Anti-Arian Works 13 part 4/11

Hence it is that the holy evangelist too, when he wished to express the beginningless eternity of the Word, filled with the Holy Spirit found nothing more fitting, nothing more suitable, than to say: 'In the beginning was the Word' (John 1:1). For the Word did not begin to be in the beginning, since he knew that Word not to be naturally subject to a beginning of nativity; but 'in the beginning,' he says, 'was the Word': so that, hearing this, the rashness of human curiosity might restrain itself from the impiety of an initiated generation, since whatever it should wish to conjecture with immoderate thought before that generation, it would be able to find in the Word nothing other than what always was. For that truly was in the beginning, which was without a beginning of existing;

because it would not truly be in the beginning, if it had begun to be: for that is truly said to be in the beginning, in which existence itself is found naturally without a beginning. And so the holy evangelist, in saying, 'In the beginning was the Word,' said something such as if he had said, 'In eternity was the Word.' For true eternity, which did not begin to be, alone is found to be the true principle. But the evangelist did not say, 'In the beginning was God,' but 'In the beginning was the Word'; because no one doubts concerning God the Father that He is eternal without a beginning: yet this had to be intimated to us concerning the Son, which the blessed John most fully shows, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word': that hence we might know the Son to be without a beginning;

since whatever beginning we may wish to conceive, we shall always find that in the beginning was the Word: lest we should ever say that to have begun to be, which we always hear was in the beginning. Therefore the Son was with the Father, as God with God, as the immense with the immense, as naturally coeternal with the eternal. FRAGMENT XX. The eternal Father was able to beget without a beginning. The very terms surely testify against you, that the Father was without doubt able to beget the Son, and that, because He was able, He begot. Accordingly, because God the Father is omnipotent, just as He was able to beget, so He was able to beget without a beginning; nay rather, just as He begot, so He begot without a beginning.

Because His nature, which is without a beginning, just as it has no beginning of existing, so could not have a beginning of begetting. For that nature always is; and therefore that which is naturally born of it, equally always is. For the natural unity could not be changed by generation, since the natural nativity acknowledged in itself the nature, and likewise the natural otherness of the God who begets. Accordingly, yield at last to the property of the terms, and believe; and in Him whom the Apostle proclaims to be the proper Son of the Father, acknowledge the eternity of the paternal generation without a beginning. FRAGMENT XXI. Man was made in the image, not of one divine person only, but of the whole Trinity.

From the holy Scriptures both a Trinity in persons and a unity in nature of God are shown. Return to the beginning of the holy Scriptures, in which (whether you will or no) you will hear that man was made in the image of the Trinity. For there it is written: 'And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26). Where, in that it is not put 'They said,' but 'God said,' the one essence of the Godhead is recognized. Likewise, in that He did not say 'To images,' but 'to the image,' the one image which is made shows the one nature of its maker. And when it is thus said in the singular 'to the image,' so that it is not said 'To my image,' nor 'To thy image,' but 'to our image';

the plural number is joined to the singular, so that in the unity of the divine nature a Trinity of persons may be recognized. If therefore the Trinity is not naturally one God, why did He say, not in the plural 'To images,' but in the singular 'to the image'? And if man was not to be made in the one image of the whole Trinity, why did He not say 'My,' but 'our'? Whereas a little later, for the intimation of the one divine essence, the Scripture says: 'And God made man; to the image of God He made him' (ibid., 27). Which the blessed Apostle too, confirming by his preaching, says: 'Stripping off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge

in knowledge), according to the image of Him who created him' (Col. 3:9-10). And lest it should seem to you that man is asserted to have been created in the image of God the Father alone, hear what the Apostle without interruption subjoins: 'Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all' (ibid., 11). Behold, the blessed Apostle in this place, when he wished to show Him by whom and in whose image man was created, says that Christ is all and in all. But if you should wish to assign to man the image of Christ alone, see what you will answer concerning that passage, where it is said: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26).

