On the Trinity 2-1 part 7/9

For the conclusion has been passed over in silence, but one must supply it, understanding the whole from the part that has been given.

For indeed, on account also of things expressed elliptically, he writes:

'Let the reader understand.' He therefore calls the saints 'gods' — those who by grace have been counted worthy of adoption and of this appellation —

whose citizenship, by virtue, according to the same Apostle, is in heaven;

concerning whom the unerring God himself appears to have said:

'You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.' And the evangelist:

'If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came —' And moreover Scripture also hints at Moses and Aaron, the neighbors of the angels, who have been glorified with the name of God not only in the more general sense, but also more particularly, [as follows:]

For God said to Moses:

'Behold, I make you a god to Pharaoh;' and again, to Aaron:

'You shall be to him as a god;' that is, by the providence exercised toward him.

Or perhaps it is not unlikely, in my judgment, that the faithful and well-approved ministering powers of God — those well-pleasing creatures, I mean the seraphim, the dominions, the powers, and the authorities — have, just as we ourselves, been honored with this most exalted name.

For the Author of all things generously imparts all his own good gifts, without grudging, both to those who ask him and to those who do not ask, provided they are faithful and grateful and know how to remember his grace, even though they remain silent.

Let them therefore rather call to mind Jeremiah prophesying concerning those most wretched gods common among the Greeks:

'The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth.'

'The Lord made the heavens in understanding; he is the living and true God.' And David, singing in Psalm 113:

'The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands.'

They have a mouth, but they will not speak;

they have eyes, but they will not see;

they have ears, but they will not hear;

they have nostrils, but they will not smell;

they have hands, but they will not feel;

they have feet, but they will not walk;

they will not utter a sound with their throat.

May those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.

Having now left this chapter also, let us pass on to another.

The expositors of the heretics, inclined toward the more shameful things, wage their struggle to tear apart the truth, and are forever devising disputes that have nothing at all to do with a right aim.

For they stumble even over the blameless and weightier words of the great and sinless God — who, through his own compassion, heals the things in us that have been corrupted by our own folly, who always helps all, and who turns away in conduct neither from the upright nor from those who have fallen — words that run as follows:

'Glorify me, Father, with your very self' — supposing that he thereby acquired glory as his own for the first time, even though he went on to add:

'with the glory that I had with you before the world existed' — and by this phrase he made it clear that, according to his divinity, he possesses an eternal and connatural glory, which was never cast away from him.

Accordingly, they spoke in these very words — the celebrated John, on the one hand:

'And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten' — while Paul, ever to be remembered and greatly versed in these matters, said:

'For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' And besides, it is not lawful to think that God is glorified by his own work — for all things came into being through him, together with absolutely everything, including even the glory that they suppose him to have received as something new.

And it has been divinely declared that all things together are works and servants of the power and wisdom of God.

The Only-begotten is the wisdom and power of God, inasmuch as he is the creating Word.

Accordingly, this God, so graciously disposed toward communion with us, explained — in the same Gospel — what 'Glorify me' means, when he said to the Father:

'I have glorified you on the earth;'

in agreement with this. And some have faithfully understood the phrase 'Glorify me' to have been spoken on account of the glory that accrues to the form of a servant.

These things, then, in summary form.

Let us now come to a polemical argument against those who do not hear the word 'Father,' but seize instead upon the word 'Glorify.' Let them say what glory they have understood by it.

Is it, perhaps, the glory that we ourselves ascribe to God? Let it be granted, then, by way of concession — though not in truth.

Why then do they call the Son, who is glorified by the Father, a creature and inferior to him? For in the same Gospel he said:

'Father, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you.' And again:

'If I glorify myself, my glory is in them;'

'it is my Father who glorifies me.' And again, concerning what comes from the Father:

'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.' But is this, then, a case of the lesser being glorified by the greater? And how, then, did he preserve equal honor for himself through the words, 'Glorify the Son, that the Son also may glorify you'? But suppose we posit some other kind of glory? This turns out to be a glory conjured out of things that do not exist.

And what sense does it make for both the Father and the Son to be glorified, in an intelligible manner, with the glory befitting a maker?

How then, he says, does it read in the Gospel according to Mark:

'When he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels' — for this is what is said by the orthodox: that, because of the identity of his divinity and kingship with the Father's, he will come in the Father's glory;

that is, possessing glory equal to that of the one who begot him.

For again, in Matthew, the same Lord, speaking of this very matter and showing that the glory belonging to him and to the Father is the same, spoke thus: 'And when the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him.'

And it is utterly foreign to the truth in every way for them to say that the nature of the Son lies somewhere between the divine nature and the created nature, wrongly wresting to this purpose a Scripture that speaks well of something else:

'Mediator between God and men, our Lord Jesus Christ.' For on their account he will thus henceforth slip away from being God and true Son — which has been demonstrated, in the correct manner, that he truly is;

and he will likewise escape being thought of, according to the heretical argument, as a made thing — which he neither is, nor is it so written;

and indeed this too has been divinely proclaimed in Isaiah:

'Not an envoy, nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them' — that is, not a creature, but God himself, who bestows upon us gifts befitting him, gifts more ancient than our very petitions.

The mediatorship, then, belongs to the economy of the incarnation;

in which, having ineffably offered himself as a priestly sacrifice on behalf of the whole human race, and having presented himself to his own Father in the manner of a spiritual incense, he both propitiated him and extinguished the death that hung over the common race, removed us from idols and brought us near to the knowledge of God, restored paradise and led us up into the heavens, joining, as sovereign God, earthly things to heavenly things, mending the estrangement that had come to be, and leading man back up to that grace from which he had slipped.

so that the Apostle, overcome by the surpassing greatness of this reconciliation, proclaims with a God-inspired tongue:

'He himself is our peace, who made the two one, and broke down the dividing wall of partition.' And again:

'Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

But some of the heretics, being altogether bereft of faith, both assume and go on to assert something else even more ridiculous:

that the gifts of grace given to creation before the unshaken, immovable, and loving advent of the Savior Christ in the world were bestowed by God the Father alone, without his own beneficent Son the Word — as though the latter were, supposedly, subject to another's authority.

But if they had any part or portion with those who have rightly theologized, saying: 'All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being' — in which words every gift existed through him and from him;

for these gifts too are part of the things that have come into being;

'He is Lord of all.' And:

'God, Mighty One, Ruler.' And:

'No other shall be reckoned alongside him.' And if they had also understood him who declared, 'There is one lawgiver and judge, who alone is able to save,' they would have known that, apart from the only-begotten Son the Word — who is at once the author of our being, the giver of good things, and both judge and redeemer — no gift has ever come down from above;

nor has any age, or race of creatures, ever been released from evils and deemed worthy of providence apart from him;

and again, on the other hand, not a single thing lies outside his judgment;

but each of us will, in loving-kindness, receive from him the judgment fitting to us — and whatever more there is to say about this, or to understand, or not to understand, we shall likewise learn from him, from whom also, by the good pleasure of the Father and in concord with the Holy Spirit, we received good things from the beginning.

For how is it not most unjust and most impious to say, or even to suspect at all, that while he himself created and gave the law, he did not also provide for it in advance — a thing that takes precedence even over creating itself?

but that, after all these things here, he nonetheless judges those who received good things from another, and who lost them through their own thoughtlessness and folly? Or how is it not absurd to suppose this: that, on the one hand, he made us self-determining, as has often been said —

but that he himself did not have this self-determination, which he apportioned to others according to the measure of their nature and as was fitting? I think, then, that even they themselves — the heretics whose arguments miss the truth — perceive that, though they wished to say something opposed to our own position, they will have nothing to say.

For while they war, with their intolerable and unrestrained malice, against the Savior who has given rejoicing as a common gift to all, other men too — trustworthy and steadfast in character, and not merely ordinary men — are seen bearing witness, in addition to those already mentioned.

For Zechariah, on the one hand, cries out distinctly concerning both things past and things to come:

'Whatever is good, and whatever is fair, shall be from him.' And Isaiah proclaims concerning him uniformly throughout:

'God, Mighty One, Ruler.' Following these holy men in some measure, in whose words theological truths bloom everywhere with grace and beauty, even those outside the faith have, in this respect, hymned things fitting concerning the Creator and King of all.

'For unto men all things are splendid gifts of God;'

'Whether it be something good and blessed by nature, or most excellent, or lovely — for all, they are fashioned as the good gifts of God.'

'The might of the immeasurable God, and his boundless strength, rules over all things, and he alone reigns over all.'

And in Matthew, he says, when the mother of the sons of Zebedee — blessed with fine children — asked that her two sons, who were apostles, might be enthroned with him, one on each side, at his right and at his left, in his kingdom of the heavens, he answered:

'It is not mine to give, but it belongs to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.' And this in no way diminishes his own honor.

For things are not always as the mere arrangement of the words alone would suggest;

but there are times when the truth completes the meaning even by reference to things that are not explicitly stated.

It was said in this way, then, on account of the form of a servant; or rather, in order to establish that promotions to precedence which are not made according to rank and according to right reason are hateful to God; or also because that woman had conceived the presumption that she had fine children, and that her sons were worthy both of apostolic primacy and of enthronement together with divinity.

For the things hidden in the heart were not concealed from him, as John says:

But Jesus himself did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify concerning man;

for he himself knew what was in man. Listen, then, to what follows, and be persuaded that my understanding has not erred.

'Whoever among you wishes to become great shall be your servant;'

'and whoever wishes to be first shall be your slave.' And how in Luke also he forbids the choosing for oneself of the first seats and the first places at table, we have heard.

For indeed it was not fitting for the just God — who prepares the things to come according to each one's manner of life — to grant anyone an unjust or boastful request, and to set the first in the last place, and to grieve the apostles who had not abandoned their rank nor sought preeminence, and, along with them, our forefathers, who were well-pleasing to him and admired for their virtue, with whom he made covenant, and to whom it is altogether fitting to suppose he had promised beforehand the seat of honor on either side of himself — into whose bosoms these, of whom our discourse speaks, were destined to be laid to rest.

and besides these, Moses also;

since he himself is Lord both of the very thing requested and of all judgment, and it is he who predetermined the thrones for the apostles, advancing them in most royal fashion and making them a promise, saying:

'You will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Then, setting down one indisputable rule against anyone boasting greatly and granting things to himself, he says:

'If I testify about myself, my testimony is nothing;'

'but there is one who testifies about me' — that is, he says, the Father, who says:

'This is my Son.' And that this was said for the aforesaid reason alone, he himself again confirms, saying:

'Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true;' and again:

'The very works testify about me, and Moses testifies about me.'

Such also is the meaning of what was said by the Savior in Luke:

'Father, into your hands I will commit my spirit.' By his own person he commends the humanity that is being brought to life in him through faith — humanity which he deigned to call his members;

or perhaps he is teaching everyone, on the one hand, to recognize that Arius erred also in this, in supposing him to be without a soul in the economy of the incarnation;

and, on the other hand, that in our final breaths, when we pray, we should use this same expression, gratefully confessing that our existence as human beings comes from God, and that our return likewise is to him.

This event, then, was a rule for us to follow.

But the heretical impiety extends not only to the Only-begotten, but even to the Holy Spirit.

For indeed, not content with the Savior's saying already set forth, namely:

'I have not spoken from myself'; and 'The Holy Spirit will not speak from himself'; and also Paul's saying, which runs:

'To the only wise God' — moreover, they likewise misuse, in a spirit of denial, the other sayings found in the treatise On the Holy Spirit, so as to belittle his boundlessly great and venerable nature;

but also the prophecy of Amos, as though it indicated that the Holy Spirit of God is a creature — although it makes no such implication about him whatsoever, neither in this passage nor in any other.

'I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became like a firebrand snatched from the fire;'

'yet not even so did you return to me, says the Lord.'

'Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel;'

'but since I will do thus to you, prepare to call upon your God, O Israel.'

'For behold, he who establishes the thunder, and creates the wind, and declares to men his Christ, who makes the dawn and the mist, and treads upon the high places of the earth;'

'The Lord God Almighty is his name.' Since, then, three complete hypostases are here mentioned — one saying, 'I overthrew'; another, of whom it is said:

'as God overthrew'; and yet another, where it speaks of 'his Christ';

not of his own spirit, but from the Holy Spirit, who also spoke concerning the airy wind that by its own nature follows upon the thunder that resounds for men.

Wherefore, going on, he mentions the dawn and the mist,

For how could the Father have said, 'declaring to men his Christ,' and not 'my Christ,' as he said in Psalm 131?

'I have prepared a lamp for my Christ'? Or, 'his name,' when he ought to have said 'my name'? But if indeed this utterance should be granted to be his own, then the Holy Spirit is shown to be God Almighty.

Nor, again, does this utterance fit the prophet, when he is speaking about the Father;

for the saying 'I overthrew you, as God overthrew' would then be found spoken in his own person;

but a man does not overthrow as God does;

nor is it fitting for a prophet to speak both boastfully and blasphemously at once.

Moreover, the fact that the text reads 'creating wind' and not 'having created wind,' and that the establishing of the thunder is placed first while the creating of the wind is placed second, and further that it is prophesied plainly, without the article and without the word 'Holy' — 'creating wind' — demonstrates, through all these points,

that the discourse is directed toward the airy wind.

For rarely is the Holy Spirit of God spoken of without the word 'holy,' or 'of God,' or the article, or some participial phrase, being joined to it;

as in 'the spirit of Elijah,' and 'walk by the Spirit.' But he said 'creating wind' because the airy wind arises, whenever occasion calls for it, in accordance with what is advantageous for the needs for which it came into being.

For even now we are accustomed to say —

not as though it were now created, but as having just now sprung up violently.

Prophetically, then — and in a sense pertaining to a time both intermediate and yet to come — it was spoken by the divine Spirit as follows:

'I overthrew you' — that is, you stiff-necked Jews, uncircumcised in heart — 'as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,' cities which had had

he says, inhabitants who, like the Jews, had lived without repentance.

'Therefore prepare to call upon your God, O Israel' — whom, he says, you have not even to this day shown yourself clearly to have known.

And by this he meant the only-begotten Son of God.

'For he who establishes the thunder, and creates the wind, and makes the dawn and the mist, and treads upon the high places of the earth;'

'The Lord God Almighty is his name;'

'behold, declaring to men his Christ.' When, then, and how did he declare him? When he spoke from on high, saying:

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And in many places one of the three divine hypostases is found speaking about the other, or about the other two, just as this topic was expounded with many proofs in the first book.

Indeed, this is also to be found a little earlier in the aforementioned prophecy of Amos:

'For three transgressions of the sons of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away from them, for the sake of healing them.'

'They did not keep the law of the Lord, and his commandments;'

'and their vanities led them astray, the ones they made, which their fathers followed after them;'

'and I will send fire upon Judah, and it will consume the foundations of Jerusalem.' It is necessary, then, if not to suppose the prophecy is speaking of the wind, at least to suppose it is speaking of their own human spirit, which the sacred sayings frequently mention;

as, for instance, when Paul writes to the Thessalonians in his first epistle:

'Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely;'

'and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'; and as when Stephen, praying, says:

'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'; and as Luke says in the Gospel, when the Savior raised the dead girl, he said:

'And her spirit returned.' It would be fitting to give glory in this manner, if they had acted with due measure;

but they did not understand this to be that same spirit, and so arrive at the extreme of blasphemy.

'Who is wise, that he may understand these things?' And clearly it is the one who has understood them fittingly and with spiritual discernment.

For indeed it is difficult for those trained in worldly matters, or in heretical teachings, to attain to the precision of the Scriptures.

'My Spirit shall not remain upon them, because they are flesh.' Even the wisdom of the outside world hands down that the hidden power and discernment belonging to these treasures come from God, as do all things, speaking as follows:

'For God has marked out for men all things that he wills, and, untaught, gives ear to all mortals.'

But, 'all things,' it says, 'came into being through the Son'; if, then, 'all things' means everything without exception, the Holy Spirit too would be included.

But he said 'all things' — that is, all created things;

Nowhere is it written that the Spirit of God is a creature, any more than the Son is.

But a slave neither sets free, as the Holy Spirit does, nor knows what its Lord is doing, nor re-creates what has been created by the Master, nor has man for its temple as God does, nor is it written to be divine.

Moreover, in another way the first-created one is signified—he who, on account of his own arrogance, was cast down from his primacy to the lowest of the low.

And when the Jews supposed that the Lord was not the Son of God but the son of David, and he asked them concerning himself whose son he was, and they answered, 'David's,' he then said to them, 'And how does David in the Holy Spirit call him Lord,' saying:

'The Lord said to my Lord'? And by this he made clear that David, prophesying in the Holy Spirit, calls the one who was to be his son by succession of lineage according to the incarnation his own Lord according to divinity.

as the same David also says in the histories of the Kingdoms:

'The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me.' The heretics, misconstruing this both wickedly and ignorantly at once, say that the Holy Spirit, through David, was calling Christ his own Lord.

But the sequel that follows refutes them, which reads:

'If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?' Now he said all these things while the Holy Spirit was sounding within him,

for he himself was necessarily ignorant of both things to come and heavenly things;

'in the Holy Spirit.' Yet he did not prophesy everything altogether in the person of the Holy Spirit, or of the Son, or of the Father, or of creation, but sometimes also in his own person, as in the words just mentioned, and as when he says:

'Against you alone have I sinned, and done what is evil before you'; and, 'In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother bore me.' It remains, then, that these too should be understood with reference to the divine Spirit, whenever David himself and the other prophets say:

for they all spoke in the Holy Spirit:

'I am the Lord your God, the Almighty'; and again:

'Besides me there is no God'; and all such sayings.

And what is said in John, 'For the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,' truly has this interpretation:

'Not yet,' he says, 'did all possess the perfect knowledge of the sanctification and the gifts of the Spirit of God;'

not yet was he known throughout the world under heaven, nor yet glorified together with the Father and the Son.

For God's coming-to-be in relation to us is our knowledge of Him;

and we come to know this not whenever we wish, but whenever we attain the perfection of understanding;

and whenever, purified through virtues won through struggle, we become worthy, then that very thing of itself grants us its illumination.

For after the resurrection the Master Christ, breathing upon the faces of the apostles, said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit'; and after his ascension, at Pentecost, he came upon them, appearing as tongues of fire;

Therefore the Master also foretold to them:

'But you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.' And the phrase 'Jesus was not yet glorified' means, he says, 'not yet having suffered, and risen, and raised up with himself a multitude of the dead, and been taken up.'

For not yet was he believed by all to be the pre-eternal beloved Son of God, and glorified as the God of the fathers;

that is, not yet was the glory concerning him confirmed among all.

'Father, the hour has come'; that is, all that was foretold concerning me by the inviolable Scriptures has been fulfilled;

'Glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you.' So then, however you understand 'Jesus was not yet glorified,' in that same way you should also take 'the Spirit was not yet'; otherwise, even if you did not say so outright, you would plainly be found holding this very position nonetheless:

namely, that the things which, before this saying was thus expressed, [had already been spoken by the Spirit,] are older than the divine Spirit who inspired them;

to which position even a bare thought supplies the answer—as the saying goes, one running past could examine and dismiss it in passing—for it surpasses all folly.

But to others it seemed that 'Jesus was not yet glorified' was said either on account of the servile form which he himself bore, because it had not yet ascended into the heavens—Christ having become for the faithful the firstfruit both of every other blessedness and indeed also of the ascent into the heavens, for Christ is the firstfruit, as was said above;

or on our account, of whom he himself, according to the incarnation, is written to be the firstfruit;

'I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth'; and as Paul, in agreement, writes:

'He raised us up together, and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus'; and again:

'But our citizenship is in heaven.' CHAPTER

Nor is what was written by Paul to the Romans sound for their [purposes], namely:

'The Spirit itself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words;'

'and he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.' For above all, by saying 'with things unutterable,' he signified that such matters are not to be pried into;

for, he says, they are incomprehensible and ineffable; and by saying 'according to God,' he indicates that these things are not on our level, nor ought they to be understood according to human custom;

for it surpasses all understanding, and puts the very nature of speech to shame.

Moreover, he did not say simply, 'intercedes,' or 'intercedes against us and against the saints';

but, 'intercedes on behalf of us,' and 'on behalf of the saints.' It is proper to the Holy Spirit, as to God, to be loving toward mankind.

Nevertheless, since they utter these things in a human manner, and not as befits God, let them at last come to know that 'to entreat' is also said in the sense of 'to observe';

and one might say this is, more properly, the primary sense of the word;

for some call 'holding a meeting for pleasure and conversation' by this term;

it is said to mean 'to petition for oneself' rather than merely 'to meet.'

And here by 'groanings' he means 'acts of compassion.'

'The Spirit of God, therefore,' he says, 'looks upon our affairs with incomprehensible acts of compassion';

for this too, though spoken in a mystical manner, so far surpasses the level of creation that he at once ascribed to God, the knower of hearts, as a great thing, the knowing of the mind of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, the Son likewise also intercedes on our behalf;

and yet he is great, and sovereign, and true God.

For the same apostle writes concerning him, to the Hebrews:

'Always living to intercede for them'; but to the Romans:

'Christ Jesus, who died—or rather, who was raised from the dead—

who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.' Now that the title 'Paraclete,' and 'to intercede for us,' must not be understood according to what the wording appears to suggest, in the manner of worldly conversation, one can be taught from expressions of a similar kind:

as when he writes concerning God the Father in Psalm 85:

'Show me a sign for good, that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me'; and Paul [writes]:

'Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts;'

'He who repents concerning the evils of men'—that is, 'He who forgives, or has compassion';

for it is not that he himself, being the cause of the evil, then repents.

Often Scripture takes a word that here signifies a certain thing, and elsewhere sets it down as pointing, on its surface, to something else;

'Moses was tending the sheep of Jethro his gambros.' Yet on the contrary, Jethro was the father-in-law, and Moses the son-in-law (gambros).

But that the invisible God is uncontainable and unattainable by every mind, and that therefore, for the most part, divine utterances are not simply plain to all as it happens, but hold a hidden meaning—this one can find even in the books of outside (pagan) philosophy:

'Unspeakable to mortals are the cares of the heavenly God, each thing fenced round by ineffable providences;'

'of these it is not lawful for a mortal to grasp the unmeasured by measure.'

And the passage found in John: 'And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent'; and again:

'Believe in God, and believe also in me'—the Macedonians have most blasphemously contrived from this, claiming that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here, as though, supposedly, it were alien in nature [to the Godhead];

and that on this account it is excluded from being true God.