Anti-Arian Works 5

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.'

'For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: I will declare Thy name to My brethren' (Heb. 2:11). And He says this of us who according to the flesh was both born and suffered for us — nay rather, who so became a partaker of our nature that He came to be from that one man from whom we all were made; that He might teach the origin of the flesh from that one from whom we all draw our origin. But if the Trinity had taken on flesh for us, then, since we are made brethren to Him who was incarnate through the fellowship of the flesh, we should now be not only sons of God the Father, but also brethren of the whole Trinity; and Him whom we have as Father in heaven, human nativity would have made also our brother. It is a matter of great absurdity:

to suppose that He was begotten in time, to whom it is proper from eternity not to have been born, but to have begotten. This therefore accords with the true faith: to confess that neither the Father, nor the Spirit, but the Son alone — as He was alone born of God the Father, so alone was born of the Virgin Mary. Since, then, the Son alone as God took on flesh, therefore He made us sons of God, and, freed from the bondage of sin, restored us to true liberty. And because He alone was born of the Virgin, therefore He alone was delivered up for us: the Apostle testifying that 'God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all' (Rom. 8:32). For of the Son Himself he also says:

'And that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me' (Gal. 2:20). And in another place he says: 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God our Father, to whom is glory for ever and ever' (Gal. 1:3-5). As therefore the Father delivered up the Son, so the Son delivered up Himself; and as the Son gave Himself, so also the Father gave Him, the Son saying: 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting' (John 3:16).

All these things therefore being known, by which it is clearly shown that the Son alone took on flesh for our salvation, and that He alone was delivered up for our sins and endured the torment of passion and death, far be it that any of the faithful should say that God the Father was either born of the Virgin or delivered up for us. For these belong to the Son alone, who, as He deigned temporally to be born for us, so temporally to die. But if anyone assigns the taking on of flesh to God the Father, let him especially attend to this in the Gospel: that God who put on flesh most frequently named Himself not only Son of Man, but also Son of God. For to the man born blind whom He had enlightened He said: 'Dost thou believe in the Son of God?' He answered and said:

'Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?' And Jesus said to him: 'Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.' And he said: 'I believe, Lord.' And falling down he adored Him (John 9:35 ff.). To the Jews also He said thus: 'Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods? If He called them gods to whom the word of God was made, and the Scripture cannot be broken; do you say of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?' (John 10:34-36). And in another place He named Himself at once both Son of Man and Son of God, saying: 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting' (John 3:14).

(John 3:14). Where straightway the Savior added of Himself that which in this work has thus been set down by us, wherein He named Himself the Son of God, saying: 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not His Son to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by 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 3:17 ff.). For also when He named Himself the Son of Man, saying to His disciples: 'Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?' (Matt. 16:13)

and having heard the manifold opinion of men — namely of those who out of their own will feigned for themselves a deadly falsehood concerning the Truth itself — He said: 'But whom do you say that I am?' Because Peter answering said, 'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God' (ibid., 15-16), therefore he merited to be called blessed, the Lord Himself answering thus: 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven' (ibid., 17). Hence it is that also after the resurrection He testifies in these words that He would ascend to His Father: 'I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God' (John 20:17).

If therefore God who put on flesh is asserted to be Himself God the Father, then it is necessary that another be asserted to be the Father of that very Father; and thereby God the Father too would have had a Father, to whom He might say — or rather, to whom it is said: 'Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee' (John 17:1). And from this sacrilegious meaning, full of blasphemies, one falls also into this: that now not one Father is reckoned to be, but two — that is, one Father of the Son, whom truth knows, and another Father of the Father, whom vanity feigns. And where is it that the Apostle professes one God the Father, saying: 'But to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him' (1 Cor. 8:6)?

And in another place: 'One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all' (Eph. 4:6). With whom, although the Son is by nature one God, yet according to the persons, one is the Father, another is the Son, another is the Holy Spirit. These persons the blessed John clearly shows, saying: 'He that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also who is born of Him' (1 John 5:1). Likewise he says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God' (John 1:1-2); and a little after, that he might show that flesh was taken by the Word alone, he says: 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (ibid., 14).

God the Word therefore was made flesh, not God with whom the Word was; because the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, in that He is flesh, is full of grace, and in that He is the Word, is full of truth: He, the one Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. Of Him also the prophet says: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him, who found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). This testimony the true faith has received as spoken of the Son alone. For He it is who according to the flesh was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.

Whence the holy evangelist Matthew, wholly agreeing with the prophetic word, says that Jesus conversed with His disciples. For thus he says: 'And while they abode together in Galilee, Jesus said to them: The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again' (Matt. 17:21-22). Therefore He had come that He might be slain for us. But how should He be slain, if He were not betrayed? Or how betrayed, if He were not seized? And how seized, if He conversed not with men? Or how should He converse with men, if He were not seen upon earth? And how should He be seen, if He were not born? And how should He be born, if flesh were not conceived of flesh?

But if all these things had not come to pass, the counsel of the Lord, which abideth for ever, would in no wise be fulfilled. And that counsel remaining unfulfilled, no grace of salvation would be conferred upon us sinners. And how would there be in Him the true name by which He was called Jesus? For this we interpret as Savior. Wherefore the angel, saying to Joseph that Mary would bear the Son of God, added also this: 'And thou shalt call His name Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins' (Matt. 1:21). And to Mary herself the angel spoke thus: 'Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High' (Luke 1:31-32).

Therefore God the Father is not born of the Virgin, seeing that He whom the Virgin brought forth was called the Son of the Most High. Since, then, there is one Father, and one Son, and one Holy Spirit, therefore He who by nature is the Son of the Most High, from the eternal divinity of the Father, the same Son of the Most High, according to the true faith, is called forth from the Virgin. Nor let it move thee that the prophet, speaking of the Son alone, said: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him' (Baruch 3:36). Nor from this, that he said no other is counted beside Him, let anyone suppose that in person the same is Father who is Son.

The blessed Jeremiah, full of the Holy Spirit, said: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside Him' — so that in what he said first, 'This is God,' we might recognize therein that no other is counted beside Him, because there is no other God besides Him. For by nature there is thus no other God besides the Holy Spirit, because there is not one God the Father, and another God the Son, and another God the Holy Spirit; but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, and besides this our God there is no other God. Accordingly, our God is the Father in such wise that no other is counted beside Him; our God is likewise the Son in such wise that no other is counted beside Him; nonetheless our God is likewise the Holy Spirit in such wise that no other is counted beside Him:

because besides this one God there is no other God, of whom David says: 'For who is God but the Lord? or who is God but our God?' (Ps. 17:32). And God Himself says: 'See, see that I am God, and there is no other beside Me' (Deut. 32:39). Of this the blessed James also says: 'Thou believest that there is one God; thou dost well; the devils also believe, and tremble' (James 2:19). By nature, therefore, no other God is counted beside the Son, because no other God is counted beside the Father, nor is any other God counted beside the Holy Spirit. But in persons, another is the Father, another the Son, another the Holy Spirit; nor is the Father Himself He who is the Son, nor the Holy Spirit Himself He who is the Father or the Son;

but the same one God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Son Himself, however, shows both the Father to be another in person, and the Holy Spirit, saying: 'There is another that beareth witness of Me, and I know that His testimony is true which He beareth of Me' (John 5:32). And lest anyone should think this to have been said of John, a little after He says: 'But I have a greater testimony than John. For the works which the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works which I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me. And the Father Himself who sent Me hath borne witness of Me' (ibid., 36). He shows the Holy Spirit also to be another in person, saying:

'If you love Me, keep My commandments; and I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth' (John 14:15-17); of whom in another place also He says: 'When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me' (John 15:26). But the majesty of the Father and of the Son is one, which comes not down from heaven to a place. For the supreme and true divinity cannot pass from place to place, because it is always everywhere whole. For one and the same is the majesty of the Trinity, which by nature is one boundless divinity. But, as I have said above, the nature of the Trinity is one in such wise that the person is not one.

Accordingly the Son, while the immensity of His majesty remained — which He has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit — alone took on human nature into the unity of His person. To Him therefore there is not with the Father and the Holy Spirit a communion of the flesh assumed, because to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit the person is not common. That form of a servant, then, the whole Trinity made, which nevertheless the Son alone took into His own person. For He alone is the Word, and the Evangelist truly says, 'The Word was made flesh' (John 1:14); yet the Father did not command by some other Word that He should be made flesh: for the Father has one Word, through whom He made and makes all things, through whom He has said and says all things.

This Word was sent by the Father, when the Word was made flesh: but that He might be sent, the Father did not speak to Him by any transient words. For the eternal Word, born of the Father, is itself an eternal command from the Father, because the eternal generation of the Son is itself the eternal utterance of the Father. This Word is then heard by each one, when the truth of divinity and of incarnation is acknowledged. For just as each man has a word in his heart while he thinks — which word is not brought forth outwardly unless it be clothed with bodily voice, because through the voice received it can come to the knowledge of others;

yet when that word is shown by the voice of the speaker, it is in no wise separated from the innermost part of the heart, but this wondrously comes to pass, that it both comes whole to others by bodily utterance, and remains whole spiritually in the heart of the speaker: so also the Word of God the Father, born of the Father, remained in the Father — which would in no wise be acknowledged by us, unless it were clothed with the substance of flesh, as with a bodily voice. Thus the whole Word came to us, when the Word was made flesh, and the whole spiritual Word remained with the Father: equal to the Father, of whom it is ever born, and, that it might be perceived by us, lessened by the grace of the flesh assumed.

And thereby, of the Lord, the Lord remained Lord in the form of God, and, that He might come to the servants, from the handmaid He received the truth of the servile form. But the mystery of this servile form assumed some, understanding it too little, when they hear from us that one essence of the holy Trinity is preached, either deny, or doubt, that it could come to pass that the Son — who according to His divinity is preached by us as inseparable from the Father and the Holy Spirit — should both alone take on for us the truth of the servile form, and nonetheless remain inseparable with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But this would seem to them without doubt impossible, who, because they understand not the invisible things of God by the things that are made, do not behold them.

If they would attend to the common experience of human nature, they would find, even in that great sacrament of piety, the right lines of understanding. Since therefore there is one true divinity which in itself has three persons wholly inseparable — on account of which the Trinity itself is one God — and since in creatures no nature is found inseparable in three persons, let us attend to what takes place in each man, in whom we find not three persons in one nature, but two natures in one person. For God, by a wondrous work of His power, from two natures, that is, a rational soul and flesh, composed the one nature of man, and commanded the one person of man to remain in soul and flesh.

Behold, in man there are two natures in one person: so we say the Trinity is three persons in one nature. Let us therefore attend here to how, from these two natures remaining in one person, certain things are done in common, yet neither received nor possessed in common. For assuredly in ourselves we find something done by the joint office of flesh and soul, which nevertheless we attribute either to the flesh alone, or to the soul alone. For most certainly, just as the flesh alone is fed with bodily food, so the soul is spiritually nourished by the word of God.

And yet, that the flesh which is made of earth may be fed with earthly food, it eats with the soul cooperating, seeing that it lives from the soul, and therefore eats because it lives, usefully having in itself the office of the other cooperating with it — the soul — to which at once belongs both, from life, that it may eat, and from food, that it may live. When therefore food is taken, the operation is common to flesh and soul: which food nevertheless is found properly to pertain to the flesh alone. In receiving too the word of God, by which spiritual food the soul alone is fed, in order that it may come to that same food, it uses the office either of the eyes or of the ears. And thereby, that it may inwardly itself be fed, this is not accomplished without the operation of the flesh.

As therefore the operation of both natures is here found, while the receiving is of one, so let us believe that the human nature of the only-begotten God was made at once by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but was mercifully assumed for our salvation by the Son alone. You add, meanwhile, that one of you afterward said at that banquet that God did not make flies, fleas, scorpions, and bedbugs, but that after the casting down of that unworthy angel, the devil, all these things were made by the devil himself. And while you were saying that God made all things, and these very good, he said that you ought to consult me about this, that I might satisfy you on this point: whether, before the transgression, when God made all things, these were then made; or whether after the transgression.

These are the words with which your letter ends. But of this question there are two parts. For you have inquired both whether God made all those things, and when He made them. First therefore I see that we must discuss whether God made them. Here the blessed evangelist John shows us what we ought to think, saying: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing' (John 1:1-3). See the holy evangelist, filled with the Spirit of God, in a few words wholesomely intimating to us not only the Creator, but also the creature. For in that he says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' the right faith understands in two ways:

that is, either that the Son was in the Father, because by nature the Father and the Son are one principle; or that not only the Father is without beginning, but also the Son. For that is most certainly called the true principle which is preceded by no principle of existence: but whatever begins to be in principle was made by the work of the creating God, and cannot have one nature with the Creator: for that is subject to a beginning which God created out of nothing. Accordingly, that is rightly said to be in the beginning to which it is natural always to be without a beginning of existence: which eternity without beginning is itself the true Divinity.

But this is found by nature in the one Son, who is born of the Father, and in the one Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Such, then, is what the evangelist says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' as if he said, 'The Word always was': for whatever principle a man may be able to conceive, that Word is never found to have begun at some time, but always to be in the beginning. Then, saying, 'the Word was with God,' he shows the nature of the Word to be neither temporal nor local. For the Word which was in the beginning has nothing of the beginning of time; it has nothing of the space of place, which before every creature subject to times and places was with God.

Then, saying, 'the Word was God,' he shows the one nature of the Father and the Son, since he said that the Word which was with God is by nature none other than God. For the evangelist, in first saying 'Word,' expressed the appellation of a person truly existing, which indeed is not common to the Father and the Son. For the Son alone is called the Word. But the natural signification required that, as the person, so also the name of the nature should be shown in the Word. Therefore the blessed evangelist subsequently added: 'And the Word was God,' and thus not only by a personal but also by a natural intimation he fulfilled the office of holy preaching concerning the only-begotten Son of God; so that, in naming Him the Word by a personal name, he might show the Son of the Father;

and in naming Him God by a common appellation, he might show Him to be one in nature with the Father. Then, that the natural unity might be more commended from the unity of the work, the blessed evangelist added: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.' Who said this? Surely he who, reclining upon the breast of Wisdom and Truth, received true knowledge of incomprehensible eternity; who, as he had known that the Father and the Son are one God, so also had known that all things were made by the Father through the Son. Whence all those things which were made through the Son the holy John so universally comprehended, that he said: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.'

Whoever therefore contends to deny that flies, fleas, scorpions, bedbugs, or any other things by which mortal sense is offended were made by God — let him either say that they were not made at all, or, if he says they were made, yet not by the Father through the Son — what else remains but that he should say the evangelist John lied in his preaching? 'For all things,' he says, 'were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.' There is therefore nothing that the Father did not make, who made all things: nor is there anything that the Father did not make through the Son, without whom was made nothing. Accordingly, whatsoever is by nature anything, it must needs be reckoned among the works of Him through whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing.

The evangelist, full of truth, bears witness; and no less, in the teaching of the Holy Spirit, did Paul too, the vessel of election and teacher of the nations, fail to make plain to us in faith and truth, saying what we have already set down above: 'But for us there is one God the Father, from 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). These same things he took care to explain still more plainly in another place, saying: 'For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him' (Col.

1:16-17). But lest anyone, hearing that all things in heaven and on earth were created through Christ and in Christ, should—because the sea is not here named—reckon that the things which are in the waters are alien to the work of the divine creation, let him first attend to the very beginning of Genesis, where, at the Lord's command, 'the waters brought forth the creeping things of living souls, and the birds that fly above the earth' (Gen. 1:20); and let him acknowledge that the very One is the creator of the fish and birds in the waters who is the creator of trees and herbs on the earth, and likewise of the luminaries and stars in heaven; and just as he recognizes that God first made the heaven in which he would make the luminaries and stars, and first made the earth which at his command would bring forth herbs and trees,

so too he made the waters, out of which, at his word, the creeping things and the flying things alike came to be. For he would not have created anything out of the waters by his Word, had he not first made those same waters by his Word. Hence it is that blessed David did not keep silent, but declared universally that heaven, earth, and sea, with all that is in them, were made by God, saying: 'Blessed is the man whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them' (Ps. 145:4-5).

When, therefore, prophetic authority testifies that heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them were made by God, and the apostle Paul also asserts that in Christ all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers—by what reasoning or by what truth does someone refuse to believe that the flies and scorpions, the fleas and bedbugs on earth were created by God, when he cannot deny that the Thrones, Dominations, Principalities and Powers in the heavens were created by him? And,

is that God who, creating above the heaven, established the angelic legions, to be denied to have made the scorpions on the earth—on which he made men, made beasts and cattle, made birds and fish? 28. What, I ask, displeases anyone in these scorpions, that anyone should suppose they were not made by God? For there is nothing in the body of the scorpion that does not commend the praise of the Creator. First of all, the very framework of its members, united and duly ordered, the fitting proportion and symmetry of its parts; then the soul giving life and sensation to the body—who could doubt that all these are good?

But indeed that force of venom which is found harmful to men, and reckoned dreadful in the body of the scorpion—would that from it men might learn to consider the penalty of their own transgression, and cease to ascribe falsely the good works of God to the devil! For they attend too little to how much natural fitness avails among the works of God, and how much due measure benefits individual things, or how much the excess of immoderation harms. (the text is corrupt) Since almighty God did not permit these things to abound overmuch—who does not praise the works of God even in the very scourges (perhaps 'lashes') themselves, when he sees a sinner chastised by a divine flogging? For God made, as it is written (Ecclesiastes

7:29 [Vulgate 7:30]) man upright, whom he so appointed lord of all things which he had created on earth and in the sea, that he made them subject to his power alone; requiring from man the due obedience of service, on whom he had bestowed the free choice of the will. As long as man served his own Lord with fitting devotion, he obtained the power of an unshaken dominion even over those things over which he himself was superior; nor did he lose any of what he had received, so long as he himself fully rendered what he owed. But when he offended the Lord by transgressing the commandment, the despiser at once found in his own body the outrage he had shown to God:

so that he might learn how evil it was to despise the precepts of the good Creator, when he himself, after he had begun to be evil, had lost his power over his own generative members. How, then, could he remain lord of all those things which he had received from God, who, despising the Lord, had lost the rights of dominion in his own primal body? Henceforth his very body too began to be subject to infirmities and to death: whence, by a just and consequent vengeance, it came about that he who did not fear the death of the soul in sin, should dread the death of the body in punishment; and, having lost the rest in which as blessed he had enjoyed himself, should be tormented, most wretched, by the tiniest of animals. 29.