Anti-Arian Works 1 part 6/7

it may come about that all the members of charity, the joining remaining, may persevere in the unity of the body. And we worthily ask that this be done in us by that gift of the Spirit who is the one Spirit both of the Father and of the Son; because the holy natural unity and equality and charity of the Trinity, which is the one only and true God, sanctifies by unanimity those whom it adopts. For in that one substance of the Trinity, there is unity in the origin, equality in the offspring, and in charity the communion of unity and equality; there is no division of that unity, no diversity of that equality, no weariness of that charity:

for there nothing disagrees, since the equality is dear and one, and the unity is equal and dear, and the charity is equal and one, naturally and unchangeably enduring. Since therefore from that very communion (if it may be so said) of the Holy Spirit the one charity of the Father and the Son is shown—which communion the blessed Apostle commends with such a word: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all (II Cor., last chapter, 13); and in another place: If there be any consolation of charity, if any communion of the Spirit (Phil. II, 1)—for this reason it is said: For the charity of God is poured out in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom. V, 5). For the Holy Spirit;

He who is the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son works this in those to whom He grants the grace of divine adoption. This He wrought also in those who are found in the third book of the Acts of the Apostles to have received the same Spirit. Of them it is said: 'Now the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul' (Acts 4:32); for the Spirit who is the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son, and who together with the Father and the Son is one God, had made of the multitude of believers one heart and one soul in God. Hence the Apostle too anxiously says that this spiritual unity is to be preserved in the bond of peace, admonishing the Ephesians thus:

'I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthily of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one spirit' (Eph. 4:1-4). This Spirit they lose by departing, whoever, whether corrupted by treachery or puffed up by pride, are separated from the unity of the body of the Church. Jude the Apostle plainly shows such men to be without this Spirit, saying: 'These are they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit' (Jude 19). For because they are sensual, therefore they do not have the Spirit. On which account the Apostle Paul says:

'The sensual man does not perceive those things that are of the Spirit of God' (1 Cor. 2:14). Such men, then, are prone to division, because they do not have the Spirit, in whom alone the members of Christ preserve unity spiritually and dear. Whence it is manifest that among all heretics there is not the grace of the Holy Spirit, nor can their sacrifices, so long as they are heretics, please God, nor is the sanctification of spiritual grace bestowed upon the sacrifices of those who offer while cut off from the unity of the ecclesiastical body: for God delights in the sacrifices of the Church alone, which sacrifices spiritual unity makes to God:

whence also the truth of faith believes no distance in the Trinity, and the tenacity of peace preserves fraternal concord in charity. CHAPTER 12. The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Those who return to the unity of the Church present themselves as a living victim pleasing to God. But lest anyone think that we, when the Church in the prayer of the sacrifice begs the coming of the Holy Spirit, unfittingly understand by the name of the Holy Spirit that charity which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us, we have deemed it fitting to fortify our definition with the sayings of the Fathers. For Saint Augustine, in the books On Baptism (book 3, chapter

16), when he was treating the question of the reception of heretics without the repetition of baptism, in the third book of that same work says among other things thus: 'But that the Holy Spirit is said to be given in the Catholic Church alone through the imposition of hands, our forefathers doubtless wished to be understood in this way, that the Apostle says: For the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rom. 5:5). For this is that charity which those do not have who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church.'

Consider, I pray, most blessed Augustine, divinely instructed in the holy Scriptures, how in one place he wonderfully opened up, under the name of the Holy Spirit, the meaning not only of the holy Apostle Paul but also of the holy Apostle Jude. For he says above: 'But that the Holy Spirit is said to be given in the Catholic Church alone through the imposition of hands, our forefathers doubtless wished to be understood in this way, that the Apostle says: For the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.' And then afterward Saint Augustine expounded, with the ambiguity of doubt removed, what the Apostle Jude had set down in his Epistle. For Jude the Apostle says:

'These are they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit.' And blessed Augustine, concerning the charity of God which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us, says: 'For this is that charity which those do not have who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church.' Or will anyone say that it is one thing for the Holy Spirit to be given by the imposition of hands to returning heretics, and another thing for it to be bestowed divinely by the spiritual sacrifice?

But whoever thinks or says this assuredly does not yet understand how those present themselves as a living, holy victim, pleasing to God, if any of the schismatics and heretics, forsaking their deadly error, return to the unity of Catholic truth; where, offering to God the sacrifice of a contrite spirit, they themselves are a living, holy victim, pleasing to God. For through the contrition of a humbled heart they return into the unity of the members of that Priest who loved us, as the Apostle says: 'And He offered Himself for us, an oblation and a victim to God for an odor of sweetness' (Eph. 5:2).

But that they may return and become a spiritual sacrifice, the charity of God accomplishes it, which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. Therefore God willingly accepts the sacrifice of Catholic truth and communion alone: because, while He preserves in her His charity poured forth by the Holy Spirit, He makes the Church herself a sacrifice pleasing to Himself, who ever begs to receive from Him the grace of spiritual charity, through which she begs continually to present herself as a living, holy victim, pleasing to God. CHAPTER 13. The fourth question of Monimus, concerning the supererogation of the Apostle. The exposition of blessed Ambrose, book 7 on Luke, chapter 4. The exposition of blessed Optatus, before the middle of the sixth book. You write, moreover, concerning that passage of the Apostle where he says:

'But concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give counsel' (1 Cor. 7:25). Which counsel, in the letter which I lately wrote to you, I noted as pertaining to that where the faithful innkeeper, having received two denarii from the Lord, gave more (supererogated) (Luke 10:35). The sense of this passage, although you assert it was not so put by Saint Augustine, you nevertheless confirm that other illustrious men set it down thus. It is indeed true: for Saint Augustine said that this was supererogated by the Apostle, that whereas according to the precept he might, if he wished, live of the Gospel, he chose rather to labor with his own hands not only for himself, but also for those who were with him, as he truly said to the Ephesians: 'You yourselves know that' (or

'how') these hands ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shown you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak (Acts 20:34-35). For also writing to the Thessalonians, he says: 'For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil, working night and day, lest we should be burdensome to any of you' (1 Thess. 2:9); for also to the Corinthians he calls this his reward, that preaching the Gospel he may put the Gospel without charge, that he abuse not his power in the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:18).

Since, then, Saint Augustine had set this down fitly and suitably, it ought nevertheless not to seem unfitting or unsuitable that Saint Ambrose placed blessed Paul's supererogation either in his sermons and epistles, or in the excessive labor of mind and body. But Saint Optatus of Milevis, in the sixth book against Parmenianus, testifies that Paul supererogated in giving counsel concerning virgins, in these words: 'For virginity is a matter of the will, not of necessity. In short, that innkeeper, the Apostle Paul, to whom the people, wounded and pierced by the wounds of sins, was entrusted, had received two denarii which he might spend, namely the two Testaments. These, through teaching, he expended as it were for costs.'

'He taught how married Christians ought to live; and when he was asked what he would enjoin concerning virgins, he answered that concerning virgins nothing was commanded to him (1 Cor. 7:25). He confessed that he had expended the two Testaments, that is, the two denarii. The costs were in a manner exhausted, but he who had entrusted the wounded man had promised that he would repay whatever more he might expend upon the cure beyond the two denarii spent. Paul expends not precepts but counsel toward virginity. It is neither a hindrance to the willing, nor does it drive or compel the unwilling.' CHAPTER 14. Behold, one passage of the Apostle has been expounded in three ways by three holy men. Nay more, the same passage is found expounded in diverse ways by one and the same doctor.

The varied exposition of Augustine concerning Noah's ark. It is useful to adduce diverse meanings about one thing, but not a diverse faith. Since, then, this passage of the blessed Apostle has been expounded in a threefold manner by the three holy men whom we have named, whoever sets down one of these three modes does not at all dissent from the truth; nor is it necessary that what is understood in manifold ways should in all writings be inserted in manifold ways. For the holy men themselves, by whose ministry God deigned to open the secrets of His Scriptures, said very many things not in one way only, but in manifold ways, provided only that, without offense to the true faith, they may be understood not unbecomingly.

Just as blessed Augustine himself is known to have done in the mystery of Noah's ark against Faustus:

for while the Manichaean asserted that in the books of the Old Testament nothing is prophetically contained concerning Christ's future coming in true flesh, that same most blessed Augustine, showing our Old Scripture to be full of prophetic significations concerning Christ and for this reason divinely inspired, thus among other things expounds this, that God commands the aforementioned ark to be built with two and three stories, so that in the fifteenth book On the City of God he unfolded the mystical explanation of the same passage in two other ways, not with the learned words of human wisdom, but truly (as the Apostle says) in the teaching of the Spirit, no less sweetly than wonderfully.

That this may be more easily recognized, I will append the words of both works, as they were set down by him. Therefore against Faustus he set down these things: 'That the inner parts of the ark are built with two and three chambers is because the Church gathers, out of all nations, either a twofold multitude, on account of the circumcision and the uncircumcision, or a threefold one, on account of the three sons of Noah, by whose progeny the world was replenished.'

But in the fifteenth book On the City of God, having set himself, as the occasion of the passage allowed, to expound the sacrament of the aforementioned ark, after some remarks, in that which is said, that the ark of Noah ought to be built with two and three chambers, he made mention of that exposition which is contained in the books against Faustus the Manichaean, adding subsequently these words: 'And it may indeed be that someone else may expound these things more aptly than we, provided only that the things which are said be all referred to this City of God of which we speak, sojourning in this malignant world as in a flood, if he who expounds them does not wish to stray far from the meaning of him who wrote them:

for example, as if someone should wish that what is here written, You shall make its lower parts with two and three chambers, be understood not as I said in that work, namely that the Church is gathered out of all nations, and is called two-chambered on account of the two kinds of men, that is, the circumcision and the uncircumcision, whom the Apostle also names in another way, Jews and Greeks (Gal. 3:28); but three-chambered, because all nations were restored from the three sons of Noah after the flood. But let someone say something else, which is not foreign to the rule of faith. For since He willed the ark to have dwellings not only

in the lower parts, but also in the upper, and called these two-chambered, and in the uppermost of the upper, and called these three-chambered, so that from the bottom upward a third dwelling should rise, there can here be understood also those three which the Apostle commends: faith, hope, charity (1 Cor. 13:13). There can also, much more fittingly, be understood those three fruitfulnesses of the Gospel, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold, so that in the lowest may dwell conjugal chastity, above it widowed, and higher than this virginal; and if anything else can be understood and said according to the faith of this City.

This too I would say concerning the other things which are here to be expounded, that even though they are discussed not in one way, they are nevertheless to be recalled to the one concord of the Catholic faith.' Again, the same blessed Augustine in the first book On the Trinity (chapter 3) asserts that it is useful for many books to be made by many authors in a diverse style, though not in a diverse faith, even concerning the same questions, so that the matter itself may reach many, to some in this way, to others in that. If, therefore, those things which blessed Augustine, concerning Noah's ark, set down in two ways in one place, be each taken up by two men and set down each in its own place, will not each be worthily pronounced a keeper of the truth;

provided nevertheless that each so seems to build up the one of these that is set down in his own words, that the other, which he sets down in his own words as equally suited to the truth, he as a peaceable man rather approves than as a contentious man attacks. CHAPTER 15. The answer to Monimus's question concerning the supererogation of Paul. Wherefore, dearest one, although that meaning which was set down by me is perhaps not found in the sayings of Saint Augustine, it is nevertheless found most plainly set down in the books of Saint Optatus (as you yourself know together with me).

Nor is it hidden from your prudence that of those things which are found set down by the holy Fathers—who defended the right rule of the Catholic faith in the teaching of the Holy Spirit in diverse ways, whether in their expositions or in their defenses—whatever is set down by us, we so build up the meaning suited to the truth of that passage, that we do not deny our assent to other sayings of the Fathers equally suited to the truth. For one does not depart from the truth if, in this supererogation of the Apostle, whether what Saint Ambrose, or what Saint Augustine, or what Saint Optatus held, be held also by us with the truth of faith preserved.

Since, if it is worthily believed that, having received the two denarii, Paul supererogated something in that, preaching the Gospel at the cost of his own labor, he did not exact the stipend owed him by the faithful; it is worthily believed also that he supererogated something in that, concerning virgins, he had not a commandment of the Lord but gave counsel. Both, without doubt, he had by the bounty of Him from whom, unless he had received it, he could not supererogate. THIRD BOOK. ON THE TRUE EXPOSITION OF THAT EVANGELICAL SAYING: AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD. CHAPTER 1. Praise of charity. The argument of the third book against the Arians, upon that saying: And the Word was with God. The Arians think that 'with God' is something other than 'in God.'

As often, most beloved Monimus, as the power of charity is considered and weighed by the servants of Christ, it is found no less wonderful than sweet. For who would not marvel at it, or who would not be greatly delighted by it, whose burden, when it is borne, does not weaken the mind by weariness, but strengthens it by eagerness? For it, even when it burdens, uplifts, and in a wondrous manner does not allow him whom it burdens to be crushed, nor him whom it uplifts to be exalted. This charity, while with the Lord's help I was paying you the debt I had passed over, again makes me a debtor. For already, of the four questions which you had sent me to be treated, with the help of Him who gives wisdom to little ones, I had completed two books, desiring to render to you what I owed.

So suddenly the report of a certain Arian assertion grazed my ears, which is begotten by an invention the more useless in proportion as it is found to be foreign to all understanding, not only of the divine Scriptures, but even of human nature itself. For I learned that they were now sowing (or inserting, or seeking) a certain unwonted question about the beginning of the Gospel according to John; namely, that they think what is said, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1), is to be so understood and expounded that they judge this very Word to be with the Father, not to be in the Father, but to be understood as outside the Father:

so much so that a certain one of them (as far as I learned by hearing, when about these two prepositions, that is, 'in' and 'with,' a dispute arose among them one day) took a cloak, and holding it in his hands, asked whether it was in him, since that cloak which he himself held was with him. And thence, as if to confirm his opinion, he closed his discourse with this definition: that when something is said to be in us, it is to be understood as within us; but when it is said to be with us, it is to be taken as outside us. And because that cloak which he himself held was so with him that it was not in him, and thereby, from the fact that it was with him but yet not in him, it was outside him, not within him:

in the same way the Word of God also (which is God) is indeed to be believed to be with the Father, not to be in the Father, and for this reason not to be one with the Father in substance: since whatever is so with someone that it is not in him, is assuredly so with him that it cannot be of one substance with him. This is their reasoning, contrary to reason. This is their legal disputation, intolerably hostile to the law of God. CHAPTER 2. It is absurd to dispute about God according to corporeal things. The example of the breath of the nostrils would have been more fitting than that of the cloak in the hands.

Hence, by Christ's gift, my mind was stirred to write something, lest the hearing of little ones be disturbed by venomous discourses; for it pertains to the office of our servitude to prepare, against the nascent pestilence of any deadly opinion, the wholesome remedies of the divine words. And so, since the holy Apostle anxiously forewarns the faithful, saying: 'Beware lest any man deceive you by philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ: for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally' (Col.

2:8-9), these men on the contrary not only, following the error of worldly philosophy according to the elements of the world in time past, thought that one must dispute concerning God, but were so forgetful of all religion, that when they dispute concerning God, they do not attend even to the very elements of this corporeal world: and thus, while they obstinately close the eyes of the understanding even against the things that are seen, they never behold the invisible things of God, understood by the things that are made. For what more absurd can be said than that, when one disputes concerning God, he should take the proofs of his disputation only from the grosser bodies?

For that man seemed to himself to have discovered something great, when, having taken a cloak and held it in his hands, he asked whether, just as it was with him, so it was in him. Then, wishing to teach that as the cloak is with the man, so the Son is with the Father, so that, just as the cloak can be with the man but yet cannot be in the man, so the Son may indeed be with the Father, but may not be in the Father. I ask, if he was pleased to take something from these tangible bodies as an example in disputing—although the elements, which were made by the truth, could in no way aid him as he disputed against the truth—nevertheless, that he might seem to say something tolerable, to be silent about the rest, why did he point to the cloak which he held in his hands,

and did not at least attend to the breath which he drew through his nostrils? For if that cloak could be said to be with him and not in him, yet this breath, which we draw from the air, when we perceive it by breathing, is both with us and in us: and whatever of it we render back by breathing out, when we have rendered it, we have it neither with us nor in us. Or will he perchance say that the element of that air, when we take it in by breathing, is only in us, not also with us? Let him say, then, when it can be with us—is it when we render it back, and do not have it in us? But this I think he will not dare to say even about that cloak, if indeed he rendered it back to him from whom he had received it. For he sees that he had it with him when he received it;

but after he rendered it back, it ceased to be with him. For just as it came about by receiving that what he did not have he might have with him, so it came about by rendering back that what he had with him he might not have. Accordingly, if he said that the cloak is not in him but is with him, yet this breath, which we in turn take from the surrounding air and render back, seems to me that he will not say is not with a man when it is in the man, because then the man has it both with himself and in himself, when he takes it in by breathing. But when he renders it back by breathing out, he has it not with himself, just as neither does he have it in himself. CHAPTER 3. It is therefore false that the Word which is with God is outside God, not in God. It is the height of absurdity that we should be interior to God, but the Word exterior.

Another absurdity, that the creature be set before the Maker. A yet greater absurdity follows, that the creature be of one nature with the Creator. In vain, therefore, in that disputation, concerning that which is said, 'The Word was with God,' did he wish to assert that what is in someone is to be always interior, but what is with someone is to be always exterior, whereas the breath received into the body is so in the man that it is with the man. And again, rendered back from the body, it is so not with the man, just as it is not in the man. For he attended less to this, that he was striving to assert by an absurd proof, than to how a graver absurdity would subsequently hold him entangled. For indeed, when it is said: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

If everything which is with God is exterior, and everything which is in God is interior, what remains for that most skilled disputant, except to contend that we are more excellent than the Son of God? For the Apostle says of God: 'For in Him we live, and move, and are' (Acts 17:28). And in another place: 'One God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him' (1 Cor. 8:6). Now then, whoever he is who, under the Christian name, does not fear to dispute so rashly against Christ, when he hears that the Word is with God, and that we are in God, let him, if he dares, say that the Word is exterior and we interior. But if he thinks this must be said, let him pass judgment upon his own sayings;

for in such discourse no other judge is to be sought, since he who says this is assuredly to be blamed by himself. What again will he reply against that saying of the same blessed Paul, in which he says of God: 'For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; to Him be glory forever, amen' (Rom. 11:36)? Behold, Paul testifies that all things are of God, and through God, and in God; but the Word is recognized to be with God by the preaching of John the Evangelist. But if, according to the Arians' notion, everything which is in God is interior, and everything which is with God is exterior, since the Arian believes the Word, which is with God, to be not in God but exterior:

it remains that that which is with God should be declared inferior to all the things which are in God: and this once admitted (since it is written of the Word: 'All things were made by Him'), this will be, according to the Arians, the rectitude of faith, that the creature should be set before the Maker. Who now does not perceive into what precipice improvident men fall, who, resisting the true faith, strive to defend perfidy? For what else is effected by such words, than that, by the defense of this opinion, the creature—forgetful of its own condition and redemption—should dare not only to equal itself to the Son of God, but even to prefer itself? But I marvel how those by whom this is asserted do not consider how much worse a fruit of unspeakable blasphemy is born of it.