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When I had read the letters which you sent, dearest son Scarila, I rejoiced in the Lord, and my soul exulted in God my Saviour, because zeal for salvation had clothed you, and God had mercifully poured into your heart a desire for righteousness, whereby you long to know the true faith. For through this faith the bounty of life came to men, as God himself testified through the prophet, saying: 'The just shall live by faith' (Rom. 1:17); but that faith is to be called true which is true, not feigned, which the holy Apostle commends, saying: 'Now the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned' (1 Tim. 1:5).
For since the same blessed Paul says that we have been saved by grace through faith, which he asserts to be not of ourselves but the gift of God (Eph. 2:8), assuredly there will be no true salvation where there has been no true faith; and this faith, when it is divinely infused, is beyond doubt bestowed by a free bounty; and where through true faith there is the truth of belief, the truth of salvation too will assuredly accompany it: but whoever has deviated from true faith will not have the grace of true salvation. Therefore the faithful mind ought not to grow sluggish in inquiring if it perceives anything ambiguous to itself in the sacrament of faith: especially in the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, through which righteousness has been granted to the impious, life to the dead, salvation to the sick, and the grace of true liberty to the captives.
You wrote, then—to use your own words—that when at the table of my son Eventius, a Christian and son of the Catholic Church, a discussion arose concerning the incarnation of God, one of you asserted concerning that very incarnation that it was not God the Father who put on flesh, but only the Son of God. And another said: God himself, who is one in three, deigned to assume flesh, so that he might lead into liberty our servitude, by which we were held bound through the transgression of our father Adam. Then you say that you wish to know whether God the Father himself descended and assumed flesh, or whether, while he himself remained, he commanded the Word that it should assume flesh. You also say that we know that the Word was made flesh, so that he himself might dwell in us.
Where also you overturn these words, saying: But between the Word, who is God, and the Father, who is God, the one majesty of both descended to put on flesh, since we read, you say: 'This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him: after this he was seen on earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). You further add and say that, when you brought this testimony forward into the midst, that other man spoke to the contrary: He said this of the Son, not of the Father; and you at present said to him that, since you were both alike ignorant of it, you should have recourse to us. To this question, which the first part of your letter contains, a response must now be rendered by us, God granting and helping;
and when this has been settled, we shall not be reluctant to answer the other question too, as far as God shall grant. 3. Principally, therefore, every Catholic Christian ought to know that the one God is the holy Trinity, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that this Trinity, which is one God, is indeed one nature, yet is not one person. For both what is said—that the one God is the Trinity—is true; the Trinity indeed is one God, because the Father does not have one nature, and the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another, but the Trinity itself is one nature, God;
yet the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not one person, but the person of the Father is of the Father alone, and the person of the Son is of the Son alone, and the person of the Holy Spirit is of the Holy Spirit alone. Personally, therefore, he who is the Father is not the Son himself, and he who is the Son is not the Holy Spirit himself. But what the Father is by nature, this the Son is, this the Holy Spirit is, because by nature the Trinity itself is one God: wherein there is no talk of greater and lesser, because neither is one found prior to another, nor later. There the eternity and immensity of each single person is as great as that of the three persons together by nature. Yet the Father alone is he who begot the Son; the Son alone is he who is born of the Father;
the Holy Spirit alone also is he who is neither born of the Father nor begot the Son, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Father, therefore, is the Father of the Son alone, and the Son is the Son of the Father alone, but the Holy Spirit is not of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but is at once the one and common Spirit of both the Father and the Son. 4. In this Trinity, then, there are certain properties of the single persons. Yet what if the persons are shown by their proper attributes, but are not separated—their nature being such that, although they are inseparable, it cannot be confounded, but that in the single persons the single properties remain, so that it may display both the natural unity of the true Trinity, and the personal Trinity of the true unity?
It is proper, therefore, to the Father alone, that he himself was not born, but begot; it is proper also to the Son that he himself did not beget, but was born; and it is proper also to the Holy Spirit that he neither begot nor was born, but proceeds from the begetter and the begotten. But just as the generation of the Father is eternal without beginning, and the nativity of the Son is eternal without beginning, so by nature the procession of the Holy Spirit is eternal without beginning. For, in keeping with the eternity of God the Father, which remains without beginning, such is assuredly the nativity of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit, that both that nativity and that procession are coeternal with that origin in which no beginning could in any way be found.
Since, therefore, that natural unity of the Trinity has this in itself, that to be born belongs as proper to the Son alone, he it is who alone has in himself the true nativity of humanity from the Virgin; for it belonged to him to have by nature a true mother according to the flesh, who according to divinity has by nature a true Father: therefore he who is begotten of the eternal Father without beginning, he it is who is born of a temporal mother in time; and for this reason not only in divinity but also in the flesh he is truly called the Only-begotten Son of God, who both according to divinity and according to the flesh is found to be alone begotten.
To the Only-begotten God alone, therefore, both nativities are proper: the one, namely, from the truth of the divine nature, and the other from the grace of the assumed humanity. On account of which the evangelist John asserts the Only-begotten of the Father to be full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Therefore that deadly and altogether diabolical blasphemy is to be shunned, by which it is believed or said that the Trinity itself assumed flesh together, which the Catholic faith does not accept, but the wickedness of the Sabellian error devised. For Sabellius indeed, who came to know that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are preached as not three gods, but one true God, so heard what is true, that he generated for himself what is false.
Finally, because he so recognized the nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one, that he did not hesitate to preach one person of the same nature, he was cast headlong to this madness of his error, that he asserted that the Father himself was born of the Virgin. But it was of necessity a consequence that, to him to whom he assigned the truth of the human nativity, he should also impute the truth of the suffering and death. Whence the Catholic Church named the followers of this same Sabellius not only Sabellians but also Patripassians, and with the bond of anathema condemned them together with their author. 6. Far be it, then, from the faithful, this perversity, nor let God permit anyone redeemed by the blood of his Only-begotten Son to be profaned by this deadly sense of treachery.
For it is of great impiety if anyone, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, either on account of one nature wishes one person to be preached, or on account of three persons asserts also three natures. Since indeed he who asserts one person of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is entangled in the snare of the Sabellian error; but he who affirms that there are three natures of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is bound by the bonds of the Arian treachery. And although the assertion of each unbelief seems divided, yet there is one condemnation of the impiety of both. For impiously the property of the persons is confounded on account of the unity of nature; and no less impiously the natural unity is separated on account of the persons themselves.
The Father has one true Son by nature, born both of himself without beginning, and of the Virgin in time. Him he sent into the world, that the world might be saved through him. This same Son, making it plain, said: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He that believeth in him is not judged; but he that believeth not is already judged, because he believeth not in the name of the only-begotten Son of God' (John 3:16-18).
Behold, in this passage our Saviour himself thrice calls himself the Son, and twice names himself the Only-begotten, and asserts that he was sent by the Father to save the world; whereas, assuredly, if the Trinity itself had come together in the flesh, the Son would not have said that he was sent by the Father: but Christ could not lie: without doubt personally one sent, and another was sent. And the true Father sent the Truth, whom he begot; he sent Wisdom, in whom he made all things; he sent the Word, which he uttered forth from his heart.
Therefore in that mission the coming is not to be reckoned as local, as though the Son of God had been sent from heaven to the earth, so that either he was not on earth before he received flesh, or he deserted heaven when he took flesh for our salvation. Since therefore he himself is the Wisdom of God, of whom it is said: 'She reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly' (Wisd. 8:1); that divinity which is by nature one of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is thus not local, just as it is not temporal; thus it is not enclosed by place, just as it is not varied by time. That divinity which is by nature immense and eternal neither began with a beginning nor is enclosed by place:
therefore that one God, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, fills everything, contains everything: thus wholly in single things, thus wholly in all things, thus wholly in the smallest, thus wholly in the greatest creatures: thus by nature, not thus by grace; thus while he creates men, not thus while he saves them; thus while he makes, not thus while he remakes; thus while he makes this sun to rise upon the good and the evil, not thus while the Sun of righteousness rises upon those to whom the life not of the flesh but of the heart is infused by the gift of prevenient mercy. For it is not, as it belongs to all to be born by nature, so does it belong to all to be reborn by grace.
Since therefore the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are by nature one God, eternal and immense, there is nothing in heaven, nothing on earth, nothing above heaven, nothing in any nature which the uncreated God made, where that same one God, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, could be absent; in whom, just as there is no mutability of times, so there is no capacity of places. Which Solomon is found to have truly said at the dedication in these words: 'For if heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built?' (1 Kings 8:27). 8.
God, therefore, ineffable and altogether wonderful, ineffably and wonderfully by the very nature of his immensity, is both wholly in single things, and is not enclosed by all things. Thus the Father alone, thus the Son alone, thus the Holy Spirit alone, thus at once the Trinity, one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: because neither is the Father alone without the Son, or the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit alone without the Father, or the Son. Therefore it must be carefully considered how the Son could be sent into the world, who could not be absent from the world; or how he came into the world, from which he never departs: since assuredly to him for whom it is natural both to fill all things wholly, and not to be able in any way to depart, it belongs neither to depart nor to come.
For that nature of the immense divinity is neither extended to fill what before was empty, nor contracted to empty what it had before filled. But such is the power of the Creator, and such the condition of the whole creation, that just as, unless he had founded it, no substance could exist, so unless he sustains it, no substance could endure. Therefore, because according to divinity God does not pass from place to place, the truth of the Christian faith holds this, that the Son of God is believed to have come into the world, in which he is known to have received the form of a servant.
For the Son of God then came into the world, when, the equality of the paternal nature being preserved, he deigned to become a partaker of the maternal substance, when he was made, with his divinity preserved, a man; with his eternity preserved, temporal; with his immensity preserved, local; with his immutability preserved, mutable; with his immortality preserved, mortal. 9. But the coming of the Son of God is not always received in one and the same manner. For in one way he comes when the Father sends him, in another way he deigns to come with the Father. For with the Father he deigns to come as equal, but sent by the Father he comes made a little lower than the angels; sent by the Father he is known to have come once, but with the Father he deigns to come innumerable times.
For he set neither the manner nor the number of his coming, when he said: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him' (John 14:23). Therefore that coming by which the Son alone came once from the Father into the world was shown not to the good alone, but also to the evil: to some that they might believe, to others that they might crucify; to some that they might be able to be freed from sin, to others that they might not be able to have an excuse for their sin. For the Apostle shows that believers have been freed from sin, saying: 'But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end everlasting life' (Rom. 6:22).
But that unbelievers cannot have an excuse for their sin, the Saviour himself showed, saying: 'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin' (John 15:22). For the Jews would not have the sin of unbelief, if the presence of the Saviour had not also been shown to them. Therefore that coming by which the Son was once sent by the Father into the world was for the fall and the rising again of many; but that by which he comes with the Father pertains only to the rising again of many, because charity, which covers the multitude of sins, merits him. By this coming, by which the Son was sent by the Father, he came once in the fullness of times;
but by that coming by which he is accustomed to come with the Father, from the beginning to the end of the world, to those to whom it was and is fitting, he neither ceased nor ceases to come. Hence it is that, before he came in the flesh, the prophets sought his coming, saying: 'Stir up thy might, and come to set us free' (Ps. 79:3). And they would in no way seek the future coming of the Son of God, if they had not the grace of him coming and remaining in himself. 10. That coming of the Son of God the Father to himself they altogether repel, who do not believe the equality of the Father and the Son. For with him who loves them, coming, they make one abode; but their abode cannot be one, if the love has been diverse.
But if they are unequal, it is necessary that they be loved unequally. And for unequal ones no single abode can be prepared in a simple heart. But Scripture admonishes us, saying: 'Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart' (Wisd. 1:1). How then is God sought in simplicity of heart, when a diversity of love is displayed to God the Father and to God the Son? Or how is a man's charity toward God simple, if in the divinity itself there is thought to be diversity? That divinity indeed is loved with a simple heart which is by nature believed to be simple; but where a diverse divinity is worshipped, not simplicity of heart, but duplicity is displayed: the faith there, therefore, is not true, but feigned.
'But the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding' (Wisd. 1:5). But a heart is convicted of being double, whenever anyone thinks that not one divinity is to be worshipped by the faithful, or when he judges that the nature of the Son is not the same as that of the Father. But if he who, feigning goodness to his neighbour with words while bearing malice in his heart, is said to be double of heart, how is he who, under a semblance of truth, either believes or says false things about God, not held guilty of the crime of a double heart? For to divide what is naturally one in that supreme divinity, and to feign a lesser and a greater God, is most certainly to belong to the wickedness of a double heart. But holy Scripture says:
'Woe to the double heart, and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth two ways upon the earth!' (Ecclus. 2:14). And because to think the divinity of the Father and the Son to be diverse is not to believe God (since he truly worships one God who worships no other at all, and he believes in one God who does not believe another to be God), therefore the same Scripture follows, saying: 'Woe to them that do not believe God! for they shall not be protected by him' (Ecclus. 2:15). Hence it is that our Saviour also, commending the one divinity and dominion, says: 'No one can serve two masters' (Matt. 6:24). But we read that 'the Lord himself is God' (Ps. 99:3).
Whence it is certain that, with true faith and sincere charity, one can serve neither masters nor gods. For there is one God of gods, and Lord of lords: who is therefore alone to be worshipped, because he alone is by nature the true Lord God, who is the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. 11. Let us therefore, that we may seek God in simplicity of heart, not believe even in our heart a diversity of divinity in the Father and the Son. But that the true simplicity of heart may be able to remain in us, let that faith remain in us by which the one divinity of the holy Trinity is believed and preached without diversity. Thus the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, coming, deign to remain in us.
There is one coming of the holy Trinity to the one who loves it, by which the invisible God comes invisibly, and makes his abode invisibly. But remaining with the one who loves it, it multiplies his love, on account of which it makes its abode in the man. For it comes for this reason, that it is loved; but by coming it brings this about, that it may be more loved. 12. I have said these things, therefore, that you may know what the coming of the Son was, when he was sent by the Father, and what the coming of the Son is, when he deigns to come with the Father. For just as in that coming, having been made man, he is acknowledged to be less than the Father; so in this coming he is found remaining as God equal to the Father. But the Holy Spirit also is said to come:
For since He is, together with the Father and the Son, one God, coeternal by nature and boundless, without whom assuredly neither the Father nor the Son can come. For He is known to love, after the Father and the Son, who has charity in his heart. And 'the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us' (Rom. 5:5). Therefore the Father and the Son by no means come to the one who loves them without the Holy Spirit; for that they may come, they bestow, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the charity by which they are loved. And so, invisibly, the coming of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is always shared in common:
not by passing from place to place, but in that the Trinity itself, one God, deigns either to bestow the grace of charity which it increases, or to increase that which it bestows. But in another way the Son came, when the only-begotten God was made man for us — He, indeed, who in the proper person of His divinity did not take on the person of a man, but the nature. We know also that the Holy Spirit came visibly in the appearance of a dove — in a manner far different, that is, neither in that way by which the Father and the Son come to the one who loves them not without the Holy Spirit, nor in that way by which the Son alone came into the world, according to which He wondrously and singularly took our nature into the person of His divinity.
For the Holy Spirit did not take on the form of a dove as the Son took on the form of a servant; nor was the Holy Spirit made into the likeness of doves as the Son was made into the likeness of the sons of men. The Holy Spirit therefore came in the appearance of a dove, not indeed taking a dove into the unity of His person. For the nature of doves ought not to be redeemed through the Holy Spirit as the nature of men was redeemed through the Son. For the Son took into the unity of His person that nature which He was without doubt to redeem. And since His humanity is never separated from the Son of God, therefore in heaven and on earth He rules over all angels and all men.
For according to His human nature the Son of God 'humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' (Phil. 2:8); and according to that nature 'God exalted Him, and gave Him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father' (ibid., 9). 'Therefore, when the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law' (Gal. 4:4). And why this was done the Apostle goes on to show, saying: 'That He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' And so human nature was assumed by the Son of God.
For this reason the only-begotten God became man, that through Him divine adoption might be granted to us: that, whereas that Man is true God by the natural truth of His divinity, we too, in that we are His brethren, might be made sons of God, not by our own merit, but by His grace. But the Holy Spirit, coming in the appearance of a dove, was not made a dove, as the Son was made man; rather, through the appearance of a dove He showed forth the charity to be given us by His bounty. For 'the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us' (Rom. 5:5). Afterwards He also appeared in tongues of fire, but this too He did for the signification of that same charity which He has bestowed upon us.
For since 'the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned' (1 Tim. 1:5); and 'in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by charity' (Gal. 5:6); it is that very simplicity of heart which is signified in the dove: because we ought, that which we believe in our heart unto righteousness, to confess with our mouth confidently unto salvation. The dove, then, shows the simplicity of faith and charity, that we may rightly believe in God, and through God love also our neighbor. And the tongue of fire signifies the confession of true belief and the exhortation of holy charity.
That dove, therefore, in whose appearance the Holy Spirit came upon Christ when He was baptized, was made for the sake of signifying something, and straightway dissolved. For the Son alone took on human flesh and soul. To Him alone did the divine nativity naturally belong. And because He alone was born of the Father, He alone could be born also of the Virgin. Unless He became man from man, He would not have been a partaker of our nature. It was therefore done that He should receive true flesh from the flesh of the Virgin, so that with Him there might abide for us a true natural communion. For how could He receive either the ancient Fathers, or the men of any age, into the fellowship of His divinity, if He did not have with them a natural communion of flesh?
The Son of God, therefore, deigned to become not only man, but also to become from among men. Hence it is that the Apostle, speaking of Christ, says: 'For nowhere doth He take hold of the angels, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that wherein He Himself hath suffered and been tempted, He is able to succour them also that are tempted. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to Him that made Him' (Heb. 2:16; 3:1). Hence it is that in another place of the same Epistle he says again:
'For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that pertain to God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins' (Heb. 5:1). And such was this High Priest, that for the reconciliation of the human race He offered Himself for us as an oblation and victim to God, for an odor of sweetness. Hence it is that 'when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son' (Rom. 5:10). And that the blessed Apostle might show that Christ the Son of God drew the origin of His flesh from that one man from whom natural unity propagated all men, therefore he says in another place: 'For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.'