Anti-Arian Works 6 part 12/24

And if it is so, to what does that sacrament pertain, concerning which the other Evangelists who wrote the Gospels for the most part kept silent? Do not, I beseech thee, defer thy reply, nor keep an eager mind in suspense by long waiting; for we ought to deserve at least a share of your labours. I ask also that you command the book On the Rule of the True Faith to be sent to us to be read again, and the letter to John, bishop of Tharsis, in which I recall that it was most fully argued concerning a certain wrongdoer who was not to be handed over to a judge. I have received the two codices and have restored to the child Hermias what was his own. Command also that the letter On Prayer, which you deigned to send to me while I was staying here, be directed hither again in writing.

For while, on account of its excellence, it is sought by many for reading, and through our own forgetfulness, we do not know with whom it has remained. I humbly greet the holy presbyters, the deacons, and the blessed congregation. May our God deign to preserve your paternity unharmed for our edification, lord father. Amen. LETTER XIV. Fulgentius to Ferrandus, answering five proposed questions. 1. Your letter, holy brother and fellow-deacon Ferrandus, has both gladdened the affection of my heart and stirred it up; so that I might both rejoice, being assured of your welfare, and, intent upon it, might inquire into what you ask — from Him, assuredly, to whom the giving of thanks is due, and from whom the true knowledge of wholesome things is to be awaited and sought:

that the same One who by prosperous hearing grants joy may also, by the infusion of spiritual grace, bestow understanding; and just as He Himself kindles the zeal for inquiring after Him, so may He grant entrance to those who knock at His door. For then shall we be able to enter into the joy of our Lord, if He shall have deigned to lead us here into that great sacrament of piety by the gift of spiritual grace, and, to ward off that failing of this life which often creeps upon us in our weakness, may He Himself bestow on us the bread of spiritual understanding; and may He not permit us to be subjected to the decaying corruption of the outward man, but rather make our inward man to be renewed day by day by heavenly light in the pursuit of holy meditation and of good work.

Let us therefore now set down the words of your letter, so that, as the Lord shall grant, we may be able to answer each of the questions. QUESTION ONE. 2. For you require that I tell you truly whether the inseparable Trinity, on account of its one and the same nature, operation, and will, ought to be said to have separable persons, or whether the Trinity is to be proclaimed as wholly inseparable even in its persons. That these are the words of the first question you doubtless recognize. REPLY. 3. Here we must chiefly consider that the Trinity ought not to be called inseparable if those three persons can in any degree be separated. For that is truly said to be inseparable which can in no way admit of separation.

For that which is not separated, but can be separated, is not inseparable. But if anyone thinks that the persons in the Trinity can be separated, then it is not a Trinity that ought to be called inseparable, but a unity. For the Trinity consists in the persons, the unity in the nature. But I do not know whether our assertion can be supported by truth, when we call the nature inseparable in such a way as to assert that the persons of that same nature are separable: since surely one nature, which cannot be divided in the persons, by its very inseparability shows that the persons themselves cannot be separated. For a separation of nature apart from a separation of person — to go no further — we find even in men themselves. For no one doubts that human flesh pertains to the nature of man;

and yet a separation of it can occur, if any limb is cut off from the body: which cutting off, however, cannot in itself involve a separation of person. For when a hand or foot is cut off from the body, the person of the man is not thereby separated along with that same limb; although a certain separation of nature does take place, a part of which is found severed in the limb. But just as that man, if he lives after he has lost a limb, will not lack the fullness of the natural definition by which he is called a rational, mortal animal: so, having the true definition of nature, it is necessary that he also have his own person together with his nature, even though he has a part of nature, that is, a part of the flesh, severed from himself.

But when men are separated in respect of persons, without doubt they are also separated in nature. For the person is not separated when a hand or foot is separated from the body; but nature is separated in the separation of persons, when man is separated from man. Therefore the unity of an inseparable nature cannot have separable persons. 4. Accordingly we ought to consider that one and the same nature of the Trinity so fills the whole, that there is nothing where it is not. For hence it is that it is both everywhere whole, and is in no way contained by place; whole, that is, in each of the spirits and bodies, and whole at once in all creatures. For now we are not speaking of the grace by which God offers Himself as a free gift of His mercy to men who are to be saved;

but of the nature by which God both fills and contains all that He has made; according to which He says: 'I fill heaven and earth' (Jer. 23:24); and according to which blessed David says to God Himself: 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; and if I descend into hell, thou art present' (Ps. 138:7). And of Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, it is said: 'She reacheth mightily from end to end, and ordereth all things sweetly' (Wisd. 8:1). Of the Holy Spirit likewise the divinely inspired Scripture speaks thus: 'For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world; and this which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice' (Wisd. 1:7).

Now it is found that here 'voice' signifies the voice of the heart, not of the body — the voice, that is, not of bodily speech, but of inmost thought; that voice which God alone hears crying out, when He alone in secret beholds the one who is thinking. Therefore it follows, saying: 'For this cause he that speaketh unjust things cannot be hid; neither shall the chastising judgment pass him by' (Wisd. 1:8). And to show where this unjust speech is — that it may be recognized as belonging rather to the conscience than to the tongue — holy Scripture next discloses this, saying: 'For in the thoughts of the ungodly there shall be examination' (Wisd. 1:9). I have said these things on account of what is said of the Holy Spirit, that 'this which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice.'

For the Holy Spirit, containing all things, is not less than the Father or the Son; and having knowledge of the inmost thought, He is acknowledged as the true God who is found to be the discerner of hidden things. And knowledge which comprehends hidden things, without doubt contains also things future: which the true faith assigns to the most high and true God, holy Susanna thus invoking the true God: 'O God, who art the discerner of hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass' (Dan. 13:42). The Trinity, therefore — that is, the one God, true and good, eternal, unchangeable, and immense — is everywhere whole according to His natural immensity and omnipotence, although He does not dwell in all according to the largess of grace. 5.

Hence it is that God says through Jeremiah: 'I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off' (Jer. 23:23); yet the same prophet says to the same God concerning certain men: 'Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins' (Jer. 12:2). God, therefore, is near to the good both by nature and by grace: by nature, whereby He creates; by grace, whereby He saves: by nature, whereby He makes men to exist; by grace, whereby He justifies sinners: by nature, whereby He makes them to be born of men; by grace, whereby He gives them power to become sons of God (John 1:12): by nature, whereby He makes them to live; by grace, whereby He makes them to live soberly, and justly, and piously (Titus 2:12): by nature, whereby He makes them to live in this world for a short time; by grace, whereby He makes them to reign in heaven without end.

But in the wicked God is present only by natural immensity and omnipotence; whereby He makes them to exist, to live, and to perceive; to be rational, and to have also free choice of will — but free, not liberated. For free choice remains even now in men through nature, which God deigns to liberate through grace in whomsoever He wills. For from the time when the first man was sold under sin by free choice, therefore the liberty of man began to be evil, because from that very free choice the goodness of the will was taken away: and thus in the same man's choice an evil liberty began to be; so that it became for him, and for all thereafter to be born through carnal union, a hostile captivity.

God, therefore, as we said above, through the immensity of His nature both contains and fills His whole creation; and by this, the Father fills the whole, the Son the whole, the Holy Spirit the whole; because the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is naturally one God. Yet the one nature of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit — that is, of those three persons — is not such as is the human nature of any three men whatsoever; whose nature is one in such a way, however, that their souls are nevertheless separated and their bodies also: and although there is a natural unity in three men, yet of none of them is the flesh or soul common with the other two. Hence it is that any consubstantial creatures whatsoever can be separated from one another:

because each of them cannot be wholly everywhere: for even when there comes to pass among them, through the grace of faith, that 'of the multitude of believers there is one heart and one soul' (Acts 4:32); yet they can be separated in persons by position of places, though they be not separated in the affection of the heart; and some can be made unbelievers out of believers, and be disjoined from the fellowship of that one soul. But the nature of the Trinity, which alone is everywhere whole, just as it has everywhere its own being, both one and whole, so it cannot admit of a separation of persons. 6. Those persons are indeed sometimes named singly;

but the Trinity itself so willed to show itself inseparable in the persons, that there is no name there by which any one person is so called, but that it either agrees with all three by natural unity, or shows one to be referred to another even by the very name of singularity. For of those appellations by which the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are properly named in relation to themselves — in which, namely, not the singularity of each person, but the communion of one essence is shown — there is no name which can so belong to the Father or the Son that it cannot belong to the Holy Spirit. For the Father is naturally called God; but the Son also is naturally God, and the Holy Spirit is naturally God;

and yet not three Gods, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is naturally one God. The Father is omnipotent, but the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent; and yet not three omnipotent Gods, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one omnipotent God. The Father is eternal without beginning, the Son is eternal without beginning, the Holy Spirit is eternal without beginning; and yet not three eternal Gods, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one eternal God. The Father is immense, but the Son is immense, and the Holy Spirit also is immense; and yet not three immense Gods, but the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one immense God.

Where, then, any single name is such that it can at once fittingly and indifferently belong to all three and to each of the persons; and is so singular in nature that it cannot be plural in the persons; how do we say that the persons are separable, when we do not see a plural number admitted in the name? For whatever is said in the singular alone according to nature, it must needs be implied inseparably in the persons also: and truth itself shows that the persons cannot be divided, where any name whatsoever — which nevertheless is said of each person in relation to itself, not to another — just as it is said in the singular of one, so also in the three it is named in the singular. For of one person there is said one angel, there is said one man:

but if there be three persons of angels or of men, neither one angel nor one man can be named: because in those three persons, which are found in angelic or human nature, not one angel or one man, but without doubt three angels or three men, must needs be called: nor can that plurality of angelic or of human persons be called one angel or one man; but because those three persons of angels or of men can be separated, therefore those three persons do not receive at once one singular name of nature; but without doubt are named either three angels or three men. 7.

We are not, however, ignorant that it comes to pass by the grace of God that several men can be called by some singular name: as is that which we have already set down above: 'Of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one soul' (Acts 4:32): which is nevertheless so called one soul, that they are also called souls, of the faithful, that is, not of the ungodly. For the Lord was speaking to His faithful disciples, to whom He says: 'In your patience you shall possess your souls' (Luke 21:19). To the faithful also blessed Peter says: 'Believing, exult with joy unspeakable and glorified; receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls' (1 Pet. 1:8-9). It is said also in the book of Wisdom: 'The souls of the just are in the hand of God' (Wisd. 3:1).

We know also that the blessed Apostle said to the Thessalonians, whose election by God he knew: 'And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all things; and may your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Thess. 5:23). But also in the hymn of the three children it is nonetheless read: 'O ye spirits and souls of the just, bless ye the Lord' (Dan. 3:86). We know that by the grace of God the holy Church also is called one virgin, the Apostle saying: 'For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ' (2 Cor. 11:2); but in that same one virgin, virgins also are named in the plural number. We read also: 'Virgins shall be brought to the King after her' (Ps. 44:15).

Nor is there any doubt that there is one Church which is spread throughout the whole world of lands, which is called by the Apostle 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth' (1 Tim. 3:15): which nevertheless is so one, and is so the Church, that in it several are called Churches. For the blessed Apostle himself says: 'And I was unknown by face to the Churches of Judea, which were in Christ' (Gal. 1:22). But he says also that he sent to the Corinthians the brother 'whose praise is in the Gospel through all the Churches' (2 Cor. 8:18). That he wrote also to the Churches of Galatia he showed in the very opening of that epistle. Our Lord, too, showing that His faithful are one light, says to His disciples: 'You are the light of the world' (Matt.

5:14); and yet blessed James does not hesitate to call the sons of God 'lights,' saying: 'Every best gift, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights' (James 1:17). In all these, therefore, we find both a singular appellation and a plural: plural, however, because the very natural quality shows that all creatures are separable; but singular, because that there should be one soul, one spirit, one virgin, one Church, one light — this that one Trinity has made through its grace; which is inseparable both in nature and in persons, in such a way that whatever is there said in the singular, whether of one or of the three persons, is not said in the plural.

Therefore the persons of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit cannot be separated, to whom one natural name so belongs that it cannot be plural in the three persons: for, excepting this very fact by which they are called persons, no other name can be found in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit which is not named in the singular alone. Yet the poverty of human speech was scarcely able to find this one thing, that it might at least say there are three persons; lest, if even this were not said, the Trinity should in no way be believed to exist, and in that utter silence a peril to the faith should arise. 8. Wherefore, according to the truth of the Christian faith, we say that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is naturally one God.

But it is necessary that, just as we call the Trinity one God, so we should call it one omnipotent, one eternal, one immense, one great, one most high; and whatever — insofar as God has granted it to men — is named in the singular in relation to itself, not only in the individual persons, but also at once in the three. But lest, from the fact that the Father is the appellation of one person, and the Son likewise is said to be but one person in the Trinity, and similarly when the Holy Spirit is properly named, the singularity of one person is implied — lest anyone should wish to assert and affirm those three persons to be separable: in this respect, one of these three names so belongs to each single person that it cannot be common to the three persons.

Whoever attempts to raise this objection, if he thinks as he speaks, and holds in conscience what his tongue declares, pays too little heed that these names are without doubt relative. Now in any relative name it is so certain that one person is signified in itself, that from this it is referred to another: and not only in those things which are the same, as brother is said in relation to brother, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor; but also in those things which are diverse, as father is said in relation to son, son to father, begetter to begotten, or begotten to begetter; so that from any of these names a twofold person is wont to be understood. For in these names one person is not so named in the singular as not to be referred to another by its very name:

for by a relative appellation any person is so named in itself that it is not said in relation to itself. To make known, therefore, the token of inseparability, that one and true Godhead willed itself to be so incommunicably named in the individual persons, that nevertheless one person could not be understood without the other. For when the Father is referred to the Son, or the Son is referred to the Father, although the several names can belong only to the several persons, and the property of the persons wholly refuses the communion of those two names, yet the Father is not known without the Son, nor is the Son found without the Father. For that relation of the personal appellation forbids the persons to be separated: which, even while it does not name them together, yet together implies them.

Now no one can hear any one of these names without being compelled to understand the other also: which blessed John implies to us, saying: 'Whosoever denieth the Son, hath not the Father either; he that confesseth the Son, hath the Father also' (1 John 2:23). Which assuredly he said for this reason, because inseparably the Father is referred to the Son, and inseparably the Son is referred to the Father. Therefore the person of the Father is not separated from the person of the Son, as often as either the Father alone is named, or the Son: since the Father is not called except in relation to the Son, nor is the Son called except in relation to the Father:

for in the name of Father the begetter is so acknowledged, that from this also He who is begotten is implied, and the appellation of the begotten prompts the person of the begetter to be acknowledged. Hence it is that just as by him who confesses the Son, the Father is had, so by him who denies the Son, He is not had. 9. Whoever, therefore, says that the persons of the Father and of the Son are separable, let him show in either of them some personal appellation which is so of one person that it cannot be referred to the other. But since this is in no way found, this without doubt pertains to the true faith: that those three persons of one and inseparable nature we should in no wise dare to separate, just as we do not confound them.