For this saying, whether you contend that it should be assigned to the person of the Father or of the Son, unless you say that man was made in the image of the Father and the Son, it is necessary that you profess either the Father or the Son to have lied. Recognize, therefore, in man not the image of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, nor of the Holy Spirit alone, but the one image of the holy Trinity; that you may be able truly to confess three persons, the Trinity itself, one God. Moses too, for the teaching of the mystery of the Trinity of the one God, is known to have blessed the people of Israel thus, at God's own command: 'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and have mercy on thee. The Lord lift up His face upon thee, and give thee peace' (Num.

6:24-26). Behold, the Lord is named three times, so that both the distinction in persons and the unity in nature of the holy Trinity may be recognized. That we ought thus to believe and confess, the Trinity itself, who is one, true, and good God, also taught through the prophet Isaiah, with the Seraphim crying out to one another three times: 'Holy, Holy, Holy'; and adding once beneath: 'The Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory' (Isa. 6:3). From this proclamation therefore of the heavenly powers, recognize the holy Father, the holy Son, the holy Paraclete Spirit; and believe the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one God: hear the threefold 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' that you may recognize three to be persons;

hear the single 'The Lord God of hosts,' that you may understand the unity of the Godhead. This too the blessed Apostle confirms, who, for the distinction of persons, says: 'One God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him' (1 Cor. 8:6). And he said that the faithful are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:22). But showing the Trinity to be one God, he says: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' (Rom. 11:33). And a little after: 'For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; to Him be glory unto the ages' (ibid., 36). And the blessed Apostle John plainly says: 'And these three are one' (1 John 5:7);

which is said of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as we have shown above when you demanded a reason. FRAGMENT XXII. Fire is not prior to its own brightness or heat: so neither is the Father prior to the Son, or to the Holy Spirit. But what did it seem good to you to say? 'Can it then come to pass that He who begets should arise together with Him whom He begets?' Thus you wished to say this vainly, as if we said that the Father too was born, because we say that the Son is coeternal with the Father. We know the Father to be begotten of none; we know the Son to be begotten of the Father: for that eternity begot for itself a coeternal offspring, which is not found to have its origin from anything. The Father, therefore, is the eternal origin, the Son the coeternal offspring of the eternal origin.

The Father, therefore, could not arise together with the Son whom He begot, but the Son could be born without a beginning of the unbegotten Father. That likeness of fire, therefore, which you put forward under my name, your fabrications are wont much to destroy; when something is found in a creature which brings forth something from itself, and yet does not precede that which it has brought forth: whence it may be recognized by those who consider rightly that, of the eternal Father, the nativity of the Son is no less eternal. But that some likeness of the divine generation may be taken from fire, the authority of the apostolic preaching supports this, which says: 'For our God is a consuming fire' (Heb. 12:29). Which he said following the preaching of holy Moses saying in Deuteronomy:

'For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire' (Deut. 4:24). To this pertains also that which is said in the book of Wisdom concerning Wisdom herself: 'For she is the brightness of eternal light' (Wis. 7:26). Which is likewise brought forth by apostolic preaching, when it is said to the Hebrews concerning the Son Himself: 'Who, being the brightness of glory and the figure of His substance' (Heb. 1:3). But when these things are said, corporeal realities are by no means being compared to God, who is not corporeal; but because the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, the divine goodness, taking counsel for our weakness, has placed in various things certain signs of the knowledge of itself:

so that in those things by whose grasping we are too weak, we might be made instructed by the evidences of familiar things. Although therefore it is also said of Wisdom that she is the vapor of the power of God (Wis. 7:25); yet the Holy Spirit too is not incongruously likened, in the nature of fire, to vapor (insofar as the knowledge of the divine reality requires it): on account of that which the Apostle says, 'fervent in Spirit' (Rom. 12:11). But this is not to be so received that anyone should from this ascribe to the Holy Spirit a nativity from God the Father; but only to this end, that he may recognize the one nature of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and understand the one natural eternity of the divine Trinity.

Consider, then, that in fire there is indeed the origin of brightness and of heat, and yet fire is not prior to its own brightness or heat: and from this, confess the Son and the Holy Spirit to be eternal, just as you confess the Father also to be eternal; not comparing the creature to the Creator, but knowing the invisible things of God through the things that are made, being understood. FRAGMENT XXIII. Wisdom is the brightness of eternal light. There is no brightness of eternal light except an eternal one. Now I think it is from the holy Scriptures, that which we have recalled being said of Wisdom, that she is the brightness of eternal light (Wis. 7:26): and you will never dare to proclaim in any way the brightness to be later than the light.

And because that light, of which Wisdom is the brightness, is so naturally eternal as to be without a beginning, it is necessary that that brightness of the light too be so eternal as to be naturally coeternal, without a beginning, with the very light of which it is the brightness. This testimony of holy Scripture is not only full of the force of authority, but also of the light of reason. For it is right reason that, if this testimony of holy Scripture is received, one eternity of the light and the brightness be believed. For not in vain did God will this, that in that passage where Wisdom is shown to be the brightness of light, the same light should be called eternal by the testimony of Scripture;

except that, from the fact that we know that light to be naturally eternal, we might also without doubt believe its brightness to be naturally coeternal with it. FRAGMENT XXIV. Neither was the Father before the generation, nor the Son before the nativity. I say that the Son is always born, and I confess that the Father begot Him without a beginning. How therefore could the Son have existed before He was born, whose nativity could not have a beginning? For He could not have been born prior to His own nativity, by which nativity He is so eternal that He is naturally not later than the Father. The Son, therefore, did not precede His own nativity, whom the natural nativity itself shows to be coeternal with His begetter.

I affirm also that the Father begat; yet I do not proclaim that He could have existed before He begat. For He was not prior to the nativity of the Son, because, just as the divinity of God the Father is eternal, so also is His paternity eternal; and where the eternity of paternity is recognized in the Begetter, there too is found in the Son an eternal nativity. He did not, therefore, begin to exist from the moment He begat, because neither the essence of the Father nor the generation ever in any degree began. For there is one eternity in the Father of both the essence and the generation at once; in which eternity that essence and generation so abide that it is impious either to think the generation later than the divinity of the Father, or to believe the Godhead prior to the generation.

Without beginning, therefore, did God the Father beget, He who did not begin to be; and without beginning is the nativity of the Son, for this belongs to the otherness of the paternal generation. You have heard that the Son ever is, and was born without beginning, and that nothing can be said to have existed before His nativity, whose divinity and nativity are naturally acknowledged not to have begun. For search in the Holy Scriptures, and you will find that there is so utterly no beginning to the Son's divine nativity, that wherever His divine nativity is set down, a 'before' is always spoken of it. As it is written in the Psalm: 'Before the day-star I begot Thee' (Psalm 109:3).

There too the Father calls Himself and His Son one Principle, since this is the true Principle which is naturally found to be eternal without beginning. In the book of Proverbs likewise Wisdom itself says of the Father: 'Before He made the earth, before the fountains of waters issued forth, and before all the hills, He begat me' (Proverbs 8:23, 24, 25). You say that the divine nativity of the Only-begotten God cannot be known because it cannot be recounted; whereas assuredly, if it could be recounted, it would not be divine. Wherefore, because it is divine, it is true; because it is divine, it is eternal; because it is divine, it is unutterable.

That, therefore, which you have vainly answered to yourself—that the Son could not exist before He was born, and that the Father without doubt existed before He begat—these are the thoughts of flesh and blood, which cannot possess the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50); for you judge of the divinity what you perceive among men. But it is not so. For the eternal God the Father, without beginning, has an eternal generation by which He begat His Only-begotten; not as flesh is generated from flesh, but as God was born from God, one from one, true from true, coeternal from the eternal; other in person, not another in nature; God born from God the Father, and with God the Father naturally one, eternal, immortal, and unchangeable God.

Let us therefore confess that the Son is the Beginning and the Principle, because it is written: 'The Beginning, who also speak unto you' (John 8:25); and again: 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end' (Revelation 1:8): yet that Principle which together with the Father is one Principle; and therefore the true Principle, which is before every principle. For as He is therefore true God, because He was born as God from the nature of the Father, so He is therefore the true Principle, because He was born without beginning from that Father who is the true Principle. Thus, then, the Son has no beginning of being born, just as the Father has no beginning of existing. In the beginning, therefore, was the Son together with the Father, because the Father and the Son are one Principle:

and that one and true Principle, of which there is no beginning of existing. The Ancient of Days is at once the Father and the Son, because that is the true antiquity by nature which is a natural eternity without beginning. For just as that length of which God says: 'With length of days will I fill him' (Psalm 90:16), and the prophet: 'That I may dwell in the house of the Lord in length of days' (Psalm 22:6), is therefore a true length, because it is bounded by no term; so that antiquity is true which is known to have been begun by no beginning: and thus that antiquity knows no beginning, just as this length admits no end. Accordingly He who called Himself Alpha and Omega neither began to be nor ceases to be:

for as He does not have in Himself the possibility of at any time not being, so He does not naturally have in Himself the possibility of ever not having been. FROM BOOK VII. ON THE EQUALITY AND UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON. FRAGMENT XXV. The Holy Spirit is neither less than the Father or the Son, nor subject to them. Against the things you have proposed concerning the names and offices, we have given you above, as far as the matter demanded and with the Lord's help, an answer: showing that the Holy Spirit is not, by reason of those names or offices, found to be in any respect subject and lowly, as you suppose. But in that passage of the Gospel where you think Him shown to be lesser and subject, there the Holy Spirit is recognized as not being by nature alien from the unity of the Father and the Son.

For see what Christ says: 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now; but when that Spirit of truth shall come, He will teach you all truth' (John 16:12, 13). Here first our Saviour deigned to commend the power of the Holy Spirit, since those things which the disciples could not bear while He Himself was present and teaching according to the flesh, they would without doubt bear once strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here assuredly He does not show the power of the Holy Spirit to be greater than His own; but He demonstrated that the power of the Holy Spirit is one, and His own also: so that He who was to confer upon them the fullness of power was not one lesser in power.

This, moreover, was necessary on account of the distinction of persons, not on account of any diversity of works; but it belonged to order, that by His inward illumination and confirmation the gift of spiritual understanding and of altogether insuperable power should be perfected in the apostles—power without whose name the sacrament of baptism cannot subsist. This therefore Christ did, not because He was able to give less than what the Holy Spirit gave (since in every gift the gift of the Holy Trinity is one, just as in every work the office of the Holy Trinity is one); but God the Son did this to show the one nature and one power of the Holy Trinity;

so that He by whom, as the Saviour Himself proclaimed, it was established that the apostles were to be taught into all truth, no one might in any degree esteem to be less than the Father and the Son. There is here, therefore, no indication of subjection, where the natural unity is made manifest; but Christ, who is the true Wisdom, is found to have reserved the full teaching of truth for the coming of Him whose one substance with Himself and with the Father He wished to demonstrate. Which He shows by the following words, saying: 'For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will announce to you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall announce it to you' (John 16:13, 14).

Behold, He first shows that the things of the Holy Spirit are none other than those of the Son. Then, to show that all that is the Father's is His own, He added (verse 15): 'All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall receive of mine, and shall announce it to you.' Let us therefore first attend to what He says: 'For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.' But who comprehends what manner of speaking, or what manner of hearing, belongs to that simple nature? Where, just as to be wise, or to know, is nothing other than to be, so to hear is nothing other than to be. The Holy Spirit therefore hears whatsoever the Father and the Son say (Theodulf: 'they say'), and these same things He likewise says;

just as the Son sees what the Father does, and likewise does these same things. For in that nature, where there is the highest and true simplicity, therein the Son sees what the Father does, and the Holy Spirit hears what the Son says together with the Father, because by the communion of the natural essence both the Son came forth born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This, therefore, is for the Holy Spirit to hear, namely to proceed from the nature of the Father and the Son: and this is to speak, namely by grace ineffably to make intimate to our hearts. And yet that same Holy Spirit, who spoke both in the apostles and in the prophets—for not only did our Saviour say to the apostles:

'For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you' (Matthew 10:20); but blessed Peter also said that prophecy was never brought by human will, but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21); that same Holy Spirit, as I said, blessed David calls Lord God, saying: 'I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me' (Psalm 84:9). This, then, is for the Holy Spirit to hear, namely to be, to whom to be is nothing other than to know. FRAGMENT XXVI. How the angels both ever see the face of the Father, and desire to look into the Holy Spirit.

Next, remember that the apostle Peter said of this Holy Spirit that the angels desire to look into Him: for thus he says: 'The things which are now announced to you by those who have preached the gospel to you, the Holy Spirit being sent from heaven, into whom the angels desire to look' (1 Peter 1:12). But what is it for the angels to look, except to understand? For the rational creature understands what it spiritually beholds, because its eye is its understanding. If therefore the Holy Spirit knew anything less—which assuredly He did not know less—He would understand less.

The holy angels, therefore, ought not to have desired to look into Him who, according to the fullness of knowledge, are attested by the testimony of Truth itself to see the face of the Father. For speaking of the little ones He says: 'Their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven' (Matthew 18:10). Who then would be so perverse as to dare to esteem this concerning the holy angels—that they should always behold the face of the Father (whom you say is greater than the Holy Spirit), and yet desire to look into the Holy Spirit (whom you assert to be lesser)? FRAGMENT XXVII. What it is for the Holy Spirit to speak not of Himself, but the things He hears from the Father and the Son: and what it is for Him to be sent by these.

Wherefore, if you rightly consider this which the Holy Spirit is said to hear, from this you will recognize that the nature of the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. For the Holy Spirit hears the Father and the Son speaking, just as the Son sees the Father working: He hears by the communion of one nature; for from that source He has an eternal hearing whence He has the natural origin of eternal divinity: and therefore the things which He hears and speaks—because in the fact that His teaching is recognized to be divine, His one substance with the Father and the Son is likewise recognized. For there the speech of the Holy Spirit is perceived, where nothing is thought concerning His divinity otherwise than is fitting.

But as for this which the Holy Spirit teaches into all truth, they by no means perceive it who by the hardness of a blind heart contradict His majesty: to those who did so, namely the Jews, the Son of God thus replied: 'You seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you' (John 8:37). They were indeed unable to be capable of His word, whose divine majesty they by no means recognized. Therefore He says to them: 'I speak that which I have seen with the Father' (verse 38): for in that which He had seen with the Father He was speaking, in that He confessed Himself naturally equal to the Father. For the evangelist had also said above:

'Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the sabbath, but also said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God' (John 5:18): and after He had given eyes to him who had been born blind, He thus replied to the indignant Jews: 'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish for ever' (John 10:27, 28). And to show what His voice is which His sheep hear (because truly those sheep hear the voice of this good shepherd, which recognize the one power, and from this the one essence, of the Father and the Son): straightway with a truly divine voice, showing His own and at once the Father's one power and essence, He said of His sheep:

'And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one' (ibidem, 28, 29, 30). This, then, is the voice which His sheep hear; which, namely, in the fact that no one snatches out of the Son's hand, nor out of the Father's hand, understand the one power of the Son and the Father; and hearing from Him that He Himself and the Father are one, recognize the true unity of natural essence in the Father and the Son. This is the voice of the Son, this is the speech of the Holy Spirit, this both the Son and the Holy Spirit heard from the Father; because the Son was born of the nature of the Father, and thence the Holy Spirit proceeds:

this also the Holy Spirit hears from the Father and the Son, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son by the equality of the common divinity. The Holy Spirit therefore does not speak of Himself, because He is not of Himself, but from the Father and the Son He has His natural speech, whence, naturally proceeding, He has the truth of His origin. To this indeed pertains what He says: 'He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall announce it to you' (John 16:14). For surely not, as (perhaps thus) it has been said, 'shall receive,' as though the Holy Spirit had not yet received those things which He was to teach the apostles? Which I have shown above to be as absurd as it is impious. It was therefore said, 'He shall receive of mine,' as though it were said: