Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 20/23

'Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?' For they thought it necessary to attribute the glory to Christ and not to themselves, since in truth Christ is, as it were, the supreme fount and root of the grace and activity that is in them.

For since he set them before others and appointed them to the apostolate, at once adorning them with divine gifts and granting them, as God, the ability to accomplish wonders effortlessly, he said: 'Heal the sick,' he says, 'and raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons;'

'Freely you received, freely give.' Therefore, having understood most excellently and as well as possible who is the giver and dispenser of the power dwelling within them, they weave for him the crown of glory, ever exclaiming to those who were sick:

that it is a great thing for the apostles to choose to be minded according to Christ, and to love making it their boast that he works through them? B: Very much so.

A: What then would they say to this, O Hermias, to us who are perplexed, and for what reason do they claim that the Son himself, having once for all transferred the glory of being able [to act] away from his own person, does not merely defer to the Father alone, but by his own will inscribes the divine signs — having declared that he easily gives life to whomever he wills, according to his equal portion with the Father and in equal power, while yet granting his own will to the leper for the washing away of his affliction, and bestowing the touch of his hand upon those whose sight had flowed away? Is this still open to doubt, or rather is it not beyond dispute, that he himself, being the very power of God and the Father, refashions creation back to its original state — not as something adopted, not as something reckoned in from outside, far from it — but rather having the work of creating as the very fruit and activity proper to his own nature, just as indeed the Father also does? And would it not be, as it seems to me, the achievement and result of that same power and activity, to bring back again from the beginning, out of non-existence into being, the things that had been created and corrupted through sin, having undergone the shaking toward the worse and more shameful state, and to be able to reshape them to their original condition?

B: How then did he say, without reservation:

'Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing something;'

'for what things soever he does, these the Son likewise does; and moreover besides this, Of myself I do nothing;'

'but the Father who abides in me, he himself does the works'? For if I could rightly learn these things, I would count the grace received no small thing.

A: Come then, let us call to mind what we were just now saying about the holy and consubstantial Trinity.

For I said that, there being three hypostases, each individually and yet at the same time closely joined to one another, as within one nature of the Godhead, the activity of one person might be said to belong both to the whole substance and to each hypostasis individually;

for the whole is wont to be moved, as it were, through the whole, and individually through each.

For how could it be otherwise? A: Therefore, when God the Father wills to work something concerning creation, the Son would not remain inactive;

nor, again, if the Son should perhaps work something, would the Father be inactive, since indeed he is one God and Creator.

For the one is truly conceived, and truly exists, in the other, according to their connatural and consubstantial union, even though they are also conceived distinctly in their individual existences and persons.

A: These things, then, having been so excellently examined by us, as is fitting, come, let us closely observe the economy in the passages before us, and let us admire the skillful artistry of the Savior's words.

A wonder always draws one toward faith, and if the working of marvels should accompany his words, then even those who have already inclined exceedingly toward apostasy would most readily come to choose right belief.

And Christ himself, knowing this, addressed the centurion, saying:

'Except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.' B: I understand what you mean.

For you wish to say, I suppose, as I think, that Christ worked wonders, thereby also granting the Jews some benefit from this, and skillfully devising, as it were, a certain path toward yielding and compliance for those who had impiously bolted away from the desire to learn the truth.

Indeed, my friend, your quick understanding has anticipated me.

How I admire having so wise a companion, sending forth, as it were, a clear melody from a reed pipe into an attentive, well-hearing ear!

Therefore, since he performed, even on the Sabbath, one of those greatly marveled-at deeds, the Jews, bitter and fierce, leapt upon him;

opening against him, as it were, an ungated and unrestrained mouth, and indeed sharpening their tongue especially for the most biting words, they thought themselves to be speaking most eloquently, proclaiming it a breach of the Law, saying: 'If this man were from God,' they said, 'he would not break the Sabbath.' Therefore Christ set aside their accusations, showing that even on the Sabbath the Father was active, and that he did not hesitate, on account of the Law, to will to do those things that give life to those in the world.

These things having been done both by him and by the Father, he gave full assurance by adding:

'Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing something.' And he speaks here somewhat more coarsely than is fitting concerning the subtlety and transcendence of the divine nature;

for it was not possible to express otherwise the things that lie beyond our human capacity for speech.

But we understand these things subtly and with precision, in the manner befitting the divine and incomprehensible nature itself.

