On the Trinity 1 part 2/6

He who established for the first-formed beings, as a kind of world peculiar to eternal life, a paradise in the east; planted the tree of life; likewise set another tree, of the knowledge of good and evil; gave a commandment; appointed a sentence against transgression; preserved Noah, the most righteous, from the perils of the flood for the merit of his innocence and faith; translated Enoch; chose Abraham into the fellowship of His friendship; protected Isaac; increased Jacob; set Moses as leader over the people; rescued the groaning children of Israel from the yoke of bondage; wrote the law; brought the offspring of the fathers into the land of promise. 3. He instructed the prophets by His Spirit, and through all these promised His Son Christ, and sent Him when He had pledged that He would give Him.

Through whom He willed to come into our knowledge, and poured out upon us the ample bosoms of His indulgence, bestowing a rich Spirit upon the needy and the abject. 4. And because He is freely both bountiful and good, lest this whole world, turned away, should grow dry of the rivers of His grace, He willed through His Son that apostles, the establishers of our race, should be sent into the whole world, so that the human race might recognise its Establisher and, if it had chosen rather to follow, might have One whom, in place of God, it might now in its petitions call Father. 5.

Whose providence has not only run, or runs, singly through individual men, but also through the very towns and cities, whose downfalls He sang by the voices of the prophets—nay, even through the very whole world, whose downfalls, plagues, diminutions and punishments He has described on account of its unbelief. 6. And lest anyone should suppose that this untiring providence of God does not reach even to the least of things, "Of two sparrows," says the Lord, "one shall not fall without the will of the Father; but also the hairs of your head are all numbered." Whose care and providence also did not allow the garments of the Israelites to be worn out, nor the meanest shoes on their feet to be worn through; nay, nor even at the last did it allow the captive trousers of the young men to be burned.

And not without reason; for if He has here embraced all things, containing all things, and all things and the whole consist of single parts, His care will consequently reach even to each single thing, whose providence reaches to the whole, whatever it is. 7. Hence it is that He also sits above the cherubim, that is, He presides over the variety of His works, the living creatures being subjected to His throne and holding the chief place above the rest; the crystal covering all things from above, that is, the heaven covering all things, which had been solidified into a firmament by God's command out of the flowing matter of the waters, so that the strong ice, dividing the middle of the waters that formerly covered the earth, might by a kind of ridge sustain the weights of the upper water with strength braced by the frost. 8.

For wheels also lie beneath—namely, the seasons, by which the members of the world are ever turned about—such feet being added by which these things do not stand for ever, but pass away. 9. But throughout all their parts they are studded with eyes. For the works of God must be contemplated with watchful gaze; in whose bosom there is a fire in the midst of coals—whether because this world hastens to the fiery day of judgment, or because all the works of God are fiery and not dark, but flourish, or even lest, because these things had arisen from earthly beginnings, they should naturally grow numb from the stiffness of their own origin, there was added to all things the warm nature of an inner spirit, which, compacted with the cold bodies, might supply to all equal proportions for the use of life. 10.

This, therefore, according to David, is the chariot of God. "For the chariot of God," he says, "is multiplied ten thousand times"—that is, innumerable, infinite, immeasurable. For under the yoke of the natural law given to all things, some are drawn back as if recalled by reins, others are urged on, roused as if with loosened reins. 11. For this world, the chariot of God with all things, the very angels too lead, and the stars, whose various courses, though bound by fixed laws, we behold leading to the goals of the time appointed for them; so that deservedly we too, with the apostle, marvelling both at the Craftsman and at His works, may now be pleased to exclaim: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out"—and the rest. IX. 1.