Since the Trinity itself has deigned so evidently to show us this, that even in those names by which it willed the persons to be recognized singly, it does not permit one to be understood without the other. For, excepting that Father and Son are said relatively to themselves, where inseparably one must needs be referred to the other, since these names belong assuredly to the persons — no less does all contradiction fail in that personal name of the Holy Spirit; who, when He is called the Holy Spirit, is not called personally anything other than that which the Father also is naturally called, and the Son. For the Father is naturally spirit, and the Son is naturally spirit; and the Father is naturally holy, and the Son is naturally holy.

How, then, can the person of the Holy Spirit be in any way separated from the person of the Father or of the Son, since the Holy Spirit has this in His very personal name, which by natural unity He is known to have in common with the Father and the Son? For by this name He is referred not to the Father alone, as is the Son; nor to the Son alone, as is the Father: but at once both to the Father and to the Son, when He is called the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. For also when the Holy Spirit Himself is called a gift, He is inseparably referred to the giver. Knowing this inseparability of the persons, blessed David said to God: '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. 138:7).

Which assuredly he would not say, if he knew the person of the Holy Spirit to be separable from the person of the Father. Now he said that he could neither depart anywhere from the Spirit of God, nor flee from God Himself, because he knew that inseparably both God is in His Spirit, and the Spirit of God is in God: not as a creature is in God, but as His Spirit, who is not of another nature than is God Himself in whom He is. This the holy Apostle showed in that place, where, when he had said: 'But to us God hath revealed them by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God'; he immediately introduced the example of the human spirit, saying: 'For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him?'

'Even so the things of God no one knoweth, but the Spirit of God' (1 Cor. 2:10-12). Just as, then, the spirit of a man, which is in him, therefore knows the things of a man, because it is of the same nature as is the man in whom it is (where I judge that the inner man is rather to be understood): so also the things of God no one knoweth but the Spirit of God, because He is in God by the unity of nature in such a way that there is nothing in God which His Spirit cannot know by natural unity. 10. For this fullness of knowledge natural unity alone possesses; by which His Spirit is so in God, that He is naturally one God with Him.

Who nevertheless is so in God, and is one God with Him, that He does not have one person with Him, as the spirit which is in man has with the man. But it is most certain that the blessed Apostle set down that example of knowledge on account of the natural unity, which permits there to be no difference of knowledge in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: because that one inseparable nature — whatever is naturally in it, not diverse but one — wholly, just as in the three, so in the individual persons, is established to be. And there, to demonstrate the proper person of the Holy Spirit, the apostolic authority truly kept watch in the doctrine of the same Spirit, so as to say:

'Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God' (1 Cor. 2:12): which can in no way be said of the spirit of man, who is so said to be in man, that he is not said to be of the man. But the Holy Spirit is in God by the unity of nature, and is of God also by the property of person. Therefore through that unity of nature, by which no one knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God, that also is understood which the Son says: 'No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth anyone know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall will to reveal Him' (Matt. 11:27). Through the same unity of the inseparable nature, the Son testifies both that He is in the Father, and that the Father is in Him. For when He had said to the disciples:

'If you had known me, you would surely have known my Father also' (John 14:7): but when Philip asked that the Father be shown to him, the Lord Himself thus answered: 'Have I been so long a time with you, and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself; but the Father who abideth in me, He doth the works. Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Otherwise believe for the very works' sake' (John 14:9ff.). Therefore, from the fact that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, it follows that they work inseparably.

But if that Trinity could have separable persons, there would also be some separated works of the Trinity. For if we attend to that which holy Scripture says of wisdom: 'For she is the brightness of eternal light' (Wisd. 7:26), just as we see brightness inseparably cleaving to light, so let us acknowledge that the Son cannot be separated from the Father. For the apostolic authority itself proclaims Him 'the brightness of glory, and the figure of the substance of God' (Heb. 1:3); following which, blessed Ambrose in the morning hymn declares the Son to be 'the brightness of the Father's glory.' 11.