'For whatever he sees the Father doing,' he says, 'these the Son also does likewise.' Is it not true to say that, if he had known his own nature to be lacking in power, he would have said, I suppose, more clearly and more fittingly:

'The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he receives the ability from the Father'? But since he knows himself to be of equal working and equal strength with the Father, he showed that, having one and the same substance with him, he too proceeds, just as the Father does, to the things that are done, going forth with a single will toward absolutely everything together with the one who begot him, and being bound, as it were, by certain common laws of the Godhead unto identical activity and identical will in all things.

Yet indeed the phrase 'cannot' would not, in every case and in every way, indicate weakness, but sometimes it might also signify a nature's unalterable persistence in that on which it is grounded and established, just as, for example, someone might perhaps say:

Light too might say, 'I could not fail to be light.'

Fire, too, and water, if they had voice, would cry out, 'We could not fail to be fire and water.'

And since the utterly reckless ones also rebuked the wonders being worked, which surpassed every marvel, in order to restrain him from raging insolently, he attributed the activity of the accomplished works to the Father, saying:

'but the Father, abiding in me, himself does the works.' For the Father is active through the Son, and would never do anything apart from the power dwelling within him, that is, apart from the Word who has appeared from him and in him, and who exists in him.

For this reason, indeed, he himself also said:

'If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me;'

'but if I do, even though you do not believe me, believe the works' — thereby setting forth here too, I think, throughout everything, an exact and equal proof of his consubstantiality with him.

B: I would have nothing to object to things so rightly spoken; but would you willingly grant me leave to ask one small further question, or will you now already reckon me otherwise slow to learn, tiresome, and troublesome? A: Not in the least, my friend.

For eagerness is better than hesitation, and it is a glorious thing to speak in defense, should the glory of the Savior be maligned by anyone.

B: They say, then, that he whom you believe to be consubstantial and equal in working with the Father worships along with us.

For, speaking to the Samaritan woman, he says, 'You worship what you do not know;'

'we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.' But, O noble sirs, they say, he who is numbered among the worshippers — how could he still claim the glory of consubstantiality, and contend for equality with the Father who is worshipped, although one might also see it another way, namely that he has yielded to the Father his own nature's claim to superiority and pre-eminence? For he said: 'But concerning that day or that hour' — clearly meaning the last day — 'no one knows, not even the angel in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.' A: So then, the Son is unexpectedly revealed to us, as though from a stage machine, to be a mere servant instead of God, and equal to those who came into being through him, ignorant of the final reckoning that belongs to God the Father!

Are these things, then, not already laughable, and resembling, quite fittingly indeed, the buffooneries of the stage? For we shall surely not, by such vulgar jesting and human reasonings proceeding to the very extremity of ignorance — plunging our mind, as it were, into some mire — barter away the most fragrant knowledge of the sacred doctrines.

For they seem, as is reasonable to suppose, to have utterly forgotten, although they have been instructed most often by us ourselves and by the divinely inspired Scripture, that the Word, being God and in the form and equality of the Father, appeared as one of us, not merely in the outward form of the flesh, but also in the properties of humanity, or whatever else one ought to call them.

Worship, together with obedience, belongs to humanity when it is yoked to God and bound tightly under the yoke of servitude; and likewise, not knowing what the counsel and deliberation in God may be, belongs to humanity.

For 'who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become his counselor?' And just as, although the Word has appeared as one of us, they would not say, I think, that he has thereby been shaken from being the Word by being transformed into flesh taken from the earth, so too, if the human nature has been assumed and has become his own, there is nothing troubling in conceiving and declaring that, in accordance with the economy, he has borne, together with humanity, the things proper to it.

For this very thing is precisely what the doctrine of the kenosis required.

Therefore, either let them openly strip the Word of the flesh together with the things that belong to it on its account, and utterly do away with the entire economy, and thus they will see the Son purely as God; or, if they shudder at this as impious and offensive, why then have they resolved to reproach, on account of the measures of humanity, those very things which are most especially fitting to the economy accomplished with the flesh? And yet they surely ought to think wisely that, just as, being God by nature and having appeared from God, he makes the human things his own, so also, having become man, he possesses as his own the honor and glory befitting the Godhead;

for he is worshipped not only on earth, but also in the heavens, even though, as man and as a Jew, he did not disdain the necessity of worshipping, as though it were something of low dignity.