The same rule of truth teaches us to believe, after the Father, also in the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord God—but the Son of God, of this God who is both one and alone, the founder, namely, of all things, as has already been expressed above. 2. For this Jesus Christ—again I say, the Son of this God—we read to have been promised in the Old Testament, and we observe to have been exhibited in the New, fulfilling the shadows and figures of all the sacraments by the presence of the embodied truth. 3. Him both the old prophecies and the Gospels testify to be no less than the son of Abraham and the son of David. 4. Him Genesis itself, when it says: "To thee and to thy seed will I give"; Him, when it shows the man wrestling with Jacob; Him, when it says:

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until He come to whom it has been promised; and He shall be the expectation of the nations." 5. Him Moses, when he says: "Provide another whom Thou mayest send"; Him the same, when he testifies, saying: "God shall raise up to you a Prophet from your brethren; hear Him as you would me"; Him, when he says: "You shall see your life hanging by night and by day, and you shall not believe Him." 6. Him Isaiah: "There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend from the root"; Him the same, when he says: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son"; Him, when he places the healings that were to come from Him, saying:

"Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent"; Him, when he sets forth the virtues of His patience, saying: "His voice shall not be heard in the streets; a bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench." 7. Him, when he described His Gospels: "And I will dispose for you an everlasting covenant, the faithful holy things of David"; Him, when he prophesies that the nations should believe in Him: "Behold, I have set Him for a prince and a commander to the nations. Nations that knew thee not shall call upon thee, and peoples that know thee not shall flee to thee"; Him the same, when he cries out to His passion, saying:

"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer without a voice, so He opened not His mouth in His humiliation." 8. Him, when he described the strokes and wounds of His scourgings: "By His bruise we are healed"; or His humility: "And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; a man in the stroke, and knowing how to bear infirmity"; or that the people would not believe: "All the day long I have stretched out my hands to a people that did not believe"; or that He would rise from the dead: "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall rise to rule the nations; in Him shall the nations hope, and His rest shall be honour"; or with the time of resurrection: "As in the dawn prepared we shall find Him"; or that He would sit at the right hand of the Father: "The Lord said to my Lord:"

'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet'; or where he is set forth as the possessor of all things: 'Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession'; or where he is shown to be the judge of all: 'O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the King's Son.' 9. And on this point I will not press further the things which have been announced concerning Christ, since they are better known to all the heretics, and even to those who hold the truth. X. 1. But I give this warning: that no other Christ was to be looked for in the Gospel than this one who was promised beforehand by the writings of the Old Testament from the Creator, especially since both the things foretold of him have been fulfilled, and the things that have been fulfilled were foretold before. 2.

So that, against these heretics who reject the authority of the Old Testament, I may truly and steadfastly say to some fictitious Christ — invented and disguised out of old wives' fables — 'Who are you? Whence are you? By whom were you sent? Why have you now chosen to come? Why in such a form? Or by what road could you come? 3. Or why did you not go to your own, unless you have proved that you have none of your own, while you come to strangers? What have you to do with the world of the Creator? What have you to do with the man of the Maker? What have you to do with the figment of a body, from which you snatch away the hope of resurrection? Why do you come to another's servant; why do you desire to seduce another's son? Why do you try to snatch me away from the Lord? Why do you compel me to blaspheme against the Father and to be impious?' 4.

Or what shall I gain from you in the resurrection, I who do not receive my very self, since I lose my body? If you wish to save, you should have made the man to whom you would give salvation. If you desire to rescue me from sin, you should first have granted that I not sin. But what support of the Law do you carry about with you? What testimony of the prophetic voice do you have? 5. Or what firm thing can I promise myself from you, when I see that you have come in a phantasm and not in solidity? What, then, have you to do with the figure of a body, if you hate the body? Indeed, you are convicted of carrying about the substance of the very body you hate, since you chose to take on even its figure.

For you ought to have hated the imitation of a body, if you hated the truth of it; since, if you are another, you ought to have come in another way, lest you be called the Son of the Creator — if you had had even the image of flesh and body. Surely, if you hated birth, because you hated the Creator's union of marriage, you ought to have refused even the imitation of a man who is born of the Creator through marriage. 6.

Therefore we do not acknowledge as Christ that one of the heretics who was, as they say, in image and not in truth — lest nothing of what he did should be real, if he himself was a phantasm and not truth; nor him who bore nothing of our body in himself, since he received nothing from Mary — lest he should not have come to us, if he did not appear seen in our substance; nor him who, as other heretics have wished, clothed himself in ethereal or starry flesh — lest we should understand no salvation of ours in him, if we do not also recognize the solidity of our body; nor any other at all, who bore any other kind of body of fables from the figment of the heretics. 7. For both the birth of the Lord and his very death refute all these.

For 'the Word,' says John, 'became flesh and dwelt among us,' so that rightly our body was in him, since indeed the Word took on our flesh. And his blood therefore flowed from his hands and feet and from his very side, so that he might be proved a partner of our body, dying by the laws of our departure. 8. He, since in the same substance of body in which he dies he is raised again, is proved by the wounds of that very body, and also showed in his own flesh the laws of our resurrection, restoring in his own resurrection the body which he had from us. For the law of resurrection is established, when Christ is raised in the substance of his body as an example to the rest. 9.

For when it is written that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, the substance of the flesh is not condemned — that flesh which was built by the divine hands so that it should not perish — but only the guilt of the flesh is rightly censured, which by the voluntary rashness of man rushed on against the rights of the divine law. By that law the flesh, in baptism and in the dissolution of death, is taken away and returns to salvation, when, the mortality of guilt laid aside, it is recalled to the state of innocence. XI. 1.

But lest, from the fact that we assert our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Creator, to have been displayed in the substance of a true body, we should seem to have either given a hand or supplied material for argument to other heretics who in this matter defend him as a mere and solitary man, and therefore desire to prove that man bare and alone — we do not so express ourselves concerning the substance of his very body as to say that he was only and merely man, but so as to hold, according to the Scriptures, that he is also God, the divinity of the Word being mingled in that very union. 2.

For there is great danger in calling the Savior of the human race, the Lord and Prince of the whole world, to whom all things were delivered by his Father and all things granted, through whom the universe was established, by whom all things were created, by whom all things were ordered — the King of all ages and times, the Prince of all angels, before whom there is nothing except the Father — merely a man, and in denying to him divine authority in these matters. For this insult of the heretics will redound even to God the Father himself, if God the Father could not beget a Son who is God. 3.

But the blindness of the heretics shall prescribe nothing against the truth; nor, because they hold something in Christ and do not hold something, see one thing and do not see another, shall that which they do not see be snatched away from us by means of that which they see. 4. For they consider in him, as it were, the frailties of a man, but do not reckon, as it were, the powers of God; they recall the infirmities of the flesh, but exclude the powers of divinity. Whereas, if this argument from the infirmities of Christ avails so far that a man is proved from the infirmities, the proof of divinity gathered in him from the powers will avail so far that even God is asserted from the works. For if his sufferings show in him human frailty, why should not his works assert in him divine power?

Lest, if this does not avail to assert God from the powers, neither should the sufferings avail to show that he is also man from those same sufferings. 5. For whatever law has been laid down in the one will be found to have been received in the other. For there will be danger that the man should not be shown from the sufferings, if God too could not be approved from the powers. Therefore one must not incline to one part and flee from the other, since whoever excludes any portion of the truth will not hold the perfect truth. 6.

For Scripture as much announces Christ to be God as it also announces him a man; it as much describes Jesus Christ a man as it also describes Christ the Lord to be God; since it does not set him forth as the Son of God only, but also of man; nor does it call him man only, but has been accustomed to report him as also of God — so that, since he is of both, he may be both, lest, if he were only the one, he could not be the other. 7.

For just as nature itself has prescribed that he who is of man must be believed to be man, so the same nature prescribes that he who is of God must also be believed to be God; lest, if he were not also God, since he is of God, he should now not even be man, although he was of man; and in either the two should be endangered, while one is convicted of having destroyed faith in the other. 8. Those, then, who read that Christ Jesus is the son of man, a man, let them read this same one also called both God and the Son of God. For just as he is, as man, of Abraham, so he is also, as God, before Abraham himself. And just as, as man, he is the Son of David, so, as God, he is called the Lord of David. And just as, as man, he was made under the Law, so, as God, he was declared the Lord of the Sabbath.

And just as, as man, he suffers sentence, so, as God, he is found to hold all judgment over the living and the dead. And just as, as man, he is born after the world, so, as God, he is testified to have been before the world. And just as, as man, he was begotten of the seed of David, so, through him, as God, the world is said to have been established. And just as, as man, he is after many, so, as God, he is before all. And just as, as man, he is inferior to the rest, so, as God, he is greater than all. And just as, as man, he ascended into heaven, so, as God, he had first descended thence. And just as, as man, he goes to the Father, so, obedient to the Father, as the Son, he is to descend from there. 9.

So, if the lowly things in him approve human frailty, the majestic things in him affirm divine power. For there is danger, when you read both, in having believed not both but only one. From which, since both are read in Christ, let both be believed, so that faith may finally be true only if it has also been perfect. 10. For if, out of two, faith failing in one, the one — and indeed that which is the lesser — were taken up for belief, the rule of truth being disturbed, this rashness will not have conferred salvation, but, in place of salvation, will have kindled by the loss of faith a great danger of death. XII. 1. Why, then, should we hesitate to say what Scripture does not hesitate to express?

Why shall the truth of faith hesitate, where the authority of Scripture has never hesitated? For behold, the prophet Hosea says in the person of the Father: 'I will no longer save them by the bow, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but I will save them in the Lord their God.' 2. If God says that he saves in God, and yet God saves only in Christ, why then should a man hesitate to call Christ God, whom he observes through the Scriptures to have been set as God by the Father? Indeed, if the Father God does not save except in God, no one will be able to be saved by God the Father unless he has confessed Christ to be God — in whom and through whom the Father promises that he will give salvation.

So that rightly whoever acknowledges him to be God finds salvation in Christ God, while whoever does not recognize him to be God loses the salvation which he will be able to find nowhere else but in Christ God. 3. For just as Isaiah says, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us,' so Christ himself says, 'Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age.' Therefore God is with us; indeed, much more, he is even in us. Christ is with us; therefore it is he whose name is 'God with us,' because he is also with us. Or is he not with us? How, then, does he say that he is with us? Therefore he is with us.

But because he is with us, he is called Emmanuel, that is, 'God with us.' Therefore, because he is with us, God is called 'God with us.' 4. The same prophet: 'Be strengthened, you slackened hands and feeble knees; take comfort, you faint of heart; be strengthened, do not fear. Behold, our God will render judgment; he himself will come and will save us: then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent.' 5.

If the prophet says that at the coming of God these signs which have come to pass would be in the future, let them either acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God — at whose coming and by whom these signs of healings were wrought — or, overcome by the truth of Christ's divinity and rushing into another heresy, while they are unwilling to confess Christ to be the Son of God and God, they will confess him to be the Father. For, hemmed in by the words of the prophets, they can no longer deny Christ to be God. 6. What, then, do they answer, when at the coming of God these signs are said to be future which were wrought at the coming of Christ? In what way do they receive Christ as God — for they can no longer deny him to be God — as Father or as Son? If as Son, why do they deny that the Son of God is God?

If as Father, why do they not follow those who are seen to hold blasphemies of this kind? Save that, in this contest with them concerning the truth, it is for the present enough for us that, in whatever way they are convicted, they should confess Christ to be God as well, whom they wished even to deny to be God. 7. Through the prophet Habakkuk he says: 'God will come from the south, and the Holy One from the shady and dense mountain.' Whom do these wish to come from the south? If they say that the almighty God the Father has come, then God the Father comes from a place — from which place he is also enclosed and contained within the narrow limits of some seat.

And now, through these men, as we have said, the sacrilegious Sabellian heresy is given a body, since Christ is believed to be not the Son but the Father; and in a new fashion, while by these men a bare man is asserted, through them Christ is in turn proved to be the Father, almighty God. 8. But if Christ — who through the Scriptures is also called God — is born in Bethlehem, whose region of survey looks toward the southern region of the sky, rightly is this God described as coming from the south, because he was foreseen as about to come from Bethlehem. 9. Let them therefore choose, of the two, which they will: that this one who comes from the south is the Son or the Father; for God is said to be about to come from the south. If the Son, why do they hesitate to call Christ God too? For Scripture says that God is about to come. If the Father, why do they hesitate to be mixed up with the rashness of Sabellius, who calls Christ the Father?

If the Father, why do they hesitate to be mingled with the rashness of Sabellius, who says that Christ is the Father? Save that, whether they call him Father or Son, those who are accustomed to call Christ merely a man must necessarily, however unwillingly, fall away from their heresy, when, compelled by the very facts, they begin to declare him God — whether they wish to name him Father or to name him Son. XIII. 1. And thus John, too, describing the birth of Christ, says: 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' For his name is also called the Word of God, and not without reason.

'My heart,' he says, 'has uttered a good Word' — which Word he consequently calls by the name of King, by adding: 'I tell my works to the King.' 2. For through him all works were made, and without him nothing was made. 'For whether,' says the apostle, 'thrones, or dominions, or virtues, or powers, visible and invisible, all things hold together through him.' Now this Word is that which came into its own, and its own did not receive him. For the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. Now this Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God. 3. Who, then, would doubt, when in the final part it is said:

'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us' — who would doubt to declare without hesitation that Christ, whose birth this is, and because he was made flesh, is man; and because he is the Word of God, is God — especially when he observes that the evangelical Scripture has joined both these substances into one harmony of Christ's birth? 4. For this is he who, as a bridegroom, goes forth from his chamber; he rejoiced as a giant to run his course; his going forth is from the height of heaven, and his return even to the height — since to the height no one ascends into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. Repeating this very thing, he says: 'Father, glorify me with that honor which I had with you before the world was.' 5.

And if this Word descended from heaven, as a bridegroom to the flesh, so that through the assumption of flesh the Son of man might be able to ascend thither, whence the Son of God, the Word, had descended — rightly, while through their mutual connection both the flesh bears the Word of God and the Son of God assumes the frailty of the flesh, then, mounting up with his bride the flesh thither, whence he had descended without flesh, he now receives back that glory which, since he is shown to have had it before the founding of the world, proves him most manifestly to be God. And no less, while the world itself is reported to have been founded after him, he is found to have been created through him — by which very fact both the glory and the authority of the divinity in him, through whom the world was made, are proved. 6.

But if — since it belongs to none but God to know the secrets of the heart — Christ beholds the secrets of the heart; and if — since it belongs to none but God to forgive sins — this same Christ forgives sins; and if — since it belongs to no man to come from heaven — by coming from heaven he descended; and if — since this utterance can be that of no man:

'I and the Father are one' — Christ alone declares this utterance out of the consciousness of divinity; and if, finally, the apostle Thomas, instructed by all the proofs and facts of Christ's divinity, answering Christ says, 'My Lord and my God'; and if the apostle Paul also writes in his letters, 'Of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever'; and if the same declares that he was appointed an apostle not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ; and if the same maintains that he learned the Gospel not from men nor through man, but received it through Jesus Christ — then rightly Christ is God. 7.

Therefore, in this matter, one of two things must hold. For since it is manifest that all things were made through Christ, either he is before all things — since all things are through him, and rightly he is also God — or, because he is man, he is after all things, and rightly nothing was made through him. But we cannot say that nothing was made through him, since we observe it written that all things were made through him. Therefore he is not after all things, that is, he is not only man, who is after all things, but also God, since God is before all things. For he is before all things, because through him are all things — lest, if he were only man, nothing be through him; or if all things are through him, he is not only man, since if he were only man, not all things would be through him, indeed nothing would be through him. 8. What, then, do they answer?

That nothing was made through him, so that he is only man? How, then, are all things through him? Therefore he is not merely man, but also God, since all things are through him — so that we ought rightly to understand that Christ is not only man, who is after all things, but also God, since through him all things were made. For how could you call him merely a man, when you also behold him in the flesh — save that, if both are observed, both should rightly be believed? XIV. 1. And yet still the heretic hesitates to call Christ God, whom he observes approved as God by so many facts and utterances. 2. If Christ is only man, how, coming into this world, did he come into his own, since man made no world? 3.

If Christ is only man, how is the world reported to have been made through him, since the world is not reported to have been made through man, but man to have been established after the world? 4. If Christ is only man, how is it that not only of the seed of David is Christ, but 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'? For although the first-formed man was not from seed, yet the first-formed man was not compounded from the union of word and flesh. For there was no word made flesh, dwelling among us, in his case. 5. If Christ is only man, how is it that he who came from heaven testifies of what he saw and heard, since it is agreed that man cannot come from heaven, because he cannot be born there? 6.