Anti-Arian Works 3

It has been said that the Father begot the Son ineffably of Himself, that is, of that which He Himself is. It has been added that He was born not from without, but of God. These statements need no reply, because they agree with our faith. First Objection. What is said to this? If He was born of God, He is from within God; but if He is not from within, neither is He of Him; if merely diverse terms are set down, what does it profit, if the truth itself does not confess it? Reply. Indeed, while the Father and the Son are named, in these two names a diversity of terms is acknowledged; but rather through these two diverse terms one nature of both is signified:

since the diversity of these names does not divide the natures, but shows the truth of the generation, so that from one true Father we may acknowledge that one true Son has existed; and thus, while the true generation of the Father and the true nativity of the Son are proclaimed, in the one begetter and the one begotten there may be acknowledged not only the unity of substance, but also in each the property of person, lest either He be thought to have been born who begot, or He who was born be thought to be other than He who begot.

For He who is the Father is not He who is the Son, since in each the property of the persons is reserved. But what the Father is, this the Son also is, because the Son was born God of God, perfect of perfect, immense of immense, omnipotent of omnipotent, co-eternal of the eternal Father, the same Truth saying: 'All things that the Father hath are mine' (John 17:10). Father therefore and Son are relative names, which do not separate the nature of the begetter and the begotten, but without doubt signify it to be one. But we have said that to be relative, which we refer to the acknowledging of another, so that while we name the one, we point to the other:

just as among men these relatives are often named: father and son, son and father, father-in-law and son-in-law, son-in-law and father-in-law; for one is called father, that he may be known to have begotten a son, and the other is called son, that he may be shown to have been begotten of a father. Nor in this diversity of names is found a diversity of natures, since each alike is called man, although one is named father and the other son. The one nature of father and son therefore could not be recognized, if these were not diverse terms, since if both were called fathers, they would surely be dissimilar in nature: for each would consist of himself and would not have a common substance with the other, nor would there be one deity in those who had not one nature;

and it would follow that two fathers should beget two sons, since unless a true offspring existed of each, the truth of the paternal name would appear in neither. Now indeed, in two sons born of different fathers, although there might be no diversity of the relative name, let it be considered whether there could be a common nature. Who does not see that in both the name of son is one, but the nature of both is not one? Rather, each son has a common nature not with the other son, with whom he had one name of relation, but with the father from whom he had existed. But what further should be disputed concerning two fathers and two sons?

since the truth of this assertion has no need of a diversity of persons, but for the proof of itself can more easily be supported by the consideration of a single man, by which it may be recognized that relative names by their diversity do not show a diversity of natures, but pertain chiefly to the signification of persons, namely that while one is shown, the person of the other also may be known; but that name is always common to father and son, not whereby a personal relation is shown, but whereby a substantial property is demonstrated: for was not Seth, born of Adam his father, and begotten of the unbegotten, called the son of Adam his father? He therefore, until he should reach the age of manhood, so as to beget a son, could not be called father;

And before he begot, he was only a son; but when he had begotten, he then also began to be a father. Therefore, though a diversity of the paternal name was added, no natural diversity was thereby made in him; and although one man had begun to have these two designations, in him the nature was not changed, nor divided, nor doubled: for he was a son, because he came forth from a father; he was a father, because he begot a son; yet he did not so possess the nature of a son, in which he was born, that, remaining in it, he could not be a father; nor did he acquire another essence together with the name of father, so as to lose the substance of a son in which he had been born. But, as is the truth, just as he was a man when he came into being as a son by being born, so he remained a man when he became a father by begetting.

Nor was he anything other than a man—both what Adam, from whom he himself was born, was, and what Enos, who was begotten from him, was. Therefore, in God the Father and God the Son, with the property of the persons preserved, let it not be called impossible—a thing that is proved even by the example of any human being; but let us distinguish what is known to pertain to relation and what to substance. For Father and Son are names of relation; but the name of the substance is one, which is called God. Therefore the names of relation they retain each singly; but the name of the substance they possess in common as one, because although one is called Father and the other Son, yet the Son is God in such a way as the Father is God.

For by those two names the true generation is known, but by this one common name the substantial unity is demonstrated. Objection 2. We recall that we have never read the things set forth above, because it is written of him: Who shall declare his generation (Isa. 53)? And, Scripture said, as it were, that there is none who might declare it. These men are to be warned, so that they may say they can know that his generation is unutterable, but not unknowable. Response. It is written: I believed, therefore have I spoken; and we believe, therefore we speak (2 Cor. 4:13), and we confidently profess that the generation of the Son is unutterable, yet not unknowable;

for it does not follow that what cannot be uttered cannot be known, since no one is able to utter God himself, and yet it is not permitted to anyone with impunity to be ignorant of him. Indeed God, though unutterable, is so far knowable that the blessed Apostle pronounces certain men inexcusable on this account: that when they had known God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks (Rom. 1:21). For if the Lord did not wish to be acknowledged by us, he would not have said: If you had known me, you would surely have known my Father also (John 14:7). Nor would he have rebuked Philip, who said, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us, with this reproof, saying: I have been with you so long a time, and you have not known me:

Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father also; for by this word the Lord willed to show that the whole of what was sought is found in himself: for it cannot be that the Son should have anything less than the eternal and immeasurable Father, in whom bodily dwells all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). God, then, is not unknowable, though he be unutterable; but he is known by the faithful, that he may be loved, although he is uttered neither by human tongues nor by angelic. For the Apostle Paul shows that ignorance of God is nothing other than the servitude of demons, saying: But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods (Gal. 4:8).

Therefore, just as we ought not to be ignorant of Christ's divinity, though we cannot utter it, so, although no one has at hand an utterance of his nativity, nevertheless the knowledge of it is not taken away from the faithful. For who would proclaim one as born whose nativity he did not know? Who would call him Son and not know him begotten? Who could believe him a Father whom he does not consider to have begotten? The Father truly begot, and the Son was truly born. Therefore it is granted to us to acknowledge the true nativity of the Son, although it is not granted to utter in what manner he was born. Since even the prophet did not say, But who has acknowledged his generation, but, who has declared it (Isa. 53:8)?

Wherefore we worthily know the divine generation, as far as is lawful for man, when we both call it a true generation and proclaim that same generation, which is true, to be unutterable. The Son, then, is acknowledged to be truly born of the Father's substance, while his nativity, which is of the unutterable God, is proclaimed unutterable: for without doubt the true nativity of the Son is unutterable, because he has one substance with his unutterable begetter. Objection 3. His generation is to be rightly professed thus, as the Lord himself says through the Scriptures: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways; before the ages he founded me (Prov. 8:22). And it follows: And before all the hills he begot me. And again:

I came forth from the Father and came into this world (John 16:28). And again: The Lord said to me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you (Ps. 2:7). And after he was known in the flesh, the evangelist professes of him, saying: And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). And the Apostle says: Who is the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15). Behold, we profess him created, founded, and begotten, without any irrational ambiguity. Response. In each nativity of Christ he is not [at a loss] who, in Christ the Son of God and of man, professes both the full divinity from the Father and the full manhood from the mother:

and thus he knows both substances in him to be true, while by faithful piety he distinguishes what befits eternity and what befits temporality. For neither ought we to be ignorant that he himself, in time, was according to the flesh created from man—he who, being without beginning according to divinity the Creator, was begotten of the Father: for in that nativity which has no beginning, the majesty of the everlasting divinity is acknowledged; but in this one, the compassion of the everlasting divinity is found. For he who, not created but the Creator, begotten of the Creator, had by his goodness created man, himself afterward by his compassion was created from man. Nor did he disdain to become his own work, whereby through him the state of his own work might be restored.

Therefore, Wisdom, wishing to foretell the mystery of this creation, so as to show the future sacrament of his Incarnation, said, after the prophetic manner in which future things are wont to be narrated under the announcement of past time: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways in his works (Prov. 8:22). He showed the cause of the creation while he did not keep silent that he was created the beginning of the ways of God in his works: for that he might show that it belongs not to that eternal nativity that he is said to be created, but to this time in which the Son of God is found to have taken flesh, let it be noted what he set before it: If I shall announce to you (he says) the things that come to pass daily, I will call to mind to declare the things that are from the ages (ibid. 21).

Therefore, since these things came to pass daily, he warns beforehand that things done from the ages are to be announced, and he shows that what he is about to tell us belongs not to eternity but to time. On this account he at once added: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways in his works. Therefore, in that Wisdom was created, it is not before the ages but from the ages; but in that the Son is set as created the beginning of the ways, what else is it than that he himself was made a way for us, so that, with him as guide and ruler, through the grace of adoption which we have received, an entrance might lie open for us by the divine gift unto the advancement of virtues? And that this may appear more evidently, we ought to attend to this: that the Son was made a creature—the beginning—not that he might again establish a new creation, but that he might renew that which of old had already been lost through age (i.e., the old thing);

For the apostles too are found to have made the beginning of this creation, by whose ministry he restored what had before fallen, as the blessed James says of God the Father: Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of beginning of his creatures (James 1:18). Therefore by most evident proofs it is shown that in this place creation is to be referred not to the fashioning of all creatures, but to the reparation of men: just as holy David also prayed, when he had been terrified by the recollection of a twofold crime—not only of an outraged marriage bond, but also of an innocent husband slain.

When, therefore, he was pondering how to wash away the stain of so great a crime with a flood of tears, he poured out this amid the groans which he had as witnesses of his grief: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels (Ps. 51:10). Signifying this: that a clean heart being created in him was that a right spirit be renewed within his bowels. To this end, therefore, Christ willed to be created, and his apostles to be made the beginning of this creation, so that through him the man who had perished through age might be renewed. But before the age, Wisdom said that she was founded, that she might demonstrate her nativity, by which she was born of the Father, to be immutable: for what is said to be founded is by no reasoning shaken; and what is not shaken is not changed.

But that the nativity of his divinity may be known to be without beginning, we must attend to what follows: Before he made the earth, before he established the depths, before the fountains of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, but before all the hills he begot me (Prov. 8:23-26). When this word 'before' is said, absolutely every beginning is anticipated. This is to be considered, because wherever that divine and eternal nativity of the Son is demonstrated, it is not said when he was born, but 'before' is always placed, so that whatever man may wish to think of infinity and eternity, before everything that is conceived in thought, the Son's nativity may always be thought of:

and thus the nativity of the Son of God is known to be without beginning, in which nothing is continually found except the aforesaid 'before.' But we would wish to be answered whether this that is begotten is the same as that which is created. And if both are thought to be one, then let the world be called begotten by God—the world which cannot be begotten—as well as created. Let unbelieving men also be called sons of God, who have not been freed from the power of darkness; let them be called heirs of the future blessedness, who do not receive faith in the Savior. But if, as is the truth, it is one thing to be created and another to be begotten, let it be distinguished in which substance Christ is said to be created by God, and in which he is proclaimed begotten of the Father:

For the very passage of Scripture very easily shows to those who seek in which nature Christ is to be called created. Namely, in that nature in which it names him 'Lord,' so as to show in himself the truth of the servant's form, just as he also speaks in the psalm, saying: O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the son of your handmaid (Ps. 116:16). Of the handmaid, then, was born the servant, who of the Father was begotten the Lord. On account of the form of a servant, therefore, he said: The Lord created me; he does not say himself created by the Father, but by the Lord. For where he is said to be begotten according to divinity, the Father is immediately named, just as he himself truly said: I came forth from the Father, and came (John 8:42); and the blessed evangelist says of him:

And we saw his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father (John 1:14). You see that here he did not say 'of the Lord,' but 'of the Father.' But in that the Apostle calls him the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15), a creature is certainly understood as restored, not as fashioned: the creature of the sons of God, by which, from his servants, they were made his brethren—he who, according to the Apostle's saying, is not ashamed to call us brethren, saying: I will declare your name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church I will praise you. And again: I will put my trust in him. And again: Behold, I and the children whom God has given me (Heb. 2:12-13). Since, therefore, the children also shared in blood and flesh, he too likewise partook of the same;

that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; that he might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For nowhere did he take hold of angels, but he took hold of the seed of Abraham. Whence he ought in all things to be made like his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that he might make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself suffered and was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted (Heb. 2:14-18). We hear of Christ having brethren; we hear of the seed of Abraham; we hear of him destroying, through death, him who had the power of death; we hear of him tempted;

we hear of him suffering—and do we doubt to profess Christ the Firstborn of every creature according to the mystery of the Incarnation? Since again the blessed Apostle, in what testimony of his preaching we ought to receive him as Firstborn, shows: We know, he says, that to those who love God all things work together for good, to those who according to purpose are called saints. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he himself might be the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:28-29). He, therefore, who according to deity was always Only-begotten, without brethren, was made according to manhood the Firstborn among many brethren. This is taught more evidently again by that testimony of the Apostle:

where he is named the Firstborn from the dead (Col. 1:18). For what is the Firstborn from the dead, except the first of sinful men, the man Christ Jesus, exalted into the Son of God? But he was born not a sinner from sinners, as a man from men, but was born a man, taken up by God without any sin, so that he might reconcile sinful men to God, being freed from all sin. For it behooved such a man to be taken up by God, through whom men could be joined to God by a gratuitous justification. He is therefore the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15)—of that creature, assuredly, of which we heard the blessed apostle James speak a little before:

Of his own will he begot us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of beginning of his creatures (James 1:18). Of this creature the apostle Paul also says: If, then, there be any new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). Of which David also had foretold: Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created; and you shall renew the face of the earth (Ps. 104:30). Otherwise, if according to the divine nativity Christ is received as the Firstborn of every creature, by what testimonies is he shown to be the Firstborn from the dead before every creature? Since those could not be called dead who had not yet even been created. Therefore we know Christ Only-begotten of the Father; let us profess him Firstborn of the Virgin:

for in that nativity he is truly the Only-begotten, in which, without beginning, God alone was born of God alone; but in this nativity he is the Firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15), that is, of those whom he deigned to adopt to himself as brethren through faith. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name (John 1:12). This generation is likewise known to be proclaimed in the second psalm, where Christ, in the person of the manhood he assumed, says: The Lord said to me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you (Ps. 2:7). And that he might show this to be said according to the mystery of the future Incarnation, he added:

Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. For how, according to the form of God, would he ask that the ends of the earth be possessed, when he promises and gives to his faithful the kingdom of heaven, which is greater? He, therefore, who, remaining in the form of God, for the salvation of servants was made a servant, according to the servile form, that he might receive the nations for inheritance and possession, asked for the ends of the earth—he who according to the divine nature, just as he made together with the Father all things which are in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible, so together with the Father always possessed all things. That this generation, which the second psalm intimates, pertains to the mystery of the Incarnation, the book of the Acts of the Apostles,

as Paul was speaking in the synagogue, bears witness; whose [discourse] to the Jews is found to be of this kind: And we announce to you that promise which was made to our fathers, since God has fulfilled it to our children, in raising up Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you (Acts 13:32-33). This, then, which the psalm said, the Apostle shows to be said of the Son according to this, in that he preaches him raised from the dead. Let it therefore be attended to what nature in Christ rose from the dead, and it will be understood in what respect Christ was begotten this day and received the ends of the earth to be possessed.