'For when,' it says, 'he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says:'

'And let all the angels of God worship him.' If, then, they claim that the Word who appeared from God was begotten of the seed of Abraham, we are talking nonsense;

let him also be called a Jew, and let him be a worshipper.

But if this undertaking is refuted for those who have chosen to hold such views, as having already driven their madness to its very peak, they will nonetheless insist all the more that, since he took hold of the seed of Abraham and sprang up according to the flesh even from the root of Jesse, he was reckoned a Jew and became, as man, a worshipper — so why, having cast aside as stale the mystery of the economy accomplished with the flesh, do they leap up to the very nature of the Word itself, and impiously drag the one consubstantial with the Father down to the necessity of worshipping nakedly and unclothed — even if this be not understood, perhaps, as applying to what pertains to us, that is, to us ourselves, for whom, should he choose to worship, no one, I think, would find fault, but rather it would even be a matter of praise and a source of every delight? For has it not indeed been written of him that he would, according to his human and lesser nature, be made a little lower than the better nature, namely the angelic, and be reckoned to fall short a little of their glory? B: True;

'but we see him who was made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.' A: Then tell me, on what ground, even though they have obtained the better nature — those who tread the upper city and who have grown wholly rich in a knowledge of God entirely unerring and utterly beyond deception — did they make into an object of worship the one who came in a lesser nature and fell behind the glory belonging to them? Could you explain this, my friend? B: Well, that too is now your task.

A: Therefore, if it is one and the same person who is at once lesser and yet also incomparably superior, we shall clearly assign to his humanity the 'lesser' state as fittingly belonging to it — for human nature falls far short of the angels — while to his Godhead, which is above all things, we shall assign the being superior to and surpassing created things, and the passing, in his very substance, beyond every rational being and every name that is named.

But if indeed, even apart from flesh, and not yet as it were entangled in what pertains to us, the Word were reasonably to bear off the status of being placed among lesser things, even lower than the angels themselves, then he would be inferior to his own creatures and, moreover, a worshipper besides — with our reasoning no longer able to come to his defense or plead his case.

But if to say and think these things is at once impious and most erroneous, and if he is lesser because he is also man, then it must certainly follow that one understand this:

he is a worshipper because he is also man, even though he is God by nature and is worshipped equally with the Father by all,

'for to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess.' And the divinely inspired Paul, laying it down full well that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and knowing that the begotten shares in the glory of the one who begot him,

says: 'At the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' B: But indeed, they say, we shall find the Son co-worshipped with the Father, and yet also himself worshipping in turn, as one who has been honored, and who is not ignorant of who he is by nature;

for he does indeed surpass the nature of created things, yet he is not in the same rank as the Father.

A: So then, the Son has gained the glory of the Godhead as a gift and a reward of virtue, and the necessity of being worshipped is not a prerogative of a particular nature, but he has obtained it by lot solely and only through the bare will of the Father!

B: So they suppose and say.

A: Then could they show where and how the Father has, by his nod, assented to grant worship to the Son?

for surely they will not say that whatever men should choose to glorify would thereby be the decree of God the Father.

B: He has commanded, they say, the holy angels to worship him.

For what else would this signify, than precisely this: 'But when he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says:'

'And let all the angels of God worship him'? A: Then, since they have precisely understood that the Father has commanded that the Son must be worshipped, will they nevertheless deny that the title 'Firstborn,' applied to the Only-Begotten according to the manner of his humanity, necessarily brings with it the appearance that his glory too is something adventitious? For tell me, when was he 'firstborn' except when he became firstborn among many brothers? If, then, the Word were of the same race as us and our brother by nature even before the flesh, why is it said that this did not exist from the beginning, but came to be only in the last times? And how could the one ranked together with creation be understood as the Only-Begotten? But since it is not doubtful — rather it is truly and firmly the case — that he appeared as man in the last times of the age, and that on this account he is called Firstborn, his glory in this respect is adventitious, and the necessity of being worshipped is something added to him.

But if they suppose that this is not so, in their own view, an inescapable argument will turn them back into an unseemly and outlandish absurdity of reasoning.

For if, since he became man and was thereby called Firstborn, and this is the very time when he must be worshipped — precisely when he is said to have most especially emptied himself — then the time of his kenosis would become for him a time of true glory, while the time prior to the incarnation would be one of lowliness and inglory — that is, when, existing in the form and equality of the Father, as it is written, he leapt down to that nature which had thus been cast down, I mean the human nature.

But if he was inglorious and far from being worshipped before the incarnation, then on what ground did the Seraphim, standing round about the Son as he sat enthroned upon the throne of the Godhead, honor him with hymns and doxologies, calling him Lord of Sabaoth, and declaring that heaven and earth were full of his glory? For with what glory was heaven filled, if he receives worship together with the Father only barely, once he appeared as one of us? But listen to the wise Ezra as he writes:

It was when he became Firstborn that he was also commanded to be worshiped.

"Is not this thing given to him by the Father?" {A.} "But we must not simply ask whether it is given, but consider very carefully when it was given."

{B.} Clearly, when he was also Firstborn.

{A.} As having condescended to a brotherhood with us? For this, I think, is what 'firstborn' signifies.

-- which is that he must be worshiped in the rank and measure proper to God? {B.} Not at all.

For what belongs to it in a special way would befit only that nature which is queen over all things.

Therefore, when the Son came down from his own heights and did not consider being equal to God a thing to be seized, but made his own the form that is by nature a servant and one that of necessity worships, then he worshiped together with us.

Since it was utterly unattainable and altogether departed from fitting reasoning that the Son who appeared from the Father should not be seen resplendent in the Father's glories, even though he had come to be in flesh, through the Spirit's torch-bearing heaven -- that is, the multitude of the holy angels -- is thereafter initiated into the mystery concerning him; and, he having been shown forth as firstborn and as the Only-begotten among many brothers and enthroned together with the Father, they were commanded to worship him: not that the Father was now for the first time raising him up to such glory, nor bestowing worship on him as on something untried and unaccustomed, but rather declaring that he who is always and from the very beginning of the ages worshiped by them is, even having come to be in flesh, one to be worshiped.

Therefore (for I shall bring the argument back again to its starting point), the Son worshiped when he was also Firstborn and had appeared in the form of a servant -- from which one might especially learn the resplendent dignity of the superiority that is his by nature.

For if worship befits only the form of a servant, to whom among beings is the free beauty that was his before the incarnation not evident? And as for our saying that even the heavens needed initiation coming from the Spirit, we do not thereby insult the nature of the holy angels, but rather, following the divine Scriptures, we arrive at this very conclusion; as Paul writes with full assurance, that now, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places, according to the purpose of the ages which he wrought in Christ Jesus our Lord. And besides this the divinely inspired Psalmist also says, 'Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.'

'Who is this King of glory?' 'The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.' For when Christ had come back to life, having despoiled Hades and abolished death, and was now running upward and wishing to return to the Father in the heavens, the Spirit -- sounding, no doubt, within them and instructing the powers above -- was commanding that the gates in the heavens be opened for him with all speed, and was showing to them the God who had appeared in the flesh, saying:

'The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.' {B.} It is established, then, that he worshiped as man, although he is God by nature.

You would say, I suppose, that just as we would apply the measures proper to humanity, choosing to think what is fitting, so too we would apply to him the statement that he does not know that day and that hour.

{A.} I would say so indeed, be assured, and without the least blushing.

For a very great swarm of thoughts, not untested, all but signaling to us with their very eyebrows, bids us to walk this opinion on the matter as though along some highway stripped of every difficulty.

For, I think, the lowliness proper to ignorance would not be incompatible with the measures of the self-emptying, yet it is not a deficiency proper to the nature of the Word, insofar as he is conceived as the Word and Wisdom of the Father.

Do I not seem to you to have examined these things wisely? {B.} Quite so, indeed.

{A.} For what buffoonish and craftily woven argument could persuade us to choose to think and hold that the Only-begotten was ignorant of anything hidden in God, if indeed, according to the Scriptures, he truly is the Wisdom and Counsel of the Father? {B.} No argument could persuade one who is truly sensible.

{A.} For surely, my friend, the wise Paul, who writes for us, would not speak falsely:

'For just as no one among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him, so also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.' {B.} Quite so, indeed.

{A.} The Spirit of God, then, knows the things within him, and nothing is hidden from him or unclear to him? {B.} He knows --

-- for how could he not? {A.} If, then, the Spirit of the Father belongs properly to the Son, how will he be ignorant of anything hidden in God, since he himself has as his own the Spirit who knows all things in the Father, even though I hear him say clearly to the holy apostles, 'I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.'

'But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth;'

'for he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.'

'He will glorify me, because he will take of what is mine and will declare it to you.' Is the saying just now put forward clear to you, and have you observed that he called the Paraclete the Spirit of truth, yet said that he proceeds from the Father, thereby showing that all the things of the Father are properly his own as well? {B.} You have spoken excellently.

{A.} And that which is truly most laughable, and which rightly shows the opinion of our opponents to be worthy of contempt, one might learn no less also from this.

For to suppose that so small a matter as this could be unknown to the Word who was begotten of God the Father and who shone forth from him -- the radiance, the image, the bright imprint of his hypostasis, equal in glory and enthroned together with him, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, as it is written -- what a reputation for utter folly, how great and how very fitting, would that opinion earn for them! {B.} As great as can be.

{A.} But not even the Father and God himself, I think, could preserve his own reputation unimpaired, if his Counsel and his Wisdom were truly ignorant of anything.

{B.} I agree -- for whatever anyone happens to know, he will certainly know it in no way apart from his own counsel and wisdom.

For it would befit the defenders of the truth to think in no other way than this.

Let us, then, leave off lingering any further over superfluous and lengthy arguments, and proceed to that other matter.

It was the custom of Christ the Savior to do something of this sort, especially with regard to the holy disciples:

if they inquired about any of those matters which had the appearance of a love of learning yet were free from any excessively lofty investigation, he would graciously grant the explanation and would try to make it as precise and detailed as possible;

but if they wished to learn, to no purpose, something beyond the measure proper to them, he would gently restrain them and persuade them instead to choose to occupy themselves with what was more fitting, and to do the things by which they might become manifest and might possess, before God, the most excellent brightness that comes from good works.

So then, when they had chosen, I know not how, to ask about and learn matters beyond the measure fitting to servants, he persuades them to be still, entreating them with necessary considerations, that the Father revealed it neither to the angels, nor would he have made it known even to the Son himself, if he were, as they suppose, a mere man on earth and did not have it as his nature to be God.

And when they persisted and pressed on, insisting that they needed to learn it, he even, as it were, already rebukes them, saying:

for indeed, once, as he was just then coming out of the sacred precincts, the divinely-inspired disciples brought to him the man who had been blind from birth;

then, still following Jewish opinions, they made the invalid a pretext for their love of learning, and indeed said, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' But since they were touching upon divine judgments and, going beyond what was fitting, were earnestly begging to have something so untrodden and difficult for men to attain made clear to themselves, he turned them back again to choosing to think as befits servants, drove them away from knowledge beyond man, and re-instructed them to hold instead to diligence in good work and worthy pursuits, saying, 'Neither did this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.'

'We must work the works of him who sent us while it is day;'

Do you hear how, having done away with the opinion as unseemly and more fitting to the ignorance of the Jews, he commands that doing good be chosen instead of thoughts beyond man's reach, assigning without qualification to the divine nature alone the knowledge, by and of itself, to accomplish whatever it might will?

{A.} We shall, then, if we hold right belief, be disposed in no other way than this: that even if he is said, together with us, to be ignorant of something according to his humanity, nevertheless, since he is God, the Son knows all the things of the Father -- through whom and with whom be glory to God the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

{A.} When one of the wise men has cried out that 'the fruit of good labors is glorious,' and all but chants it like a charm to those most accustomed to diligent work, will you reject the truth of the saying, or will you rather applaud it with praise, as excellently and rightly composed? For indeed, to endure hardship befits holiness, O Hermias.

{A.} Come then, as we advance to the very last stage of our labor, let us gird our loins with the most complete eagerness, and, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and taken up the sharpest sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and the shield of faith, as it is written, let us manfully go out to meet the sophistries of those who hold heterodox opinions -- men who sharpen mind and shameless tongue, insulting the divine Spirit itself, and who plunder the minds of the weaker, carrying off true and unerring knowledge, and pouring out, as it were into the pits of destruction, the poison of their own senselessness -- even though the Law given through Moses has plainly declared, 'Whatever man strikes any human soul, so that he dies, let him surely be put to death'; while Christ has said clearly and openly, 'Whoever, then, causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a millstone be hung about his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.' {B.} Great indeed, and truly hard to bear, is the judgment upon such men.

For by behaving outrageously toward the brethren and wounding their weak conscience, they sin against Christ.

What reasoning, then, do these men actually have? {A.} It is sheer irrationality, even if what they have determined to hold be called by them an opinion and an argument.

I would gladly tell you, since you are so eager to inquire: