know not how--from the straight path, and falling away and being shaken toward the path leading to either side.

For to travel, I think, the royal road is nothing other, we would say, than inclining neither too much to the right nor to the left.

See how thoughtlessly they rush toward what seems good to them, without measuring or examining which of the things written would fit the Word considered in his nakedness, that is, as he was and is conceived before the incarnation;

and which, again, would fit him who has already put on the likeness toward us.

For if they think that no distinction at all ought to be made, but that whatever is written should be received so artlessly and thoughtlessly, then let them tell me, I ask them who teach this, what stands in the way of also confessing--even if it is said that he eats, and receives sleep, and is unable to walk without weariness (for he was wearied from the journey), and, further still, that he even died, I mean, and was in need of food, and susceptible to labor and weakness, and indeed even subject to death--that the Word of God is thus?

Do you not then say that the distinction concerning such matters is most necessary for us, distributing and discerning fittingly what is proper to each occasion? {B.} Most necessary--

how could it not be? {A.} Since it has therefore been shown altogether necessary and excellent to distinguish each of the things prophetically spoken concerning him, you may now hear who he is according to nature, as Paul writes:

'For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.'

'And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.' These things, then, are said concerning the Only-begotten as not yet conceived together with flesh.

But concerning the same one, now already born according to our condition and in the flesh, it says:

'Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with a loud cry and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard because of his godly fear, though he was a Son, learned obedience from what he suffered.' Does not the nature of the matter, indeed, firmly contend with itself, according to what is shown from both statements together? The radiance of the glory of God the Father, the very stamp of the divine substance for us, he who upholds all things by the word of his power, the living and active and sharpest Word, is said to have offered up prayers and supplications, and this with tears, as though to ward off the assault of death--

'but in the days,' it says, 'of his flesh'--that is, when the Word, being God, 'became flesh,' according to the Scriptures, and did not come to be merely in a man, as he dwells by participation in the saints, I mean through the Holy Spirit.

We must, then, attribute to him as God the things of God, and, as to one who became like us, the things that pertain to us, that is, the human things.

But the disorderly and indiscriminate confusion of these matters must very much be avoided, since it steals away the precise and well-examined grasp of the concepts, and distorts the beauty of the truth not a little.

{A.} Therefore, when he is called 'mediator,' one should not suppose that this name is a definition of the essence of the Only-begotten;

rather, one would turn it more toward the obedience of Christ.

For thus he will 'cast down senseless reasonings, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought unto the obedience of God,' as it is written.

But, my noble friend, enough of these matters, since indeed they are not even disputable.

I would, however, most gladly inquire of you what manner of the Son's mediation might be understood by us.

For this will show the deceitful argument of those of heterodox opinion to be altogether stale.

{A.} Let it proceed, then, if you think fit, and let our discourse now be turned to this.

But before all else we must carefully examine when Scripture has placed the Son in the rank of mediator.

Paul, then, said: 'There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us'--determining, I think, that no other time is fitting for the Son's mediation except the last of times, when, as he himself says, 'being in the form of God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant'--though he was God and Lord--so that through himself he might win us over to God the Father and reconcile all things, according to what is written, 'having made peace through the cross,' both the things in heaven and the things on earth, mediating as a man.

For since human nature, on account of its inherent weakness, was not able, so to speak, to approach the naked and unmixed glory of the Godhead, the Only-begotten profitably put on the likeness toward us, so that, by unveiling the ineffable will of God the Father, he might make us spiritual worshippers, no longer attached to the shadows of the types, nor accepting a law that has power to perfect nothing, but rather that, since God is spirit, we ourselves also might be eager to worship and to serve together in spirit and in truth.

For does not the most excellent Isaiah himself also say to us that a child has been born, a Son, and that his name is called 'Angel of Great Counsel'? {B.} You have spoken excellently.

{A.} Let us, then, go to the hierophant Moses himself, and, striving to raise up the force of what was done and spoken through him as a most manifest image of the mediation in Christ, let us now in some measure show that our own argument has been rightly accomplished.

For to rebuke and constantly reproach our opponents for choosing to think what is pleasing to themselves, even if it be discordant with the sacred Scriptures, and then ourselves to be caught in the very same faults, I for my part would think this does not lack the highest degree of folly.

{A.} When, then, those of Israel fled from the land of the Egyptians, having shaken off the burden of their forced servitude and broken the yokes of slavery, they were encamped around the mountain called Sinai; and since God was already about to set forth the laws determining what was to be done, it seemed good to him that they should gather at the foot of the mountain and that their garments should be washed, and that thus, having been purified, they should then go up to that unaccustomed vision of God, as he then commanded.

And when this had been accomplished, Moses having announced it to them beforehand, the Lord came down in the appearance of fire;

and there were smokes unwinding and leaping up, and a dark cloud, and darting flashes of fire, and darkness, and a tempest, and everything productive of the most extreme terror, and the piercing sound of trumpets.

And Moses led the people out to meet God, beneath the mountain. For it is written thus:

And this affair was, I think, a type of the mediation of Christ.

'No one comes to the Father except through me.' For we approach God the Father in no other way than through Christ, effacing every old wound, and squeezing out beforehand every form of defilement, and clothing our mind anew, as it were, with the purity that is in Christ.

'But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,' the divine word has told us.

In this way, then, the washing of the garments also represented figuratively the power of purity in the spirit.

Do you not say that this too is true, being persuaded of it by its likelihood? {B.} I would say so.

{A.} Now when God had come down in the appearance of fire--though showing forth a glory perceptible to the senses and not altogether unfamiliar to those who beheld it--Israel found the direct, face-to-face sight of him altogether unbearable; and being greatly afraid and trembling, they earnestly entreated their leader, I mean Moses, and indeed said:

'Speak you to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die.' Behold, then, clearly, they were asking that there be a mediator, being evidently unable to approach the unmixed glory of God.

Come, then, let us pass, as from a manifest image, from what has just now been said, to the Only-begotten, who, since it was not possible for him to come to us in the nakedness of the divine glory, in order to teach fully the will of God the Father, became as we are, a mediator of God and men.

For he himself is our peace, according to the Scriptures.

And do not suppose that I am telling a false tale in likening the ministry through Moses to that of Christ.

From what follows, I think, you might learn this more easily.

'You shall be perfect before the Lord your God.'

'For these nations, whom you shall dispossess, listen to omens and divinations;'

'but as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.'

'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; him you shall hear.'

'According to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, saying:'

'We will not again hear the voice of the Lord our God, nor see this great fire anymore, lest we die.'

'I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you;'

'and I will put my word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them whatever I command him.'

'And that man who does not listen to his words, whatever the prophet shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.' Does not the weakness of humanity, evident even in the matters concerning Moses--still amid types and shadows--clearly show the most necessary need of one who mediates? Yet this must be carefully examined:

{B.} What is it you mean? {A.} For when they approached Moses, saying:

'...to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die,' Israel said;

and this they requested at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, when God was in the appearance of fire upon Mount Sinai.

'I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you'--that is, evidently, a mediator, one who conveys across the words that come from above and from God, and who signifies to the people what seems fitting to that ineffable and inexpressible nature--a thing which it is altogether without hardship to see also accomplished through Christ himself.

For he had cried out clearly: 'I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me, he has given me a command what I should say and what I should speak.' And again:

'The words that I speak are not mine, but his who sent me.' And the wise John also writes concerning him:

He who has received his testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.

For he whom God sent speaks the words of God. Will you, then, my friend, cast your vote that this statement is true, or will you refuse to agree? {B.} By no means.

{A.} Then let this much be said by us concerning Moses.

Do you wish that we say something further on this, secretly shaping for us the manner of the Son's mediatorship? Or, having left this unsaid, do you think we ought to hasten off on some other path? {B.} But, noble sir, why should we abandon what is in hand — though it is expected to benefit us greatly — and rush off to another hunt for ideas, when it will surely be better to do this at leisure, with nothing hindering? {A.} I will turn, then, to what is pleasing to you, and indeed I will speak.

Now these were Levites, and this was a modest portion for them.

Then, thirsting out of season for the glory of the priesthood, and unwisely refusing to accept the measure of honor granted by God, they went forward of their own accord and with boldness into the midst, and indeed stirred the congregation up against Moses and Aaron; and mocking the gentle man with bitter words, they were already somehow provoking them to vexation.

But since, being extravagantly displeased at those who had been justly punished, some of like mind, in the manner of vipers I suppose, leapt upon and attacked those around Moses, the divine nature was thereafter called forth to wrath.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:

Withdraw from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them at once.

And they fell upon their faces.

And Moses said to Aaron:

Take the censer, and put fire on it from the altar, and put incense on it, and carry it quickly to the camp, and make atonement for them.

For wrath has gone out from the face of the Lord, and it has begun to strike down the people.

And Aaron took it, just as Moses had told him, and ran into the congregation.

And already the plague had begun among the people:

and he put on the incense, and made atonement for the people, and stood between the dead and the living, and the plague ceased. Is, then, the significance of the Son's mediatorship, even after this, still unclear to you, Hermias? {B.} Indeed not.

for you will indeed be well suited to do this too.

{B.} You speak well, since indeed the divinely-inspired Paul also writes:

From this, corruption — consuming us and shattering us together with death — rose up against us;

And death reigned from Adam even unto Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression. And Hades enlarged its soul, as the prophet Isaiah says, and opened its mouth without ceasing. And it would have utterly destroyed the earth, spreading out an inescapable and inextricable net, had not the Only-Begotten Word of God, according to the good pleasure of God the Father, gone forth as it were from some tabernacle above in the heavens, and come down to us.

For he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, so that, having become high priest, and having offered himself on our behalf to God the Father as it were in the place of incense, he might avert the plague.

For he stood, it says, between the living and the dead, and the plague ceased. Might one not, then, clearly perceive from this too that Jesus has become mediator between God and men? For, the conflict having been resolved, as it were, and every ancient dividing wall having been shaken down, the things once separated from one another — that is, God and mankind — came together, Christ mediating and, through himself, binding the things below to the things above.

And so the divinely-inspired Paul said that 'He himself is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition.' And again, once more:

{A.} Very much so indeed; for I would be least of all reluctant to say it.

But I will say that he has, confessedly, abolished the enmity in his flesh, as it is written; and having become, as it were, a reconciler and mediator for us who had slipped away as far as possible from the love toward God — through worldly love of pleasure, and because we worshipped the creature rather than the Creator — he has, through himself, presented us to God the Father, and having justified us, has won us by faith.

Nevertheless, we do not at all say that he has been called mediator on account of this dispensation alone; but there is for him, in this respect too, another reason, ineffable and mystical, that further contributes to the name and reality of mediatorship.

{B.} How, then, do you mean this too? {A.} And how else than altogether according to that which is written:

...according to the Father's own will, and he became man, preserving in himself entirely unmarred and unaltered the dignity of his own nature, yet taking on humanity according to the dispensation, and being understood as one Son from both, the divine and human natures having run together and been brought into one ineffably and unspeakably, and combined into unity in a manner beyond conception.

And we surely do not say that the Word of God has been changed into the nature of earthly flesh, or the flesh into the very nature of the Word itself;

for I myself would deem this a disease of the utmost derangement of mind;

but, while each remains, as it were, within its own definition and principle, the term 'union' spoken of here indicates the concurrence which extends to the utmost and holds together inseparably into unity.

For he is at once both God and man, the very same one;

and, calling him God, you will not thereby divest him of his humanity after the union, nor, indeed, by naming him man, will you strip away the dignities of his divinity — if, that is, you should choose to think rightly.

And he is Only-Begotten and Word, as having sprung forth and been begotten from God the Father, but again Firstborn when he became man and was among many brethren.

And just as the name 'Only-Begotten,' being proper to the Word, has been preserved for him again even when united with flesh;

so too 'Firstborn,' which is not properly his own, has become his own together with the flesh.

Mediator, therefore, is he understood to be in this respect as well, showing in himself the things greatly separated by nature and having an immeasurable distance between them — that is, divinity and humanity — brought together and united, and joining us, through himself, to God the Father.

For he is of the same nature as God, since indeed he is both from him and in him; and likewise to men, as being both from us and in us.

For, as regards his humanity, Emmanuel is not other than us, but like us in all things, except sin alone.

Our argument has now arrived at the point of necessity, so that we must also affirm that the Son is consubstantial with God the Father.

{A.} Consubstantial indeed, since he truly is from him and in him according to nature and substantially.

For just as he could not truly and precisely, nor even in fitting order, be conceived or said to be consubstantial with us, had he not become man, so likewise he could never be from God and in God, unless he were bound to unity with him by natural principles;

nor, again, could humanity in any other way become a partaker of the divine nature, had it not been enriched with this through the mediation of the Son, obtaining, as it were, a natural manner of conjunction.

And it is altogether easy to learn this from the Son himself, speaking to the Father in the heavens:

That they all may be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.

And I have given them the glory which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one:

I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one. {B.} But if someone should say that the unity of the Son with the Father is perhaps of the same kind as might be conceived even in our own case, what then shall we conclude? For it is written that 'the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul.' For, though the souls in question were very many indeed, he said that all became one — not at all thereby determining the very nature of the union, but rather attributing it to the inseparable inclinations arising from their wills, and to their having one and the same thought and purpose.

And since the Son is, in all things, of one accord and one mind with the Father, in this respect too he is one with him.

For these are the things which those wretched men buzz about.

{A.} But, having straightway filled their own mind with folly that has already reached the utmost and highest degree, they would again in this very point be caught out.

For, it seems, there is no notion so absurd, so feeble and abject, that it does not plunder the minds of the senseless — and this without any effort at all.

For the fool will speak foolish things, and his heart will devise vanity, so as to speak error against the Lord, according to what is written.

'even as I and you are one'? Let them, then, bring forward for us some such utterance of a holy man as this.

But they could not; far, indeed, from it.

On the contrary, I think, one might observe that, although they had laid hold of piety unto their final lot, they nevertheless confessed in many ways that they were sinners, and were not ignorant of their own nature.

And it would perhaps be no difficult thing to heap up countless sayings gathered from the sacred Scriptures;

yet I would consider it not beside the fitting purpose to allow those eager to learn to exercise themselves in this.

But I will turn to what comes from them;

and indeed I will speak, having gone back over the argument concerning our own unity.

For we have confessedly been brought together and united toward a unity that comes through faith, yet we shall differ from one another in no respect by a difference of substance, even though each is, in a manner, divided into his own individual hypostasis.

For we are of the same kind, and there is one definition and principle of the substance of us all, predicated equally of all.

But the unity that pertains to God, we possess not by mere and sole inclinations arising from our wills; rather some other reason too, ineffable and necessary, contributes to it.

For, as the divine Paul has initiated us into the mystery, 'we, being many, are one body, because we partake of the one bread.' Or do you not know that he says the Gentiles too have become fellow-members of the body of Christ, having obtained unity with him through faith, and evidently also through the mystical blessing? {B.} Most certainly.

{A.} Therefore we possess, among ourselves, a union that is at once both natural and voluntary; and, being of such a kind, we shall see that our union in Christ is likewise.

{B.} What do you mean? For I do not quite follow.

{A.} And yet I say there is nothing difficult in this, my good man;

and I think any wise and sound-minded man whatsoever might easily learn what I mean, once he has understood that, first, we who belong to the human race are bound together toward identity with one another by a natural law, and, second, we are united also in another way.

For this reason, too, he said to the Father in the heavens:

That they may be one, even as we are one. For observe how, in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, we are all one, both in body and in spirit.

Those, therefore, who have chosen to hold some other opinions must be blamed, since they have not even rightly understood what has been written concerning us.

B. This, then, must indeed be censured.

B: Yet being no less eager to learn, I will ask: shall we accept that the Son is united to God the Father just as, indeed, we too are united to one another, or would one grant that the union in their case is even beyond this? A: We say that the Son is united to the Father both in the manner of us and beyond us.

For he is confessedly, in every way, of the same substance as the one who begot him, since he is truly Son, and from him.

Father and Son—but though each exists and subsists, and is said to have his own existence, the identity of substance governs their union.

B: Do you say, then, that the Son exists in a substance of his own, distinct from that of the Father? A: Not rather in a substance other than that which belongs to him as God, but in a hypostasis proper to him as Son.

B: Is substance, then, one thing, and hypostasis another? A: Yes.

for great is the distinction that separates them and lies between, since substance is that which comprehends particular things.

B: In what way do you mean? For I am slow, it seems, at least in such matters.

A: Do you not know that for me too the discourse on these matters is somewhat unfamiliar? Nevertheless we must proceed to whatever test lies within our reach, as though through an image, since the divine transcendence is set in the very highest heights.

Is it not so, then, that the designation of substance seems to apply to something common?

whereas the name of hypostasis, belonging to each of the particulars falling under this common term, is predicated and applied individually;

and suppose that I now mean this:

B: What sort of thing, then? A: We define man as a rational, mortal living being, setting forth the definition proper to him, and we say this is the definition of substance, applying to all the particular subsistents.

Under this common term, then, that is, 'man,' or the definition of man, fall, I think, Thomas and Mark, or, let us say, Peter and Paul.

And while one might thus signify the substance, one has not yet made a clear and manifest designation of the particulars conceived individually.

For Peter and Paul are no longer simply 'man' in the abstract;

but in saying 'Thomas' or 'Peter,' one will not carry the thing signified beyond the bounds of the definition of substance;

for he is nonetheless man;

but he has indicated him as existing in such-and-such a particular form, and perhaps also in an individual hypostasis, distinctly.

Substance, therefore, applies to every man as well, inasmuch as it brings forth the common principle of the kind;

whereas hypostasis would more fittingly be conceived with reference to one, neither removing the thing signified from its commonality, nor yet diffusing and blending into obscurity that which is particular and individual—

for this does not seem to me to have been said inelegantly.

A: Confessing, then, that the Son is of the same substance as God the Father, and exists in his own hypostasis, we say that he is united both conjointly and yet distinctly, joining most necessarily to the accounts of identity the distinction of the persons—that is, of the names—and the difference of the hypostases, which pertains to Father and Son precisely in this respect alone;

lest the likeness of substance in every conceivable respect, and that which is the same and stands unalterably alike in both Father and Son, should in some way smooth away the distinction and render altogether hard to discern what is proper and particular to each.

For the one is Father, and not Son;

and the other, again, is Son, and in no way Father.

B: Then, if it seems good, let us say there are two substances—

one of the Father, and one of the Son.

For thus the distinction would become clearer, and, so to speak, more plainly evident to everyone.

A: Not clearer at all;

do not let yourself be carried off by their arguments into a spurious way of thinking, and, as though abandoning the well-trodden highway, consent to walk through untrodden and impassable paths.

B: How, or in what way? A: For if the nature of the Father will be one, and again another, distinct from it, will be the nature of the Son, how is it not necessary that the notion also be conceived together with them of a division and a wall of separation set up between two natures unequal to one another? For how could the same nature be thought both 'one' and 'one'? For it is not right, in the case of men who possess one and the same principle of consubstantiality, to say 'one substance' and 'one substance' separately, and to assign to each of the beings, as though it were something proper to it, the principle that belongs to their commonality.

For if we were to do this, and were to introduce, as though it were a necessary mode of distinction, the notion of 'one' and 'one' into the substances, the whole would be dissolved into nothing.

Is it not the case that a substantial difference implies otherness, and that this otherness, in these matters, will declare and beget that which is other even in the very definition of nature? B: I think so.

it would be reckoned, on this principle, as standing outside the substance of God the Father.

B: For they contend that the Son exists otherwise than the Father is conceived to exist by nature.

Therefore, setting aside the designation 'homoousios' (of the same substance), and entangling it with a term foreign and unaccustomed to it, they say that one must confess him to be 'homoiousios' (of like substance), attributing to him also, as one of the things most revered and most fitting, the title of 'mediator.'