Let there therefore be acknowledged in Christ the property of each nature, so that it may be understood without error that he is both created, and founded, and begotten: begotten indeed and founded according to that whereby he was ineffably born of the Lord as Lord; but created according to the human generation whereby he was born of the handmaid as a servant, so that him whom the Father alone begot before all things by nature, he might beget for our salvation by grace. Wherefore we ought to acknowledge each nature in Christ the Lord, so that we may neither seem proud against the Creator, nor prove ungrateful for the benefit of our Savior, lest with the Savior he deny to himself the salvation which he seeks, who denies to the Creator the true deity from God the Father. Objection 4.

But those who irrationally presume to say that the Son was born of the Father's substance—let them nevertheless teach from the Scriptures how it is not a false profession of error, when one, saying that his generation is unutterable, asserts that he was born of the Father's substance. Response. The defect of the assertion is recognized when someone strives so to destroy the rule of another's faith that he is unwilling to put forth the firm sentence of his own belief. We, on this account, believe and confess the Son of God to be born of the Father's substance, that is, of that which the Father is. Since whatever is not the substance of God we cannot adore or worship as God, keeping the more carefully the precept of the law by which it is said:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord. And, You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Deut. 6:4, 13). This God we believe to be not the Father alone, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For our faith, by which we worship and fear one God, is neither drawn together by unity of person, nor disjoined by substantial diversity: lest either we worship gods after the manner of the Gentiles by worshiping diverse substances, or with Sabellius deny the Son and the Spirit, not preserving the persons in the Trinity. The right belief of this faith is instilled into us in truth not only by prophetic but also by apostolic doctrine. For when Isaiah is made worthy of the vision of God, the inmost belief of this faith is [set forth],

with two seraphim crying out a third time: Holy, holy, holy (Isa. 6:3); and once introducing: The Lord God of Sabaoth. What is it that 'Holy' is said a third time, if the person in the Godhead is not threefold? Why is 'the Lord God' said but once, if the substance in the Godhead is not one? The Lord also, through Moses, wishing to bless the people, gave commandment for the blessing in this tenor: Thus (he says) shall you bless my people, and I will bless them. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and have mercy on you. The Lord lift up his face upon you, and give you peace (Num. 6:23-26).

Three times is 'the Lord' said, and one Lord is always named, so that in the Trinity, which is the true God, neither may the property of the persons be confounded, nor the substantial unity be denied. David also, pleasing to God in all things, under this belief desires that the grace of the divine blessing be poured into the faithful people in these words: May God, our God, bless us; may God bless us, and let all the ends of the earth fear him (Ps. 67:6-7). With which sentence the blessed Apostle agrees, who, when he had said in a certain place: 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), said also of the Holy Spirit:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). And when he remembered that he had spoken of things from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, in order to show this Trinity to be one God, he says in another place: For of him, and through him, and in him are all things. And what he added in the singular: To him be glory unto the ages of ages (Rom. 11:36). That the Son was born of the Father's substance both the Christian faith rightly proclaims and Holy Scripture records. Paul the apostle says of the Son of God: Who, being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance (Heb. 1:3). The Lord again says to Jeremiah:

Take up a lamentation upon the mountains, and men did not hear the voice of my substance, from the birds of heaven even to the cattle (Jer. 9:10). But that the Son is the substance of the Father, the book of Wisdom evidently shows, saying: You fed your people with the food of angels; you furnished them bread from heaven prepared without labor, having in itself all delight and every savor of sweetness: for you did show your substance and your sweetness, which you have toward your children (Wisd. 16:20-21). That the bread given from heaven is the substance and sweetness of God, Scripture testifies: that the bread truly given from heaven is the Son of God is shown by the words of the Son himself, who says: I am the living bread which came down from heaven (John 6:41).

Of whom David says: Man ate the bread of angels (Ps. 78:25). Behold, that the Son came into being of the Father's substance we not only reasonably believe, but also approve by testimonies, Scripture saying: He who loves the begetter loves him who is born of him (1 John 5:1); since true faith is not ignorant of what it believes, even if it cannot yet see what it hopes and believes. But those who deny that the Son was born of the Father's substance must surely say whence they think the Son of God came into being: whether from nothing, or from something? If he came into being from nothing, he is to be called a creature, not the Creator. But if he is said to be from something, then God himself also made that from which he begot the Son.

Or is it perhaps said that he had something coeternal from which he could beget the Son? If something coeternal is reckoned as that from which the Son is believed to be begotten, the error of the Manichaeans is confirmed by this assertion. But if there was not something from which the Son was begotten, and yet he is not said to be born of the Father's substance, this remains: that those who contend to preach him lesser in divinity must evidently confess that the Son of God came into being out of nothing. But perhaps it is said that the Son was born of the Father's will: let it then be said whether the Father begot the Son of himself or from elsewhere? For if he begot of his very self, the will could not precede the generation, because it is impious to believe that in God anything which was not always should have newly come about.

Whence it is known that God indeed founded every creature out of nothing by his will, but begot the Son of his substance, or nature. But if the Son is said to be born from elsewhere, either his origin is asserted to be out of nothing, or (as was said above) it is proclaimed, against the rule of true faith, that something besides God always existed. The blessed Apostle indeed, knowing the Son to be begotten true God of the Father's essence, and on this account with the Father one Lord God, and not unmindful of the Lord's precept by which we are forbidden to serve two masters, commanded that the Lord Christ be served as true God, whom he knew to be honored equally with the Father, the Lord himself saying: That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father (John 5:23).

Whom the apostle John, with the Lord himself speaking in him, testifies to be true God, saying: That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). Wherefore the rule of true faith is to be held, by which the Son of God is believed to be born ineffably, without beginning, of the Father's substance, that is, of that which he himself is, and is worshiped and held as true God together with the Father. For neither is it lawful for Christians to serve as true God him who is not by nature God; nor is it right for anyone not to serve Christ the only-begotten Son of God as true God. For that he who serves Christ pleases God the blessed Paul most evidently makes clear—he who had forbidden [service] to be given to those who by nature are not gods—saying:

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit: for he who in this serves Christ pleases God (Rom. 14:17-18). Wherefore, knowing Christ to be true God, let us not dare to separate him from the equality of the paternal substance: for he is true God who is by nature God; and he is by nature God who had deity from the eternity of a true nativity, and did not possess it by the grace of a gift. For what is born is connected with its kind; but what is adopted is advanced by bounty alone. Objection 5.

The perturbations of minds which are uttered without reason, when they exhort that heed be paid, the truth seems not to be comprehended by them nor to be professed, on this account: that it is absurd to say or believe that the Father and the Son are unbegotten. He who persuades himself to devise these things wishes to deceive himself by fraud—things which indeed demand this to be said to those who assert the Father and the Son to be equal. Response. Those indeed perturb minds, whether cowardly or unlearned, who would say that the Father and the Son are unbegotten; but they do not do this who are known to preach the Father and the Son equal. For in two unbegotten a diverse Divinity is found. But in one begotten, of one unbegotten, a natural unity is demonstrated.

For two unbegotten cannot have one nature, where neither does one find in one a true generation from himself, nor does one from one truly acknowledge in himself the substance of nativity. But we say the Father and the Son to be neither two unbegotten, nor call them two begotten, nor confound them personally, nor separate them substantially. And therefore we say them equal without ambiguity, because we in no way find them diverse from each other: one begot one, one was born of one. And because of the immutable Father the immutable Son came into being, and the eternal and perfect Father begot a coeternal and perfect Son, therefore the Son could have the true substance which he has from the true Father neither lesser nor diverse.

For it is an affront to the divine nature if the Father, in begetting the Son, could not be in the Son as great as he remains in himself; and to the begetter (which is impious) a natural power is taken away, if the equality of the paternal substance be denied to the Son—since apostolic doctrine does not keep silent about this, the evangelist John saying: Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal to God (John 5:18). Which equality was not objected by the malevolent hostility of the Jews (as it seems to some), but was declared by the wholly truthful authority of the evangelist.

He who, as he truly said that Jesus broke the sabbath, and truly also said that he called God his Father, so truly said that, through the profession of the paternal name, he had made himself equal to the divinity and omnipotence of the begetter. This equality the true Son himself, proclaiming and demonstrating it in himself, says: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And in another place: All things that the Father does, these the Son also does likewise (John 5:19). The same one himself says: Father, glorify your Son, that the Son also may glorify you (John 17:1). And in another place: That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father (John 5:23). And many other things, which, avoiding prolixity, we have omitted.

They therefore show that He makes Himself equal to God by the profession of a father's manhood, that He is one with the Father, that He does all the same things that the Father does in like manner, that being glorified He also glorifies, and that He claims for Himself the equality of the Father's honour; and that, just as these things do not belong to one who is less, so, with the scruple of doubt removed, they belong to one who is equal. Objection 6. Meanwhile, while it is said concerning the light, they do not understand what is written: that the Father of lights is one, and He who is called the Light is another, who shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended Him not.

Therefore one ought to note what the law commands or teaches the minds of men, since between that Author of light and this light shining in the darkness—which enlightens every man coming into this world, through whom the Son was made life and was shown to be the light of men, having been made that which is shown—the Father is not, and cannot be equated. Reply. This the equality of the Father and the Son always demonstrates: that whatever there be of derogation or of honour is at once common to both. Whence it comes about that, when the Son is distinguished from equality with the Father contrary to the rule of faith, it detracts more from the Father than from the Son.

This the assertion of this passage more clearly demonstrates, whereby, while the Son alone is believed to be called Light, the name of light is denied to the very Father who begot the Light. But he who does not substantially possess the name of light cannot substantially have the appellation of Deity. For the blessed apostle John says: For God is light (1 John 1:5). If therefore He who is God is light, then he who is not light is not God; wherefore the Son is to be believed light of light, since He is God born of God, lest, while the Son is called light, God the Father be intolerably blasphemed. And lest we think that the Father is called light by conjecture rather than by truth, we must prove this also by testimonies. In the holy oracles it is said of Wisdom:

Wisdom is more mobile than all things that move; and by reason of her pureness she pervades everywhere. For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty God; and therefore no defilement can fall upon her. For she is the brightness of the eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of the majesty of God, and the image of His goodness. Wisdom is called the brightness of the eternal light—which eternal light all Christendom professes to be the Father.

But if perchance some think that this eternal light, whose brightness is Wisdom, ought not to be taken as the Father, it is necessary that, while they deny God the Father to be the eternal light, they seek out another eternal light whose brightness they may clearly show Wisdom to be. But let them themselves see how they can find either a light that is not God, or another light besides Wisdom that is coeternal with God. Let it therefore be acknowledged that the Father is the light of light, so that at least thus the Son may not be doubted or denied to be equal to the Father. We have now taught by one testimony that God the Father is light; it is better if we show the same thing also by apostolic preaching. Blessed Paul testifies that we are the sons of God, saying: Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God:

for you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness to our spirit that we are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14, 15, 16). John the evangelist also says: But as many as believed in Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God (John 1:12). Therefore, that Paul might show that God, whose sons we are, is light, he called those same sons of God also sons of light, saying thus: But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief; for you are all the children of light, and children of the day (1 Thess. 5:4-5). And the Son to His disciples:

That you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:45). But no one will be able to deny that the Son Himself is light, of whom the evangelist says: He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). And again: And the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (Ibid., 5). The Son too testifies with His own voice that He is light: I am (He says) the light of the world (John 8:12). And that it may be recognized that the Father is in the Son, light in light, we are fully taught in the testimony of John, who says: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all; and he added:

If we walk in the light, as He also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another (1 John 1:5, 7). And that he might show he had said this of the Father, he added: And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (Ibid., 7). The Father, whom he called light, he asserted to be in the light. What then is that light, but the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9)? It has therefore been shown that the Father is light, just as the Son is light; and it is likewise demonstrated that the Son is day just as the Father too is day, the prophet saying: Show forth His salvation from day to day (Ps. 95:2). Wherefore let it be acknowledged that the Father is in the Son who is light, and the Son in the Father who is light, He Himself testifying concerning Himself who is light:

I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 14:12); as though He should say: I am in the light, and the light in me. And where no diversity of light is found, let no equality of Deity be denied; lest, while God is said by apostolic preaching to be light, he who is not said to be light be denied also to be God (which is impious). Objection 7. We have omitted (var. admitted, or lost) the superfluous arguments which would not weary the hearers, and this was the reply to that for which the opinion required an exposition. And since there is a distance between the Father and the Son, and that which is said is not so because there is no difference between them, the Saviour Himself says, who is to be believed: There is another who bears witness of me (John

5:32). Likewise, the Son Himself says of the Holy Spirit: And I will send you another Paraclete (John 14:16). He called the Father another, and He called the Paraclete to be another; and when the divine laws and mysteries are not heeded, men become professors of paganism, when they assert that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Reply. The true faith never has, nor ever had, superfluous arguments, but always right ones; nor does any weariness arise from these, if only the truth be heard without the zeal for contention—which for this reason called the Father another, that it might distinguish the persons, not that it might demonstrate a substantial distance: for when He called Him another, He showed that He has His own person;

but by naming the Father, He demonstrated that He has one substance with Him, in this manner: for if the Father, who bears witness to the Son, is truly another, so that the person of each may be distinguished, He is also truly Father, so that the substantial unity may be demonstrated. But if the fatherhood of the Father is true, the birth of the offspring is also true; and if the birth of the Son is true, there cannot be a substantial diversity between the Father and the Son.

For the true and eternal substance, from which the true birth arose, just as it could not be diminished or divided by begetting, so, remaining whole in itself, it bestowed itself wholly upon the coeternal truth of the birth; namely, that there should exist not only equality between begetter and begotten without diversity, but also that natural unity should remain without confusion or loss. For both the name and the truth of the divine birth, just as they show the person of begetter and begotten to be distinct, so do not permit the substance to be thought diverse. The Father, therefore, was called another for this reason: that the truth of the generation might be shown, not that He might be thought either prior or greater:

for if we ought to take as greater the one whom we hear called another, we are compelled also to confess the Paraclete, the Spirit—because He was called another—to be greater than the Son: for just as the Son called the Father another, so He also named the Paraclete another. If therefore it pleases you, and the truth of faith demands this—that he who is called another should be thought better—then since the Father is called another, and the Paraclete another, from this the Son would now be made subject to both, so that at least thus the Paraclete would be made coequal with the Father, who, because He was called another, is said to be set before the Son; so that by the sharing of this pronoun, in the Father and the Paraclete the sharing of Deity would be demonstrated;

but if the Paraclete, though He is called another, is nevertheless not preferred to the Son, neither therefore is the Father to be preferred to the Son because He is called another: for by this pronoun the distinction of persons is shown, not of nature. Finally, lest, deserting the rule of truth through ambiguity, we be carried about through devious errors, the Lord Himself showed us both that He retains one substance with the Father, and that He has another person, saying in the Gospel: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). Which saying, those who strive to weaken the signification of divine unity in the Father and the Son, are eager to refer not to substantial unity but to a concord of will. But if the Lord wished to be so understood, He could have said:

I and the Father will one thing; not, I and the Father are one. But now let each choose what he will: whether he thinks that in God to be is one thing and to will another; or whether he believes that to be is the same as to will, so that the truth of this dominical saying may appear to him more clearly. For if he says that in God there is one will, which is called to will, and another essence, which is known as to be, then that which was said according to essence—I and the Father are one—cannot be referred to the will. For to be is said from essence;

but if in God (as is certain) that which is to will is thought to be the same as to be, then, while the unity of will is asserted, let the substantial unity also not be denied; so that both in that He said one there may be recognized nothing other than what the Father is, and in that He said we are there may be recognized that the Son Himself is not He who is the Father. This doctrine our Fathers, following Christ in all things, held, saying that the Father and the Son are of one substance. Which in Greek was called Homousion, for this reason, namely: because at that time a new heresy had arisen among the Greeks, which strove to separate the Only-begotten from the substance of the begetter, to this end, that whosoever received that doctrine should appear to be a worshipper not of the Creator but rather of the creature.

But it is astonishing that in this word only the sound is regarded by some, and the meaning of the term is not investigated, whereas very many things were not said of old, yet are found inserted into the profession of faith according to the opportunities of times and occasions. Just as unbegotten Father is nowhere read in the canonical Scriptures, and yet according to the truth of faith the Father is proclaimed unbegotten—namely against Sabellius, who understands the Father and the Son to be one not by communion of substance, but confounds them by singularity of person. But if the sound, and not the sense, is considered in words, let not the Church be reckoned by the name catholic, which is found placed neither in the Old nor in the New Testament.

But if all these things, though they be in no canonical volume, are nevertheless worthily held in faith, why should it be thought forbidden to us in the case of Homousion not to consider the sound of the word, but the sense; nor to attend to the novelty of the word, but to understand the power of the mystery? But it is astonishing that those who, for the belief of one substance, wish us to be called Homousians, how they are unwilling to be called Triusians for three and diverse substances; although, even if they flee to be reckoned by such a name, the quality of their belief nevertheless shows them to be this. Worthily therefore we worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the property of persons being preserved, as one God;

for the true faith neither receives three gods, which the many-worshipping pagans do, nor asserts its God to be created, which the worshippers of the creature proclaim. Objection 8. Let men who desire to follow the saving precepts take heed that it is a crime and exceedingly blasphemous: for the falsehood of profession can never profit those who seek to worship or venerate God by injuring Him through blasphemy. If injury is not tolerated from men, how can it be tolerated by the Lord Himself, the Author? For He shows His rebuke concerning the unfaithful, saying: This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me (Isa. 29:13). Reply.

The apostolic faith does not injure God, but honours Him, since it asserts that the divine substance could neither be diminished nor changed; and therefore it proclaims the Son equal to the Father, since the one substance of both preserves in each the fullness of its perfection. Then, therefore, is injury inflicted upon God, when through a diversity of divinity the creature is worshipped along with the Creator; whereas the name of creation is to be received in the Son only in this respect, that for the redemption of men He was made man from among men. The Holy Spirit too, if the Lord wished Him to be understood a creature, He would never have commanded to be joined to Himself and the Father in the sacrament of baptism, saying: Go, teach all nations, baptizing (var.

baptize) them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Objection 9. But as for what is said concerning His generation: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee (Ps. 109:3), who could doubt that it was said of the fleshly birth? Since the very preceding writing shows you, so that you may understand what the prophet says, that in the splendours of the saints He was begotten before the day-star. And the splendour of the saints is shown to be the heralding of the prophets, and their prophecy to have been fulfilled concerning Him, that He might make this manifest even the prophet, saying: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee; and it came to pass gloriously, which the prophetic mouth foretold, that He would be born of a virgin.

Who could doubt that this birth came to pass just as Scripture records? Reply. He is much deceived who does not believe this passage of Scripture to be fitting to the divine birth, and who, hearing that God said, From the womb before the day-star I begot thee—because in God a fleshly womb cannot be believed—supposes that the sense of this passage is to be applied only to that generation which is according to the flesh; whereas the preceding verse rather suggests the understanding of the divine generation, in which the Father says to the Son: With thee is the principality (Ibid.), so that the Father and the Son may be recognized to be one principle. But the name of womb was said by a transferred term, whereby the divine nature itself might be signified;

just as the incorporeal substance of God is wont to be named by corporeal names, so that the sense of men may be led by the customary terms of their own nature to an understanding of the divinity. For the eyes of God are said to see all things, as it is written: In every place the eyes of God behold the good and the evil (Prov. 15:3). But who could doubt that God so sees all things through His nature, just as we confess Him to fill all things through the infinity of His nature? But we also find diverse terms of corporeal members named in God for this reason (as has been said), that through the operations of these things the property of His own incorporeal substance may be understood.

So therefore here too He said that He begot the Son from the womb, so that no one should reckon Him whom we hear begotten from the womb to be alien from the nature of the Father. But in that He said before the day-star, He showed the perpetual birth of the Son not to be subject to a temporal beginning: for Lucifer (the day-star) is the name of a star, and in the beginning of the world, when God had created the luminaries and the stars, He commanded them to be for days, and months, and seasons, and years (Gen. 1:14), by which cycles of names all time is revolved. But in the splendours of the saints, the prophecies of the prophets have not been rightly understood: for the splendour of the saints consists not in the office of preaching, but in the brightness of the resurrection; concerning which splendour the Lord says:

Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43). This splendour of the future resurrection the prophet Daniel also commemorates in these words: And many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth shall rise up in the opening, these unto life eternal, and these unto reproach and everlasting confusion: and those who understand shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and of the just many, as the stars for ever (Dan. 12:2-3); but this splendour shall then be bestowed on the saints by the Lord, when, according to the saying of the Apostle, He shall reform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). In this splendour, therefore, the saints shall then fully understand that the Father and the Son are one principle;

nor to differ from one another either in substance or in majesty. Although, therefore, we confess that the Son was, according to the flesh, procreated from the womb of the Virgin, we nevertheless do not doubt that He was begotten of the womb of the Father, that is, of the Father's substance; nay rather, we so confess the Son to be born true God of the womb of God, just as we do not doubt that a true man proceeded from the womb of the Virgin; lest (which be far from us), if a true man is believed to have been born of the mother's substance, and a true God be denied to be of the Father's substance, the human nature be esteemed greater—which was able to procreate that which it is—than the divine substance, which was unable to beget true God. Objection 10. It is not the least (var.

exceeding) disgrace, that a mind which understands ill should be deceived by its own frauds, so that sometimes two are said to be one, sometimes three one. Does not the boon of benefit fail to appear, when one is not designated together with two? It is a mockery to believe that one God consists of three parts, when (what is worse) it is still said of them that He is thus to be believed one God, though the Father is not He who is the Son, nor the Son He who is the Holy Spirit; concerning whom they profess that they have differences among themselves, yet that each cannot have his own honour, unless a malignant breast be found to couple them in one God. Reply.

By no frauds, whether his own or another's, is he deceived who so worships one God that in the Trinity he knows neither to confound the persons nor to separate the substance. And he understands that one nature to be one God, in which he acknowledges the eternity of true divinity; for it is said to us: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one (Deut. 6:4). Likewise: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve (Ibid., 13). But if we ought to receive the Lord God as the Father alone, then let us neither serve the Son as God nor adore Him; for whatever does not pertain to the nature of the Lord God alone ought not to be adored by us as God.

But what shall we say of the Son, whom in the heavens the angels and all the powers ever adore and praise, so much so that even when placed in the form of a servant, and on account of the suffering of death made a little lower than the angels, the angels are commanded to adore Him, Moses saying: Rejoice, O heavens, together with Him, and let all the angels of God adore Him (Ps. 96:8; cf. Deut. 32:43 LXX). Men too David, divinely inspired, joins to this adoration, saying: All the kings of the earth shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him (Ps. 71:11). How then is He adored both by men and by angels, if He is separated from the substance of the one God? How do we dare to render to Him that service which is owed to God only, if His nature is not one with the Father?

For because there is one God, it is thus said to us through the prophet: I am God, and there is no other besides me: just and saving, and there is no other besides me: be converted to me, and you shall be saved, for from the end of the earth I am God, and there is no other. By myself I swear, for justice shall go forth (var. hath gone forth) out of my mouth, and my words shall not be turned back: for to me every knee shall bow (var. hath bowed), and every tongue shall swear (var. hath sworn) by God (Isa. 45:21 ff.). Behold, God, who in this passage, saying that He alone is God, testifies that there is no other besides Him. But if anyone here should refuse to take the whole Trinity, he will be compelled to assign this voice to the Son alone.

For who is God besides whom there is no other, except He to whom Isaiah says: Egypt hath laboured, and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabaim, tall men, shall pass over to thee, and shall be thine: they shall follow thee bound in fetters, and they shall adore thee, and shall make supplication to thee: because God is in thee, and there is no God besides thee; for thou art God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour. They shall be confounded and ashamed, all who oppose Him, and shall go with confusion (Isa. 45:14 ff.). Behold, in Him is God, and besides Him there is no God, and He is the God of Israel, the Saviour. But above, He who said: I am God, and there is no other besides me, added: Just and saving, there is no other besides me.

But who is just, except He to whom David says: Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity (Ps. 44:8)? And who is saving, except He of whom the angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit: and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:20)? But to whom is it fitting to say: Be converted to me, and you shall be saved, for from the end of the earth I am God, and there is no other (Isa. 45:22), except to the Son?