Anti-Arian Works 6 part 13/24

By that example also it is fitting that we believe the persons of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit to be inseparable, whereby the Only-begotten God Himself so joined and united the divine and human nature in the unity of His person, that they cannot at all be separated from each other. For in the one person of the Only-begotten God, who 'as a bridegroom came forth from His bride-chamber' (Ps. 18:5), the union of both natures remains inseparable. Nor ought anyone therefore to reckon each to be separated from the other; for the flesh, deprived of life, lay in the tomb, and the soul, with the flesh dying, descended into hell: since even when, through the intervening of death, the soul had departed from the flesh, both natures remained inseparable in Christ:

because the immense Godhead deserted neither His soul in hell, nor His flesh in the tomb. And so inseparable are both natures in Christ, that from this Eutyches fell into error, and, seeing one person in Christ, impiously preached also one nature in Him; wishing to confound what he saw could not be separated. But thus that man, in the two natures which he acknowledged inseparably to belong to one person, incurred the crime of impiety; just as Sabellius, in the three persons, on account of the unity of nature, erred by the blindness of a deadly unbelief; not understanding the persons of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

...the holy persons subsist without confusion, which he heard remain wholly inseparable by natural unity. But the inseparable Trinity conquered both, the unconfused Unity crushed both; each departed estranged from the womb of Mother Church, each strayed from the belly of that most loving parent, and plunged both himself and his accomplices into the abyss of impiety. For truly in the Trinity, in God, there remains not only the unity of nature, but also the unconfused and inseparable property of the persons; and nonetheless in the one person of Christ there remains the unconfusable and inseparable full truth of the two natures.

But if in Christ, on account of the unity of the person, the union of the divine and human nature is found inseparable (since neither eternity without beginning, nor simplicity without mutability, nor immensity without limit is found to be naturally common to both natures; because in one and the same Christ there is both the true divine nature, by which he is naturally God born of the Father without beginning, and the true human nature, by which he is naturally, in the fullness of time, God made man from a virgin; in the former coeternal with the Father, in the latter later than his mother; according to the divine nature always and everywhere whole, never at any time or in any place enclosed in a place;

according to the human nature, on a certain day about to come from heaven to judge the living and the dead) — how great an inseparability must be believed to be in those three persons, whose unity, eternity, simplicity, and immensity are natural? This blessed Ambrose truly proclaims and confirms in the first book On the Holy Spirit (ch. 6), saying: 'Who then would dare to say that the Holy Spirit is separated from God the Father and from Christ, since through him we are made worthy to be after the image and likeness of God?' And in another place he says: 'Who can separate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, when we cannot even name the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit? For no one says the Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit.'

Therefore, if we cannot at all name the Lord Jesus without the Holy Spirit, can we preach him without the Spirit? (Book I On the Holy Spirit, ch. 10). This inseparability of the three persons was treated also by blessed Augustine (ch. 4): when he had said that only the Son was born of the Virgin Mary, and that only the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus after his baptism, and on the day of Pentecost came upon the disciples as it were in fire with divided tongues; and that it was the voice of the Father alone which said, 'Thou art my Son' (Mark 1; Luke 3:22), when the Son was baptized by John, and when the voice sounded, saying, 'I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again' (John

12:28)) — yet, showing that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, he brought forth this statement, saying: 'Although the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are inseparable, so also work inseparably.' You surely see how blessed Augustine here leaves no suspicion of separable persons, when he asserts that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as they are inseparable, so also work inseparably. Confirming this statement with such a conclusion (ch. 8), he says: 'This also is my faith, since this is the catholic faith.' 13.

Likewise in another place of the same book he says: 'Finally, on account of this very inseparability, sometimes either the Father alone or the Son alone is sufficiently named — he who will fill us with gladness with his countenance — nor is the Spirit of both thereby separated, that is, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who is properly called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, whom this world cannot receive (John 14:17). For this is our full joy, than which there is nothing greater: to enjoy the Trinity, God, in whose image we were made. On this account we sometimes speak of the Holy Spirit as though he alone sufficed for our beatitude; and he alone suffices for this reason, because he cannot be separated from the Father and the Son;'

'just as the Father alone suffices, because he cannot be separated from the Son and the Holy Spirit; and the Son alone suffices for this reason, because he cannot be separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit.' This is blessed Augustine's statement, according to the truth of the catholic faith, concerning the inseparability of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And lest anyone should take this according to nature alone, and not also according to the persons, a little later in the same book (ch. 9, near the end) he took care to show it more plainly and clearly, saying: 'But for the intimation of the Trinity, certain things are said separately even of the individual persons when named, yet they are not understood with the others separated;'

'on account of the unity of that same Trinity, and the one substance and deity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' Also in another place of the mentioned book (near the end, ch. 10), impressing this most fully, when he had said of the Son: 'For in this he prays, in which he is less than the Father; but in that in which he is equal, he hears together with the Father'; showing the inseparability of the persons, he says: 'Whence, from that which he said, For the Father himself loves you (John 16:27), he surely does not separate himself; but according to those things which I have mentioned above and sufficiently intimated, he causes it to be understood that generally each person in the Trinity is so named that the others also are understood there.' And so it was thus said:

'For the Father himself loves you' — so that, consequently, the Son also and the Holy Spirit may be understood. Likewise a little after (ch. 12, before the middle) the same holy Augustine speaks thus: 'For we have now shown, in this Trinity, through many modes of divine speech, that even of the individual persons is said what belongs to all, on account of the inseparable operation of the one and the same substance.' But in the fifteenth book On the Trinity (ch. 25), when he was offering some outlines, from that image which is in us, toward the understanding of the Trinity, among other things he says thus: 'But in that supreme Trinity, which incomparably surpasses all things, so great is the inseparability that, whereas a trinity of men cannot be called one man, that Trinity both is called, and is, one God;'

'nor is that Trinity in one God, but it is one God. Nor again, as this image, which is man, having those three, is one person, so also is that Trinity; but there are three persons: the Father of the Son, and the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.' Likewise after some words (in the same place) he says thus: 'Yet not, as in this image of the Trinity these three are one man, but are of one man, so in that supreme Trinity, of which this is the image, are those three of one God; but he is one God, and those three are, not one person.' Saying these things, blessed Augustine, understanding also the inseparability of those same three persons by the revelation of the Trinity itself, continues with wonder, saying (in the same place):

'Which indeed is wonderfully ineffable, or ineffably wonderful: since this image of the Trinity is one person, but the supreme Trinity itself is three persons, that Trinity of three persons is more inseparable than this image of one person.' 14. These words of blessed Augustine which we have set down from the first and the last book On the Trinity, as I do not doubt, are entirely sufficient — especially for your talent and diligence, by which you read his sayings so keenly and so frequently that in them you can find very many similar passages, which show the inseparability of the holy Trinity not only in nature, but also in the persons. Those three persons, therefore, are named individually so that they may be recognized, not so that they may be separated:

in whom there is so no separation, just as in them no confusion can exist. For those three persons, because they cannot be confounded, ought not on that account to be reckoned separable, since they are found altogether inseparable, both in what they are and in what they do. Nor let anyone dare to assert those three persons separable, since he can find none existing or operating before another, after another, or without another. Where, just as by nature there can be no separability of work, so by nature there remains the unchangeable unity of will. But let us consider in what way either man or angel was separated from God, so that we may without doubt understand the Trinity to be inseparable.

For Holy Scripture says that perverse thoughts separate from God, and that wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins (Wisd. 1:3-4); and that the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will withdraw itself from thoughts that are without understanding (ibid. 5). For the prophet Isaiah too (Isa. 59:2) testifies that iniquities separate between God and men. But the holy Trinity is itself also the faithful God, in whom there is no iniquity. Now the Son of God came to take away sins, and in him is no sin, and sin is iniquity (1 John 3:4-5). But, taking away iniquity, he bestowed charity.

He therefore took away that by which we were separated from God, and bestowed that by which we might be inseparably joined to the holy Trinity. Therefore the Apostle confidently cries out: For neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39). If, then, the Trinity, by the infused charity, makes our souls cleave to itself inseparably — for he who cleaves to God is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17) — how can the Trinity itself have separable persons, since the Trinity itself is one God, and thereby is one charity, because God is charity?

But charity never admits division, which, of many hearts and many souls, makes in itself one heart and one soul. SECOND QUESTION. 15. Your second question is then found appended in this tenor: Whether, just as God the Son of God is said to be born, to have suffered, to have died, to have been crucified, so we ought to affirm his divinity to have been born, to have suffered, to have died, to have been crucified — although, whether he be named God or divinity, only the flesh is understood to be mutable and passible, according to which God, or the divinity, was able to suffer what in his own nature he could not. RESPONSE. 16.

To these your words I briefly reply that, whatever of these be said, it in no way prejudices the faith by which the catholic Church truly believes and preaches that the divinity of the Son of God remains by nature impassible and unchangeable. For the blessed Apostle says: But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, but to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23-24). Behold, the Apostle says that Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God was crucified. And in another place, joining together power and divinity, he says: His everlasting power also and divinity (Rom. 1:20).

If, then, the power of Christ is not unfittingly said to have been crucified according to the flesh, why should not the divinity also, in the same manner, be said to have been crucified according to the flesh? For when 'according to the flesh' is added, it is surely shown that it was not his divinity that lay subject to the passion, but the flesh. This we see demonstrated also by apostolic authority. For when the blessed apostle Paul had said that Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God, lest that power and wisdom should be thought to be naturally passible, he took care in another place wholesomely to open the mystery of the crucified power and wisdom, saying of Christ: For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God (2 Cor.

13:4). Now we know that Christ the Son of God is truly named 'Mighty God' by the prophetic word, Isaiah saying: A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and the government is made upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of the world to come, Prince of peace (Isa. 9:6). Does not the Apostle, in one place, commend the everlasting power and divinity of this Mighty God? For the true faith does not so proclaim the everlasting power and divinity of the Father as not to believe the everlasting power and divinity of the Son or of the Holy Spirit; since the everlasting power and divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is by nature one. Christ, therefore, is the Mighty God;

and he is truly God for this reason, because he is divinity, just as he is truly mighty for this reason, because he is power. And so the true faith, which truly believes and preaches Christ the Mighty God, and knows that Christ crucified is preached by the Apostle as the power of God and the wisdom of God — just as it faithfully knows and says that the power was crucified according to the flesh, so it does not hesitate to confess that the divinity was crucified according to the flesh. For Christ, the Mighty God, is God in such a way that he himself is his own divinity, just as he is mighty in such a way that he himself is his own power. 16 bis. You know that this which I say was most fully argued in the books On the Trinity by blessed Augustine;

in which he shows that each person in the Trinity — at least in those names by which it is said of itself, not by transference but properly — is itself for itself that which it is declared naturally to have. For we say, whether of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, that he is the living God, great, wise, mighty, good. In all these, which each person in the Trinity is said to be with respect to itself — because God is God by divinity, great by greatness is he great, wise by wisdom is he wise, mighty by power is he mighty, good by goodness is he good — so indeed is he God, that he himself is his own divinity; so is he great, that he himself is his own greatness; so is he wise, that he himself is his own wisdom; so is he mighty, that he himself is his own power;

so also good, that he himself is his own goodness. Since the same holy Augustine frequently intimates this in the aforementioned books, I have taken care to insert into this little work a certain passage from his fifth book (Book 5 On the Trinity, ch. 10). For when he was speaking of God and his greatness, among other things he says thus: 'By that greatness, therefore, is he great, by which he himself is the same greatness. And therefore, just as we do not say three essences, so neither three greatnesses; for to God, to be is the same as to be great. For the same reason we do not say three great ones, but one great one; because God is not great by participation in greatness, but is great by his own great self, because he himself is his own greatness.'

Let this be said also of the goodness, and of the eternity, and of the omnipotence of God, and of absolutely all the predicaments that can be pronounced of God — that which is said with respect to himself, not by transference and by likeness, but properly, if indeed anything can be said properly of him by the mouth of man. Also in the eighth book (in the preface), bringing forth the same statement about that natural simplicity of the Trinity, among other things he says thus: 'As God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; and good the Father, good the Son, good the Holy Spirit; and almighty the Father, almighty the Son, almighty the Holy Spirit — yet not three Gods, or three good ones, or three almighty ones, but one God, good and almighty, the Trinity itself;'

'and whatever else the individual persons are said to be, not relatively to one another, but with respect to themselves; for these are said according to essence, because there, to be is the same as to be great, as to be good, as to be wise, and whatever else each person there, or the Trinity itself, is said to be with respect to itself.' 17. It is clear, indeed, from these words of blessed Augustine, that this belongs to catholic truth: that when in God we name divinity, greatness, goodness, power, and any other of those things which are said of him properly with respect to himself, we should most certainly know, not in those diverse names certain diverse things (as in man, who is subject to quality), but that one thing which is the essence or nature.

For thence it is that blessed Augustine himself says, in the fifth book On the Trinity, that God is to be understood good without quality, great without quantity; because the unchangeableness of the simple and omnipotent essence can be subject to no accidents — where the divinity is the same as the eternity and the majesty, the same greatness as the power and the goodness. From this rule of truth, therefore, whatever we recognize to be truly said of the majesty, the eternity, the power of Christ according to the flesh, let us not deny that it is also truly said of his divinity. For blessed Augustine himself, in the first book On the Trinity (ch.

12, after the middle), showing that God the Son, according to the divinity, has this which he is, and is this which he has, speaks thus: 'For not as a creature, so is God the Son — the Only-begotten before the incarnation and before the assumed creature, through whom all things were made — one thing, and has another; but he is that very same thing which he is and which he has. This is said more plainly in that place, if anyone is fit to grasp it, where he says: As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself (John 5:26). For he did not give to one already existing, and not having life, that he should have life in himself, since by that very thing which he is, he is life. This, then, is what it means, he gave to the Son to have life in himself:'

'he begot the Son as unchangeable life, which is eternal life.' The same blessed Augustine, in his exposition of the Gospel according to John (Tract. 22, after the middle), when he was treating of the Lord's very discourse, speaks thus: 'But the Son of God was not, as it were, first without life and then received life; for if he received it so, he would not have it in himself. For what is it in himself? That he himself should be life itself.' And a little after, he confirms these things in the same sermon, saying: 'For the Apostle says: For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). When he had said now light, he added, in the Lord. In you, therefore, darkness; light in the Lord. Why light? Because by participation in that light you are light.'

'But if you withdraw from the light by which you are illumined, you return to your darkness. Not so Christ, not so the Word of God. But how? As the Father has life in himself, so he has given also to the Son to have life in himself (John 5:26) — that he may live not by participation in life, but unchangeably, and be altogether life itself.' And a little after, the same holy and eminent doctor Augustine says: 'What is said, he gave to the Son, is as if it were said, he begot the Son; for by begetting he gave. As he gave that he should be, so he gave that he should be life, and so he gave that in himself he should be life. What is it, that in himself he should be life? That he should not need life from elsewhere, but should himself be the fullness of life, whence other believers might live, while they lived.' 18.

From these words, then, of the illustrious bishop Augustine, we are taught, with all ambiguities removed — while the unchangeableness, eternity, and impassibility of the divinity of the Son of God is preserved — that whatever is said of his majesty, eternity, and power according to the assumption of the flesh is not incongruous, if in the same manner it be said, according to the flesh, of his divinity. What, therefore, was assumed by the Son of God is proved to have been assumed by his divinity, by his majesty, by his power, by his eternity. And that the truthful assertion of the holy Fathers may demonstrate this, we first bring forth the letter of the most blessed pope Leo, glorious pontiff of the apostolic

see — the glorious pontiff whose letter we bring forth, which, writing to Flavian, bishop of the city of Constantinople, in that he wonderfully expressed the true faith concerning the Lord's Incarnation, destroyed every error of heretical depravity. For in that letter (ch. 3) the same glorious bishop — endowed no less with the truth of the apostolic faith than excelling in the dignity of the apostolic see — says these things: 'The property of each nature, therefore, being preserved, and coming together into one person, lowliness was taken up by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity; and to pay the debt of our condition, an inviolable nature was united to a passible nature,'

'so that (as befitted our remedies) one and the same mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5), might both be able to die from the one, and not be able to die from the other.' The mentioned bishop of the apostolic see continues further, and says: 'In the entire and perfect nature of true man, therefore, true God was born, whole in what is his own, whole in what is ours. But we call ours the things which the Creator established in us from the beginning, and which he took upon himself to repair.' You surely see how that apostolic doctor, by the same faith with which he says that God took upon himself, to be repaired, those things which he established in us from the beginning, says by that same faith that lowliness was taken up by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity.

But when the majesty, power, and eternity of the Son of God are spoken of, nothing other than his divinity is signified. Let us not, therefore, doubt that the divinity of Christ assumed whatever Christ's majesty, Christ's power, and eternity assumed. Hence it is that in the same letter a not dissimilar statement is again contained: since the same most blessed prelate of the Roman Church confirms, by most manifest preaching, just as God and man, so also divinity and humanity. For in the same letter he says: 'Nature, not fault, was assumed from the Lord's mother; nor, in the Lord Jesus Christ, begotten from the virgin's womb, is his nature unlike ours because his nativity is wonderful.'

'For he who is true God is the same true man, and there is no falsehood in this unity, while there are together both the lowliness of man and the height of the Godhead. For as God is not changed by his compassion, so man is not consumed by the dignity.' And in another place (in the same ch. 6) the same most blessed pope Leo professes the divinity veiled by a covering of flesh, saying: 'Now when he came to the baptism of his forerunner John, lest it should lie hidden that the divinity was covered by the veil of the flesh, the voice of the Father, thundering from heaven, said: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:17).' Here at once he confidently names that divinity God, and undoubtedly calls that flesh man, saying:

'Whom, therefore, as man, the cunning of the devil tempts, to the same one, as God, the angelic services minister.' Likewise in another place of the same letter (in the same place) he says: 'For although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one person of God and of man, yet it is one thing whence the reproach is common in both, another thing whence the glory is common. For from what is ours the humanity in him is less than the Father; from the Father the divinity in him is equal to the Father.' The firmness of which statement he so impresses and instills into the minds of all the faithful that he testifies the life and progress of the catholic Church to consist in this faith, saying (ch. 5) that the catholic Church lives and progresses by this faith, that the divinity is not believed without the true humanity. 19.

This also pope Gelasius of blessed memory, preserving the tenor of doctrine, walks with altogether equal steps along the way of the true faith and the apostolic confession. For in that book which the said venerable bishop wrote against those who refuse to believe the undivided truth of the two natures in the Lord Jesus Christ, but confound them by the profession of one nature, keeping the very tenor of apostolic preaching, he confirms that the two natures in Christ are unconfused and inseparable, saying: 'These same natures must necessarily be brought forth under one and the same person, and so undivided and inseparable do they stand by that union, that they remain to be what they are.' And a little after:

'When only God is said, is the man denied? When humanity is said, is the deity thereby removed? When the Son of man is said, is not the Son of God also consequently perceived? When the Word is said, is not the flesh, which he became, also understood together? When his flesh and body are brought forth, is not the divinity also undoubtedly shown?' Likewise in another place of the same book, concerning those who strive to assert only one nature in Christ, he speaks thus: 'For even when they say that one nature was incarnate, wishing in this way, as it were, to show it singular, they by no means escape the signification of two. For while it is said that one nature of divinity was incarnate,'