Anti-Arian Works 4

CHAPTER ONE. When, most beloved son Victor, I was reading over your letter, which breathed the most sweet fragrance of faith and charity, with every delight and eagerness of soul, I found appended the discourse of Fastidiosus, which you assigned me to refute. Having read it through, I grieved the more for one lost, the more I was compelled to shudder at the blasphemer; whom we knew, after the Christian faith, after the profession of a monk, after the honor of the priesthood which he received in the sight of men and did not possess before the Lord, to have turned away from the way of truth and to have utterly forgotten his own redemption, becoming a slave of fornication and luxury, and on this account to spurn the service of the divine majesty.

Hence it is that, having become a heretic from a Catholic, and bringing forth evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart, against the right faith, against the Catholic truth, gorged with the poison of impiety, he not undeservedly vomits out that discourse, since he has spurned the bread of life and, fastidious by the token of his own name, has cast away the wholesome food of the true faith. Moreover, in that profane discourse, calling us Homousians (which we Arians are wont to be named), he set down these words: 'To the Homousians,' he says, 'who assert an inseparable and undivided Trinity, and that the Son was not less than the Father, and that the Father, unbegotten, is not the maker of His own Son.' Consider, I pray, in these words of Fastidiosus certain things so badly put that they can never be rightly maintained;

and certain things spoken by him so impiously that they could also be well spoken (if only piety be present) and alike be uttered and heard. For that on which he thought we should be charged, namely because we call the Trinity inseparable and undivided, he put forth so badly and impiously that no one can put it forth well. For who does not see with what impiety a separable Trinity is asserted by the Arians? The blessed Apostle says of us: 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or peril, or famine, or persecution, or the sword?' (Rom. VIII). And a little after: 'I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present;'

'nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (ibid.). CHAPTER TWO. Since therefore the blessed Apostle is confident that through the grace of God we cannot be separated from His love, how do they not perceive themselves entangled in the deadly noose of impiety, who do not hesitate to preach the holy Trinity as separated, whose works they cannot show to be separable in anything? For in that which the evangelist says of the Son, 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing' (John 1); and in that which blessed David sings, 'How magnificent are Thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things in wisdom' (Ps.

CIII, 24); and the blessed Apostle professes Christ to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, of whom it is said: 'For in Him were all things created in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers; all things were created by Him and in Him' (Col. 1, 16); it is manifest that all the works of the Father are the same works of the Son, and the same are the works of the Holy Spirit. For the holy Trinity works inseparably: nor is there any work which the Father has made and the Son has not made; or which the Son has made and the Holy Spirit has not made. For it is written: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power' (Ps. XXXII, 6).

Concerning wisdom also, which we say was created among the angels, we read written in the book of Ecclesiasticus: 'Wisdom was created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting' (Ecclus. I, 4). That He might show that the angels too were made by the Word of God, through whom all things were made, holy Scripture immediately subjoined: 'The Word of God is the fountain of wisdom, and His commandments are eternal entrance' (ibid., 5). And a little after, that He might show the angels to belong to the works of the Holy Spirit, it is thus said: 'One is the most high Creator, almighty, a powerful King and greatly to be feared, sitting upon His throne and ruling. God created her by the Holy Spirit' (ibid., 8).

What then shall be denied to have been made by the Holy Spirit, by whom the power of the heavens is read to have been established, and whose work created wisdom is proclaimed to be? For also concerning the divine gifts which God bestows on His Church, when the blessed Apostle spoke and had said: 'Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord, who works all things in all' (1 Cor. XII, 4); then, having enumerated the diversity of heavenly gifts, he added: 'But all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to everyone according as He will' (ibid., 12). But what, among all creatures, in which wisdom reaches mightily from end to end and disposes all things sweetly (Wis.

VIII, 1)—what could be found alien to the operation of the Holy Spirit, when Christ, who is the power and wisdom of God, testifies that He casts out demons by the Spirit of God? For He Himself said: 'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you' (Matt. XII, 28). How then does Fastidiosus deny an inseparable Trinity, when no Christian dares deny that the works of the Trinity are the same and inseparable in all creatures? For one God works inseparably, namely the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For the Only-begotten of God testifies that His works are the same as those of His Father, saying: 'For whatsoever things the Father does, these the Son likewise does' (John V, 19).

And yet what the Son does, He does in the Holy Spirit, in whom He casts out demons. CHAPTER THREE. But lest, on account of our saying that the Son also does in the Holy Spirit whatever He does, the Arians should wish to assert some question of diversity, thinking that He in whom something is done ought to be received as less than He who does it, let them hear our Saviour resisting this perversity in every way in that which He says: 'But he that does truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God' (John III, 20). Here let the Arians choose how they wish to understand God when named in the Son: whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit?

For if they think the Father is to be understood, in whom good works are done by men, they themselves destroy what they object in blaspheming against the person of the Holy Spirit. For they will not dare to call the Father less, to whom according to divinity they refuse to preach the Son as equal. And on this account, since man does good works in the Father, and Christ casts out demons in the Holy Spirit, let them acknowledge the equality of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. But if they say the Son is here to be understood, from the fact that good works are done in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, they are not only compelled to confess the Son and the Holy Spirit equal, but they will also confess that the works of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit are the same and inseparable:

'For all things one and the same Spirit works' (1 Cor. XII, 12), as the blessed Apostle testifies. But if the Arians reckon it to be the Holy Spirit, they must from this passage be compelled to confess the Holy Spirit to be God. For it did not say, 'the spirit of the Lord, He that does truth, that his works may be made manifest, which are done in the Holy Spirit'; but, 'which are done in God'—which we say are done not in the Father alone, nor in the Son alone, nor in the Holy Spirit alone, but in that same holy Trinity, which is one God; we confess that truth is done by man in it, in which blessed David intimates that strength is wrought by the faithful, saying: 'In the Lord we shall do valiantly, and He will bring to nothing them that trouble us' (Ps. LIX, 14).

For He is the one God of whom the blessed Apostle says: 'For from Him and in Him are all things: to Him be glory for ever' (Rom. XI, 36). CHAPTER FOUR. How then is the holy Trinity called separable by the impious, when it works inseparably—by those by whom, as far as it is given to understand, it is not even conceived to be separated in the spirit, as the truth of the matter requires? For from our God, that is, from that same holy Trinity, nothing can be locally separated, because the same God, supreme, true, and good, as He made all things, so, immeasurable, contains and fills all things. But He is neither corporeal nor local, and therefore not even bodily things can be locally separated from God; because every body is in a place, and without God there is no place.

For God is so contained by no place, that He Himself contains every place; in whom there is no mass, and whose power is immeasurable. Since therefore bodies, which cannot exist without place, cannot be locally separated from God, without doubt neither are the spirits which God created locally separated from God. For every spirit which God created, in whatever place it is, there is God: who, although He is not in evil spirits through the grace by which He bestows a holy life and blessedness on those whom He Himself wills, yet through His natural power He is always so present in all His creatures, that no creature or particle of a creature can be found in which God is not present through His power.

That nature therefore can be separated from God, which was able or is able to be subject to sin. Nor is there any other thing which can depart from God, except the substance which is able or was able by its own will to sin. For Isaiah says: 'Behold, the hand of the Lord is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither is His ear made heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities divide between you and your God' (Isa. LIX, 1, 2). In the book of Wisdom also it is shown that men are separated from God, not by places, but by depraved thoughts and wicked deeds. For there it is said: 'For perverse thoughts separate from God. But virtue, when it is tried, reproves the foolish:'

'for wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins; for the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding' (Wis. I, 3, 4, 5). But who does not here see the Trinity of persons intimated by their properties? For it was said that perverse thoughts separate from God, by which name the person of God the Father is recognized. Then it was added, that wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, by which name Christ is shown, whom Paul calls the power of God and the wisdom of God. Then it was said that the Holy Spirit will flee the deceitful, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding.

But lest anyone should think that any wicked or impious persons could be locally separated from that holy Trinity, which is the one, true, and good God, a little after the Scripture speaks thus: 'For the Spirit of wisdom is benevolent (toward man), and will not acquit the evil-speaker from his lips, for God is witness of his reins, and the true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world' (ibid., 6, 7). The divine oracles therefore do not cease to profess the immensity of the holy Trinity. This indeed blessed David most surely knew, and therefore said: 'Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into hell, Thou art present' (Ps.

CXXXVIII, 7, 8). Concerning Wisdom also, that is, the Son of God, Scripture says, that He reaches from end to end and disposes all things sweetly (Wis. VIII, 1). Since therefore nothing is locally separated from the holy Trinity, which is everywhere whole, but iniquities and perverse thoughts alone separate from God, as we have already said; whoever tries to assert a separable Trinity must necessarily say that either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit can naturally be subject to depraved thoughts and iniquities.

But who would extricate himself from the noose of such great impiety, as to suspect any separation in that Trinity where the unity is natural, when, through the grace received (as was demonstrated above by us), faithful Paul is confident that he can in no way be separated from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? And the blessed apostle John confirms both that charity is from God and that charity is God, in these words: 'Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is from God, and everyone that loves is born of God' (1 John IV, 7); and, 'God is charity' (ibid., 16). It surely cannot be separated from itself, because it is inseparable.

For since men who can be separated from one another it not only possesses undivided, but out of many hearts and souls it makes one heart and one soul; what madness is it to call that very charity separable, which is wont to bind together separated minds with inseparable love? Hence surely it is that Paul said: 'For though I am absent in body, yet in spirit I am with you, rejoicing and beholding your order' (Col. II, 5). And in the Acts of the Apostles it is written that of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one soul (Acts IV, 32); which surely nothing knows except the spirit of faith and charity. For the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts (Rom. V, 5).

And through that same Spirit it comes about that all believers, as the Apostle says, are one body and one spirit. Whence he himself says in another place: 'For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor. XII, 13). And the Only-begotten Son of God commanded with His own mouth that all nations be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER FIVE. Since therefore baptism is given in the name of the Trinity, it makes all the faithful to be baptized into one body, so that from this all may be made one body, as the blessed Apostle says, that 'we are one body in Christ, and each members one of another' (Rom. XII, 5).

Of the multitude of believers also there was one heart and one soul through charity, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us. Truly it appears with what great impiety that Trinity itself is called separable, when indeed every creature is separated from God, not by place, not by time, but by iniquities alone. Hence it is that God says of certain ones: 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me' (Matt. XV, 8). And yet He Himself says: 'I am a God at hand, and their God from afar. If a man be hidden, shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?' (Jer. XXIII, 23, 24). Yet David himself says: 'Behold, they that remove themselves far from Thee shall perish' (Ps. LXXII, 27).

And to show what it is to remove oneself far from God, he added: 'Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring away from Thee' (ibid.). Therefore one withdraws from God in heart, to whom also one approaches in heart. For it is manifest that God is everywhere whole, but is in no way contained by place. For God is a Spirit, the Creator indeed, not created, the maker of all bodies and all spirits, unchangeable, eternal, immense, just, and good. Who never departs from all the things which He made, through the immensity of His nature. For it cannot come to pass that God Himself should be lacking by His power to any thing that has from God that it should be. And yet through mercy and judgment, of which the Church does not cease to sing to Him (Ps.

C, 1), it is not inappropriately said both to be present to the faithful and to be far absent from the unfaithful. For as regards nature, since the whole of whatever is created, whether corporeal or spiritual, the holy Trinity alone, that is, one God, who is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, made by one will, one operation, one power, one benevolence, and one omnipotence: just as the Father fills the whole creation, by power indeed, not by mass; so the Son fills the whole, so the Holy Spirit fills the whole. For the Trinity does not so fill the whole creation that the Father fills a part, the Son a part, the Holy Spirit a part; nor yet is the whole filled by the Father alone, nor by the Son alone, nor by the Holy Spirit alone.

For who would dare to think thus concerning the Trinity, that is, concerning the one God—I do not say a fool, but altogether sacrilegious—since the power and divinity of God must necessarily be by nature so immense, as it is by nature everlasting? But men given over to carnal senses cannot think even of God Himself except in a carnal way. And they suppose that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be separated from one another, just as men are separated from one another; who, as they are distinguished by the mode and quantity of each one's body, must necessarily be discerned also by places.

But such men, while they turn their souls over in the enclosure of the flesh, with the phantasms they have created, and weighed down by the burden of vanity, the more they are occupied in the thought of those things which present a corporeal mass to bodily eyes, the less they are able to ascend to understanding the Godhead. Nor do they attend that by the Lord God through holy Isaiah it is commanded that we should not wish to think of Him as of the creatures which we know were made by Him; because neither does He Himself think as we men think. Whence Isaiah says: 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are My ways your ways, says the Lord:'

'for as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts' (Isa. LV, 8-9). CHAPTER SIX. God the Father therefore, and His Word, and the Holy Spirit, that is, the holy Trinity, the sole, one, true, and good God, as there is no thought in Him which is varied by the mutability of time (for He does not, like men, think one way before He made the world, another way after He made the world, nor is He going to think another way after the figure of this world has passed; because 'the counsel of the Lord abides for ever' [Ps. XXXII, 11]); so He is inseparable, as He is unchangeable. For the Trinity, one God, is neither body nor created spirit;

because a body is enclosed by place, and every spirit that is created is bounded by the measure of its nature. But the Trinity, one God, as it is eternal, and no times are co-eternal with it; so it is immense, whom no creature can enclose; and because immense, everywhere whole; because it is neither contained by place, nor extended, nor contracted by space. God therefore is wisdom, God is truth, God is charity. This the Father is, this the Son, this the Holy Spirit, this the Trinity itself, which is the one, true, and good God. If then anyone can teach that there is any division either in wisdom, or in truth, or in charity, let him dare without hesitation to assert and divide the Trinity.

But if neither wisdom, nor truth, nor charity is in any way divided, from this surely the Trinity is recognized to be indivisible and inseparable. It appears therefore that great was the impiety of Fastidiosus, whereby he thought we were altogether to be blamed because we confess an inseparable and undivided Trinity: since indeed, as the preceding disputation has taught (which not only reason, but also a sufficient abundance of divine testimonies has strengthened), neither can the immense nature of the Trinity be contained by place, nor can any person in the Trinity be subject to sin: because the Trinity itself is by nature eternal, perfect, and of unchangeable justice. But heretical perversity indeed strives wickedly to assert the Son to be less:

but with piety preserved, the Catholic truth confesses Him equal. For the heretics, thinking of the incorporeal divinity in no way but corporeally, when according to nature they call the Son less, under the image of the Christian name, which they fallaciously pretend, entangle themselves in the nefarious crime of idolatry. For what is it to say a greater god and a lesser god in the individual persons, but to set up idols of diverse kind and diverse power, not on walls, but—which is worse—in hearts? For hence the Arians evidently show that they worship two gods, while they deny the Son to be equal to the Father; and while they assert Him to be less (i.e.,

Him) not by the assumption of flesh (which the truth of faith holds), but by the nature of the immense divinity—although it is said of Him that He is the wisdom of God, who is the brightness of eternal light (Wis. VII, 26). Of whom in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said: 'Who, being the splendor of glory, and the figure of His substance' (Heb. I, 3). But let them attend to the brightness of eternal light, and acknowledge that, just as that light is eternal and immense, so also its brightness has by nature neither anything later, nor anything less; but eternity has immensity, immensity has eternity as its equal. CHAPTER SEVEN.

The Christian faith therefore, which knows the Only-begotten God, both born of the Father's nature alone, and created of the Virgin Mary, recognizing that in Him both substances truly remain, so confesses Him truly equal to God the Father according to the Father, that without the crime of falsehood and impiety it also proclaims Him less. For because there is to Him one natural divinity with the Father, and one natural humanity with the mother, the Son is equal to the Father in that in which He is true God of the Father, and the Father is greater than the Son in that in which the Only-begotten God is Himself true man. This therefore is the true faith, this the holy piety, this the Christian belief:

in one and the same Son of God, both to believe the nature of the paternal divinity, and not to deny the substance of the maternal humanity; neither to believe the divinity of the Son different from the divinity of God the Father, nor to separate the humanity of the Son from the humanity of the Virgin His mother, but in the same true God to believe the true and whole humanity of our race, in the same true and whole man to believe the true and full deity of the paternal nature. For he who denies in the Son the unity of the Father's substance is polluted with Arian impiety; but he who denies the truth of the flesh in the Only-begotten God is profaned with the crime of the Manichaean pestilence; and he who denies in the same Son of God a human, that is, a rational soul, is straightway defiled with the sacrilege of the Apollinarists.

CHAPTER EIGHT. Wherefore, when the truth of the paternal and maternal nature in the Only-begotten God has been believed to fullness, and in the one person of Christ the natural property of the twofold substance has been preserved, the Son is piously and truly said to be both equal and less than the Father, is piously and truly proclaimed both co-eternal and later, is piously and truly asserted to be both always born and born in time, both always unchangeable and changed in time. And so the Son is equal to the Father, because He has this always from the Father. He is also less than the Father, because He received this temporally from the Virgin. Wherefore, just as the Son is piously said to be equal to the Father when the humanity in Him, by which He is less than the Father, is not recognized: so impiously

is the same Son said to be less when the unity and equality of divinity with the Father is naturally denied in Him. We say therefore that the Son is naturally equal, we say also that He is less. We say that according to the form of God He was born equal, but according to the form of a servant He was diminished in condition. We say that He is equal to the Father, in that we recognize Him born of the Father without beginning; we say that He is also less, because when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal. IV, 4). Accordingly, just as we undoubtedly preach Him born, so surely we preach Him also made. For we say that He was born without beginning of the heart of the Father; we say that He was made in time by the work of the Trinity.

For the Father begot His own proper Son, and of His own nature, and made Him of the nature of the Virgin. But whatsoever He made, He made with the Son and the Holy Spirit cooperating. Therefore the Father alone indeed begot His Son, but not alone did He make Him. For in the Only-begotten Son there is the eternal generation of the Father alone, and in the same Son, made, there is one operation of the whole Trinity. For the Only-begotten God, the Creator of man, was created man; and the same who from man made woman, of woman was made man. Whence it appears that the testimonies which Fastidiosus impiously brought forth from the Gospel and from the Acts of the Apostles, and from Solomon, do not take away the unity of the paternal nature from the Son, but show the mystery of the divine incarnation.

Knowing this most certainly, John the Baptist said: 'This is He of whom I said: After me comes one who was made before me' (John I, 15). Proclaiming the truth of this mystery, the apostle Peter says: 'Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God has made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus whom you crucified' (Acts II, 36). Fittingly indeed did he say made, whom he proclaims crucified; for the Only-begotten God, incomprehensible and immortal, made by none, and the eternal maker of all things, deigned by His own work to become Christ, that He might be able by the work of the Jews to be crucified; because no cross would by any reason have borne the Redeemer of the world delivered up, had not the womb of the Virgin brought forth the maker of the world conceived.

He therefore also, through Solomon, intimating the truth of His generation and creation, said: 'The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways in His work' (Prov. VIII, 22). But before He said this, He set forth a manifest indication of His future incarnation, saying: 'If I shall announce to you the things that are done daily, I will call to mind the things that are from the beginning' (ibid., 21, according to the LXX). Then, enumerating, He subjoined: 'The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways in His work.' This creation surely is from the beginning of time, not before time. For afterward He says: 'Before the ages He founded me'; and a little after: 'Before all the hills He begot me.' Here, in that He says 'before the ages' and 'before all the hills,' He wished the eternity of the divine nativity to be understood.

Both before the ages, and after the age, it is eternity. And so the eternity of the Son of God has no beginning before the age, just as His eternity after the age has no end. But putting past time for future time in this way, Wisdom says, 'The Lord created me,' for that which is 'He will create me'; and thus He spoke of a thing as done which was surely to be done: just as through blessed David He said: 'They have dug my hands and my feet: they have numbered all my bones. But they themselves have looked and stared upon me. They have divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they have cast lots' (Ps. XXI, 18, 19). Saying therefore, 'The Lord created me,' He showed in what manner He was to be made.

When he says also, 'They have pierced my hands and my feet,' he shows in what manner he was to be crucified. Now just as this was assuredly to come to pass, which the Son of God, through David, sang of his passion as though already accomplished, so too was that to come to pass which, through Solomon, he who is himself the Wisdom of God prophesied of his incarnation as though already accomplished. For Solomon himself says a little before: 'Wisdom hath builded herself a house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars' (Prov. IX, 1), which pertains to the birth of the Lord's incarnation. Isaiah too speaks thus of Christ's passion, so that he foretells what is to come as though it were past. For he himself says of Christ:

'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth' (Isa. LIII, 7). For that very nativity of the Only-begotten of God according to the flesh from the Virgin he not only sometimes foretells as future, but sometimes speaks of as past. Thus in one place he says: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bear a son' (Isa. VII, 14). And again in another place, intimating it as done and accomplished, he says: 'A child is born unto us, and a son is given unto us' (Isa. IX, 6). Who then does not see that all that was spoken through the prophets concerning the humanity and passion of the Only-begotten of God was at that same time to come in truth, just as it is now in truth past?

But to display the immutability of the divine counsel, it came about that the prophetic Scripture spoke as past in word what was awaited as future in deed. For God, of whom the prophet here says, 'Who made the things that are to come' (Isa. XLV, 11, according to the LXX), for this reason willed to narrate as already done the things that were yet to be done, because the things which come to pass changeably in time he had established by the unchangeable eternity of his ordering. And so even in those matters in which the effect of the work is not yet present, the ordination of the Creator remains firm in eternity. Thus therefore the Son of God, being about to be created together with his own work, called himself already created, just as, being about to be crucified, he did not hesitate to call himself crucified.

Furthermore, with perverse heart and sacrilegious mouth, the raving Fastidiosus wished from this to assert that the Son is separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit, because it is agreed that he alone entered the chamber of the virginal womb. Of whom it is said in the book of Psalms: 'And he, as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber' (Ps. XVIII, 6). Then, desiring to confirm the sentence of his perversity, he did not hesitate to assert even that blasphemy, saying that the Trinity could in no way separate itself, which it is agreed cannot be divided at all.

Did then the whole Trinity assume flesh, did the whole Trinity feel the injury of the passions, did the whole Trinity lie in the sepulchre, did the whole Trinity penetrate hell, did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day, did the whole Trinity ascend into the heavens on the fortieth day? At whose right hand does the whole Trinity sit? Or what Spirit did the whole Trinity send into the apostles on the day of Pentecost? Or to what God could the whole Trinity say upon the cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'; or to what Father did the whole Trinity say, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit'? Let them declare it, if they can. But if they cannot say it, they slay themselves with their own darts, they who contend that the Trinity is inseparable. Chapter X.

Thus far in that profane discourse are the words of Fastidiosus stretched out against the catholic faith. Yet in it, apart from those things which he blasphemed to the insult of the holy Trinity, almost everything, whether preceding or following, that most wicked man usurped from the sayings of others. In short, all that he set down against the Donatists he stole from certain two letters, in which, against the Pelagians and Donatists—when we who were established in exile in Sardinia were to write back by all of us to Stephania, the religious daughter of the Church—that most wicked man fraudulently set down under his own name; and they are found inserted in the very order of words in which those letters had them.

But that the knowledge of this matter might not be lacking to you, I have caused to be appended to this little work the two letters which the aforesaid Stephania sent to us, and those which we wrote back to her; so that you may recognize that in that discourse only those things were of Fastidiosus by which, leaping forth with a blind heart to the injury of the holy Trinity itself, he attempted to assail the catholic truth. Chapter XI. Now therefore, with the Lord's help, I reply to his blasphemies.

It was not the whole Trinity that assumed flesh, nor did the whole Trinity feel the injuries of the passions, nor did the whole Trinity lie in the sepulchre, nor did the whole Trinity penetrate hell, nor did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day, and whatever else is proved, in that mystery of the incarnation, to pertain to the person of the Son alone. For these things which Fastidiosus, full of falsehood and perversity, objected to the catholic truth, can be truly objected to none but the Sabellians, that is, the Patripassians, in whom indeed those men, shut up and convicted, fail, who contend that of the holy Trinity there is one person, just as there is one nature.

There their perversity consequently hurls them into this absurdity, that they in no way believe in a divine nativity; yet they no less assign to the Father the nature according to the flesh, the passion and death, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, and all those things which in the mystery of the incarnation pertain to the person of the one Son. But the catholic Church, divinely inspired, holding the truth of the faith, just as she knows how to assert the one nature of the holy Trinity, so most carefully attributes to each person what is proper to it.

The Son of God therefore, being about mercifully to redeem us, is rightly believed to have assumed alone, because he took human nature not in such a way that in him one nature of divinity and of flesh should come to be. For in Christ the Godhead could not be that which the flesh was, because, each nature retaining its own property, it could not come about that either of them should cease to be, or pass over into the other by an utter abolition. But if this were to happen, it would rightly be said that flesh was assumed by the whole Trinity, when the Son would convert his flesh into that divinity which we profess to remain common to him with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Chapter XII. But now, since we say that in Christ there is one nature divine and another human:

therefore assuredly we believe and confess that the human nature, that is, the flesh and the rational soul, was assumed not by the whole Trinity, but by the Son alone. For into the unity of person, not into the unity of nature, did God the Only-begotten take flesh and soul: because assuredly the person of the Son is not the same as that of the Father or of the Holy Spirit. The unity of person therefore, the property of each substance nevertheless remaining, just as it did not make the person double in Christ, so it did not make the assumption of the human nature common to the holy Trinity. For to the Son of God there is not, as there is one common nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so also one common person. Chapter XIII.

It is therefore proper to the Son alone to have mercifully received the form of a servant. For that reception of the servant's form pertained to the person of God the Word, which did not pass over into the divine nature by confusion. Therefore the reception of that servile form, according to which the Son of God—who is the Lord of all things, and in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead—became true and full man, took nothing away from him of the divine fullness, removed nothing of his dominion: because in that one same person the divine and human nature remained without confusion. Hence it is that in the one and same Christ both the truth of the human nature shone forth, and the eternal immutability of the divine nature remained.

For nothing was in any degree diminished in him, nor changed, of what he naturally had in eternity, through that which he received in time. He was indeed made a servant in condition, yet he did not cease to be by nature the Lord of all things. And he was made poor according to the flesh: nevertheless he remained most rich according to the divinity. Hence it is that the blessed Apostle asserts that Christians were enriched by poverty, saying: 'You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for our sakes he became poor, though he was rich, that through his poverty you might be rich' (II Cor. VIII, 9). But he would in no way make us rich by his poverty, if, having become poor, he did not have in himself the riches of his natural divinity.

He became poor therefore according to the form of a servant, he remained rich according to the form of God. And so the poverty of the servile form is not common to him with the Father and the Holy Spirit; because after the poverty of the human nature was assumed into the unity of person, the divine substance remained rich in him. But what was the poverty of the rich Son of God, save our infirmity and our mortality? Yet whatever God the Only-begotten endured in infirmity and death according to the flesh, the divinity did not feel. For 'God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. VIII, 3), in whom there was true flesh, but there was no pollution of sin.

The likeness of sinful flesh, therefore, was that in the flesh of Christ, since it was not the flesh of sin, that it was infirm, that it was passible and mortal, that it was subject to wounding and liable to pain. Yet all these things were common to the divinity and humanity of Christ not substantially, but personally. But the person of Christ is wholly distinguished from the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. This one person of divinity and of humanity so remains in Christ that it neither allows the one nature to be separated from the other, nor permits both to be confounded. Christ therefore, who is the way, the truth, and true life, is a way to us, because he had true infirmity in the truth of the flesh;

and he is true life to us, because true power remained in his true divinity. Distinguishing this, the Apostle says: 'For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God' (II Cor. XIII, 4). Chapter XIV. In the one and same Christ therefore, just as the infirmity of the human flesh could not give or restore life to itself, because that power of laying down the soul and of taking it up was not from human infirmity but from divine power; so the eternity of the divine power, to which it is naturally proper to live immutably and unfailingly, could feel nothing of infirmity or death upon the cross.

And so the Only-begotten Son of God is known to be, in that he was born of the Father, true God, and, in that he was made man of a mother, true man; because he both showed tokens of infirmity in the truth of the flesh, and displayed proofs of power in the truth of the divinity; showing, that is, in the unity of person, that one thing was naturally common to him with us, another with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For with us Christ has a natural fellowship of soul and flesh; but with the Father and the Holy Spirit he has a natural fellowship of Godhead. How then could the Son of God have the things which are of the flesh common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he who in no way confounds his flesh with his divinity:

so it in no way prejudices the catholic faith that we believe our nature was assumed in the unity of person by the Only-begotten Saviour, while we confess that one substance of the holy Trinity remains. For that humanity of the Son the whole Trinity indeed made, but the whole Trinity did not assume it as the whole Trinity made it, because the person, which is not common to the Son with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is itself in Christ the one person of divinity and of flesh. But where any distinction, whether of persons or of substances, is found, whatever is found in a fellowship of work is not always referred to a fellowship of assumption.

But because this seems obscure when it is set forth in speech alone, it is better that ease of understanding be provided, as far as the matter permits, by a fitting example. Chapter XV. There is indeed a likeness ready at hand for the faithful unto knowledge, which God placed in his own likeness. Now this image is the human mind. For it is read that the Lord said: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness' (Gen. I, 26). In which saying the Arian heretics are much to be lamented, who read the holy Scriptures and do not understand; and confounded by blindness of heart, they do not acknowledge the natural unity in the holy Trinity, in which they distinguish by proclamation the persons of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Whereas indeed in that testimony which we set down above, the Trinity itself, which is the one, true, and good God, both shows the unity of its divinity, and evidently demonstrates the token of three persons. For he said, 'Let us make man to our image and likeness,' lest the unity of substance in the three persons be denied; nor did he say, 'I will make man to my image and likeness,' lest in that divine nature only one person be believed to be; but he healthfully mingled the plural with the singular number, and when we read God saying, 'Let us make man to our image and likeness,' we define this, which we say singularly to be of nature, to be plurally in the persons.

This image, then, that is, the inner man, is found to have naturally with itself three things, namely: memory, understanding, and will. Memory therefore is the power of the soul by which we remember. Understanding is that by which we turn over in thought those things which we have conceived by memory. Will is that by which we either desire something or shun it: that is, by which we are found either to love something or to hate it. These three, therefore, although they do not have proper persons in man, are nevertheless distinct from one another by distinction;

and thus in these three there is the one person of one man and the one substance of the human mind, yet in such a way that in that very nature of the rational soul, in which it is agreed that the image of God consists, we find one thing to be memory, another understanding, and another no less to be will. For although we can think nothing, or love nothing, or hate nothing which we do not have in memory—because what oblivion has taken away from the heart, there thought or will cannot in any way find—yet to recognize the distinction of memory, thought, and will, we often remember what we neither turn over in thought nor desire by will; likewise we think of some things which we do not love.

Our thought therefore, which is born and formed in the memory, is worthily called an interior word. For what is thought but interior speech? Wherefore it is written: 'The things which you say in your hearts, be pricked in your beds' (Ps. IV, 5). For in the Gospel also, when the Lord Jesus had said to that paralytic whom he healed, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee' (Luke V, 20); Luke the evangelist added, saying: 'And the scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: Who is this that speaketh blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone? But when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering he said to them: What think you evil in your hearts?' (ibid. 21, 22).

But what Luke said, 'The scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying'; this Matthew states thus: 'And behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves: He blasphemeth. And when Jesus saw their thoughts, he said: Wherefore do you think evil in your hearts?' (Matt. IX, 3, 4). In the book of Wisdom too it is said of certain men: 'They said within themselves, thinking not rightly' (Wis. II, 1). It is manifest therefore that this is to think, which is to say within oneself. There, then, one thinks invisibly. Without the noise of a bodily voice, therefore, each one says what he thinks, which nevertheless he brings to the hearing of another only by bodily speech. Chapter XVI.

That word, then, which is born of memory, according to the sole nature by which it is found to be born of memory, cannot be brought to the ears of any man without a bodily voice. Accordingly, that it may be uttered to others, it is clothed with the condition of a bodily voice. To which word a bodily voice is joined from the mouth. And thus it comes about that that word, which was wholly in the mind spiritually, both comes to others through a corporeal voice, and does not depart from the mind, from which and in which it spiritually remains. For it must remain wholly in the mind, even when it is wholly uttered in the voice. Nor yet can we say that that utterance of the word alone is not made by memory or by will.

For everyone who speaks both certainly remembers and thinks what he is to speak; and he speaks for this reason, because the will together with memory and thought works that speech alike. For inasmuch as whatever a man speaks knowingly, he certainly speaks only willingly, so that whatever a man is compelled to say unwillingly, he does not say, so long as the will is in no way inclined to speaking. Hence it is that not only those who now, pressed by fear or grief of temporal things, of tribulations, or of torments, forsaking the truth of the catholic faith, have passed over to impiety and perfidy, will be able to find no excuse to say that they denied the true faith unwillingly, since it appears that they did this by their own will.

For even if the mind was led by tribulation or by torment to deny the faith, yet it did not deny it unwillingly. For in order to deny the faith, it first thought and willed, and thus uttered that denial: because, that this might come to pass, thought together with will decreed it. Chapter XVII. That I may return, then, to what I was treating, in that very image of God, that is, in the very mind of man, the thought which is born and formed from memory, and is rightly called a word, receives only a bodily voice, so that it may be heard by bodily ears. So then in that holy and divine Trinity, the Word of the Father alone, which is 'the spotless mirror, and the image of God's goodness' (Wis. VII, 26), namely the brightness and figure of his substance (Heb.

I, 3),—'when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil. II, 6, 7). The Son alone therefore received flesh, that he might be seen with bodily eyes, handled with hands; the Son alone so received human nature that he made it his own, and through it mercifully poured forth also the knowledge of his own divinity. Yet he, revealing himself, in himself assuredly revealed also the Father. For, bestowing the recognition of his divinity, he at the same time granted the recognition also of the Father. For the divinity, which is one of the Father and the Son, causes both that the Son is not acknowledged without the Father, and the Father not without the Son. Hence it is that he says:

'Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me? Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also' (John XIV, 9). Thus therefore the Son, who alone received flesh, naturally shows the Father in himself by right of the one divinity; just as a speaker, while he speaks the truth which he remembers, both indicates that which is uttered by him, and displays that which is laid up within in the mind. But that bodily voice with which the spiritual word is clothed, that it may be brought forth to the knowledge of the hearers, is made at once by memory, and by thought, and by will; yet it is received by thought alone, that is, by the interior word, that it may proceed to the bodily ears of the bystanders by the tidings of the interior thought.

But that word, just as, the condition of a bodily voice being received, it wholly goes forth to the hearers, so it is wholly found in the heart, spiritually, together with memory and will. Accordingly, whosoever shall have beheld this image in the mind of man will the sooner deride the vain babblings of the heretics; who, feeling carnally about spiritual things, are unwilling to believe that in that holy Trinity something was made by the three, which was by divine ordering assumed by one person alone: since that human nature was indeed made by the work of the whole Trinity, yet was assumed into the unity of person by the Son alone. For just as it is certain that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John I, 1);

so it is certain that 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (ibid. 14). But what have we received? The Word of the Lord and God, with whom the Word was—not the Father and the Son. Chapter XVIII. By the name of the Word, therefore, the distinct person of the Father and of the Son is shown: but because he was God, one substance of the Father and of the Son is taught. Not the Father's, then, nor the Holy Spirit's is that flesh which is the Word's alone: because God the Word has not with the Father and the Holy Spirit a fellowship of one person. For according to the operation of the divinity common to it, in which there is a trinity of persons, just as the Son received it, so the Father received it, and the Holy Spirit.

For that Son who according to the divinity was naturally alone born of the Father alone, it certainly befitted that very one to be naturally born according to the flesh of the Virgin. But in that Trinity, just as there are not two Fathers, nor two Holy Spirits, so neither shall there be two Sons. For that Trinity has in itself one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit. But one Father, and one Holy Spirit according to the divine nature; but one Son, according to the divine and human substance. In the persons, therefore, the Trinity is distinct, although in nature the one divinity of the Trinity is not divided or separated. Therefore in the person of the Son alone is the humanity found assumed.

On account of the nature, therefore, the operation of the holy Trinity is always one; but on account of the persons, the human assumption is of the Son alone. Nevertheless, while we discuss these things for the instruction of the faithful, we ought to consider that heretics are certainly carnal and animal, and on this account incapable of spiritual things, of whom the Apostle says: 'But the animal man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God. For it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined' (I Cor. II, 14). But apostolic authority testifies that heretics especially are carnal, or animal. For the blessed Paul places heresies among the works of the flesh.

The blessed Apostle Jude too calls those who separate themselves from the Church 'animal,' saying: 'These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit' (Jude 19). This is assuredly what we showed the blessed Paul to have said: 'But the animal man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God.' Let it be no wonder, therefore, that they cannot understand divine things who have not the Spirit of God. For it is written in the book of Wisdom: 'And who shall know thy thought, unless thou give wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from on high?' (Wis. IX, 17). Hence it is that the holy Apostle too asserts that the things which are of God are revealed by none but the Holy Spirit, saying: 'For God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit' (I Cor. II, 10).

And a little after he says: 'Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us from God' (ibid. 12). Nevertheless it is good that we too, insofar as we are divinely helped, imitating the blessed Apostle, should strive to become all things to all, that we may gain all (I Cor. IX, 22). Chapter XIX. Since therefore the Arians do not grasp what we have led them to—that in that one divine nature something was made by the whole Trinity which was not assumed by the whole Trinity, nor is it believed possible that the whole Trinity made that flesh, which nevertheless one person of the Trinity assumed—let us become, as the Apostle says (I Thess.

II, 7) become 'as little ones in the midst of them,' and set this example before them, to nourish the breadth of spiritual understanding, so that it may not weary nor disturb the narrowness of the heretic's heart. Let them know that that Trinity alone is divine, inseparable and individual, whose one nature can neither be divided by the trinity of persons, nor can the three persons be confounded by the unity of the indivisible nature. For the very mind of man too, in which we said the image of God is, so received it as to have in itself a certain token of the holy Trinity, yet not to have in itself the distinction of three persons. For this the divine Trinity kept proper to itself. Whence, although there be in the mind of man memory, understanding, and will;

those indeed are three, yet they cannot be three persons: because in each and every man, in whose mind—or whose mind is the divine image—there is found naturally to be one person not only of the mind itself, but of the soul and flesh together. In the creature therefore, insofar as the greatness of so great a matter of which we speak permits, seeking an example, we perhaps find in the natures some such thing as we could not find in the persons. For we said that the whole Trinity made the humanity of the Son of God, which nevertheless not the whole Trinity, but the Son alone received into his own person. By the whole Trinity indeed, that is, by the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, that flesh was made; but the Word alone was made flesh.

Since therefore, as we said above, so far as it pertains to the creature, we cannot find three persons in one mind, that is, in one flesh, we labour at least to find two natures in one person. For the person of each living man consists of a rational soul and a body: by which nevertheless many things are so done that, although they be done by soul and body together, they yet sometimes pertain to the soul alone or to the body alone. For who knows not that the body alone is refreshed and nourished by carnal food, in the eating of which the operation is common to flesh and soul? For the soul acts through the body, nay rather with the body, when the body eats;

and yet the body alone receives what, in order to be received, the soul does together with the body. In that eating, therefore, the operation of soul and flesh is one, but the reception is of the flesh alone. For the flesh alone is so fed by bodily food that it alone, if it receives it, grows fat. But the refreshment and fatness of the soul consists not in bodily bread, but in spiritual bread. 'For man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God' (Matt. IV, 4). Yet in the perceiving of that word, that the soul may be fed by its own food, the flesh is associated with it in the work. For this is done when the soul either applies the bodily ears to words, that it may hear, or applies the bodily eyes to the Scriptures, that it may read.

Behold, in this too there is at once the operation of flesh and soul, where there is the reception of the soul alone. Let the Arians see these things in creatures, and let them not doubt that there is one divine nature of the holy Trinity, and that it could have come to pass—nay rather, that it has come to pass—that that flesh was made by the one and inseparable work of the whole Trinity; yet in the mystery of the incarnation it pertained to the person of God the Only-begotten alone. Chapter XX. Not the whole Trinity, therefore, assumed flesh, nor did the whole Trinity feel the injuries of the passions, nor did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day, nor did the whole Trinity ascend into heaven on the fortieth day; but, as I showed above, one Son alone assumed flesh: