On the Trinity 1 part 3/6

If Christ is only man, how are visible and invisible things, thrones, virtues, and dominions reported to have been created through him and in him, since the heavenly powers could not have been made through a man — those which had to exist before man himself? 7. If Christ is only man, how is he present everywhere when invoked, since this is not the nature of man but of God, that he can be present in every place? 8. If Christ is only man, why is man invoked as mediator in prayers, since the invocation of man is judged ineffective for bestowing salvation? 9. If Christ is only man, why is hope placed in him, since hope in man is reported to be accursed? 10.

If Christ is only man, why is it not permitted to deny Christ without the ruin of the soul, since the offense committed against man is reported as able to be forgiven? 11. If Christ is only man, how does John the Baptist testify and say, 'He who comes after me was made before me, because he was prior to me' — since, if Christ is only man, having been born after John he could not be before John, unless it is because, as he is God, he went before him? 12. If Christ is only man, how is it that what the Father does, the Son also does likewise, since a man could not do works like to the heavenly works of God? 13.

If Christ is only man, how is it that, just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son to have life in himself — since, after the example of God the Father, a man could not have life in himself, since he is not glorious in eternity, but made in the matter of mortality? 14. If Christ is only man, how does he report: 'I am the bread of eternal life, who came down from heaven' — since neither could a man, himself mortal, be the bread of life, nor could he have come down from heaven, no matter of frailty being established in heaven? 15. If Christ is only man, how does he say that no man has ever seen God the Father, except him who is from God — he has seen God? Since, if Christ is only man, he could not have seen God, because no man has seen God.

But if, since he is from God, he saw God, by seeing God he wished himself to be understood as more than a man. 16. If Christ is only man, why does he say: 'What if you should see the Son of man ascending where he was before?' But he ascended into heaven. There, then, he was, when he returns thither where he was before. 17. But if he was sent from heaven by the Father, he is surely not only man; for man, as we have said, could not come from heaven. He was not, therefore, there before as a man, but ascended thither where he had not been. But the Word of God descended, which was there — the Word, I say, of God, and God, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. Not therefore did a man so come thence from the heavens, but the Word of God, that is, God, descended thence. XV. 1.

If Christ is only man, how does he say: 'Even if I bear witness of myself, my testimony is true; for I know whence I came and whither I go: you judge according to the flesh'? Behold, here too he says that he will return thither whence he testifies that he came before — sent, namely, from heaven. He descended, then, whence he came, just as he goes thither whence he descended. From which, if Christ were only man, he would not have come thence; and therefore neither would he go thither, since he had not come thence. But coming thence, whence man cannot come, he shows that he came as God. 2. But the Jews, ignorant and unskilled in this very descent, have rendered these heretics their heirs, to whom it is said: 'You do not know whence I come or whither I go:

you judge according to the flesh.' Both these and the Jews, holding that the birth of Christ is only carnal, believed that Christ was nothing other than a man, not considering this: that since a man could not come from heaven so as rightly to be able to return thither, he who descended thence, whence a man could not come, is God. 3. If Christ is only man, how does he say: 'You are from beneath, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world'? But if every man is of this world, and Christ is therefore in this world, is he then only man? Far be it. But consider what he says: 'I am not of this world.' Does he then lie, when he is of this world, if he is only man?

Or if he does not lie, he is not of this world. Therefore he is not only man, since he is not of this world. 4. But, lest it be hidden who he was, he expressed whence he was: 'I,' he says, 'am from above,' that is, from heaven, whence man cannot come; for he was not made in heaven. He, then, is God who is from above, and therefore is not of this world. Yet in a certain way he is also of this world. Whence Christ is not only God, but also man. So that rightly, just as he is not of this world according to the divinity of the Word, so he is of this world according to the frailty of the body he assumed; for he is a man joined with God, and God coupled with man. 5.

But for this reason now here Christ has leaned on the one part of his divinity alone, because Jewish blindness looked only at the part of the flesh in Christ; and therefore, in the present passage, passing over in silence the frailty of the body, which is of the world, he spoke of his divinity alone, which is not of the world — so that, in as much as they had inclined to believe him only a man, in so much Christ might be able to draw them to consider his divinity, so that they might believe him God; wishing to overcome their unbelief concerning his divinity by setting against it, for the time being, the mention of his human lot being omitted, the divinity alone. 6. If Christ is only man, how does he say:

'I came forth from God and have come' — since it is agreed that man was made by God, not that he proceeded forth from God? But just as man did not proceed from God, so the Word of God proceeded, concerning which it was said: 'My heart has uttered a good Word'; which, since it is of God, is rightly also with God; and which, because it was not uttered idly, rightly makes all things. For all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. But this Word, through which all things were made, is God. 'And the Word,' he says, 'was God.' God, therefore, proceeded forth from God, since he who proceeded — the Word — is God, who proceeded forth from God. 7. If Christ is only man, how does he say: 'If anyone keeps my word, he shall not see death forever'?

To not see death forever — what else is this than immortality? But immortality is the companion of divinity, since both divinity is immortal and immortality is the fruit of divinity. But every man is mortal, and immortality cannot be from the mortal. Therefore from Christ, a mortal man, immortality cannot be born. But 'whoever keeps my word,' he says, 'shall not see death forever.' Therefore the word of Christ bestows immortality, and through immortality bestows divinity.

But if a mortal man cannot bring it about that he make another immortal, while this word of Christ both displays and bestows immortality alike, then assuredly He who bestows immortality is not man only — for if He were man only He could not bestow it; rather, by bestowing divinity through immortality, He proves Himself to be God in conferring a divinity which, were He not God, He could not bestow. 8. If Christ is man only, how does He say, 'Before Abraham was, I am'? For none of men can exist before him from whom he himself is, nor can it come to pass that anything should have existed prior to him from whom he himself took his origin. Yet Christ, though He is from Abraham, says that He is before Abraham.

Therefore either He lies and deceives, if He who was from Abraham did not exist before Abraham; or He does not deceive, if He is also God, since He existed before Abraham. For unless He had so existed, then consequently, since He was from Abraham, He could not be before Abraham. 9. If Christ is man only, how does He say, 'And I shall know them, and my own sheep follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish for ever'? But since every man is bound by the laws of mortality and therefore cannot preserve himself for ever, much less can he preserve another for ever. Yet Christ promises that He will grant salvation for ever. If He does not grant it, He is a liar; if He grants it, He is God. But He does not deceive, for He grants what He promises.

He is therefore God, who bestows everlasting salvation — which man, who cannot preserve himself, will not be able to grant to another. 10. If Christ is man only, what is the meaning of His saying, 'I and the Father are one'? For how are I and the Father one, unless He is both God and Son, who can therefore be called one inasmuch as He is from the Father, and is His Son, and is born from Him, and is found to have proceeded from Him — by which He is also God? 11. And when the Jews had reckoned this an outrage and believed it blasphemy, because by these words He had shown that He, Christ, was God, and on that account had run together for stones and were eager to hurl the blows of rocks, He stoutly refuted His adversaries by the example and testimony of the Scriptures.

'If,' He says, 'He called them gods to whom the words were addressed, and the Scripture cannot be broken: do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world, You blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God?' 12. By which words He neither denied Himself to be God — nay rather, He affirmed Himself to be God. For since beyond doubt those are called gods to whom the words were addressed, much more is He God who is found to be better than all of them. And nonetheless He fittingly refuted the slanderous blasphemy by a lawful arrangement. For He wishes Himself to be understood as God in such a way that He would have Himself understood as the Son of God, and not the Father Himself.

For He said that He was sent, and showed that He had displayed many works from the Father, by which He willed Himself to be understood not as the Father, but as the Son; and in the final part of His defence He made mention of the Son, not of the Father, saying, 'You say, You blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of God?' 13. Thus, as regards the charge of blasphemy, He says He is the Son, not the Father; but as regards His own divinity, by saying 'I and the Father are one' He proved Himself to be both Son and God. He is therefore God, yet God in such a way that He is Son, not Father. XVI. 1. If Christ is man only, how does He Himself say, 'And everyone who sees and believes in me shall never die'?

But indeed he who believes in a solitary and bare man is said to be accursed, whereas he who believes in Christ is reported not to be accursed, but never to die for ever. From which, if He is man only, as the heretics will have it, how shall whoever believes in Him never die, since he who trusts in man is held to be accursed? Or if such a one is not accursed but rather, as we read, appointed unto the attainment of eternal life, then Christ is not man only, but also God — in whom whoever believes both lays aside the peril of the curse and draws near to the fruit of righteousness. 2. If Christ is man only, how does He say that the Paraclete will take from what is His the things He is to announce?

For neither does the Paraclete receive anything from man, but the Paraclete imparts knowledge to man; nor does the Paraclete learn things to come from man, but the Paraclete instructs man concerning things to come. Therefore either the Paraclete did not receive from Christ-the-man what He is to announce — since man could give nothing to the Paraclete, from whom man himself must receive — and in the present passage Christ deceives and beguiles, when He says that the Paraclete is to receive from Him, the man, the things He is to announce; or He does not deceive us, as indeed He does not deceive, and the Paraclete did receive from Christ the things He is to announce. 3. But if He received from Christ the things He is to announce, then Christ is already greater than the Paraclete, since the Paraclete would not receive from Christ unless He were less than Christ.

But the Paraclete, being less than Christ, by this very fact proves that Christ is also God — He from whom He receives what He announces — so that the testimony to Christ's divinity is mighty, since the Paraclete, found to be less than Christ, takes from Him what He delivers to the rest. For if Christ were man only, then Christ would receive from the Paraclete what He should say, and the Paraclete would not receive from Christ what He should announce. 4. If Christ is man only, why did He set us such a rule of believing, saying, 'And this is eternal life, that they may know thee the one and true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent'? If He had not willed Himself also to be understood as God, why did He add, 'and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent', unless because He willed Himself to be received as God also?

For if He had not willed Himself to be understood as God, He would have added, 'and Jesus Christ the man whom thou hast sent.' But as it is, Christ neither added this nor delivered Himself to us merely as man, but joined Himself to God, so that He willed Himself to be understood through this conjunction as also God, even as He is. 5. We must therefore believe, according to the prescribed rule, in the one Lord, the true God, and consequently in Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ — who would by no means, as we have said, have joined Himself to the Father, had He not willed Himself also to be understood as God. For He would have separated Himself from Him, had He not willed Himself to be understood as God; for He would have placed Himself only among men, had He known Himself to be man only, nor would He have joined Himself with God, had He not known Himself to be also God.

As it is, He is silent concerning His manhood, since no one doubts Him to be man, and He rightly joins Himself to God, that He might set before those who would believe the formula of His divinity. 6. If Christ is man only, how does He say, 'And now glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was'? If before the world was He had glory with God and held splendour with the Father, then He existed before the world; for He would not have had glory, unless He Himself first existed, who could hold the glory. For no one will be able to have anything, unless he himself first existed who holds something. But indeed Christ has glory before the foundation of the world. Therefore He existed before the foundation of the world.

For unless He existed before the foundation of the world, He could not have glory before the foundation of the world, since He Himself did not exist. But a man could not have had glory before the foundation of the world, since he came into being after the world; yet Christ had it; therefore He existed before the world; therefore He who existed before the world was not man only. He is therefore God, since He existed before the world and held glory before the world. 7. Nor let this be called predestination, since it has not been so set down. Or let those who think so add it; but woe to those who add to what is set down, even as to those who take away from it; therefore what cannot be added cannot be asserted. Predestination therefore being removed, which is not set down, Christ existed in substance before the foundation of the world.

For He is the Word, through whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing. 8. For even if He is said to be glorious in predestination, and that the predestination existed before the foundation of the world, then let order be preserved, and before Him there will be a great number of men destined unto glory. For by this destination Christ would be understood to be less than the rest, since He is marked as coming after them. For if this glory existed in predestination, then Christ received this predestination unto glory last of all; for Adam would be discerned to have been predestined before, and Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and all the rest. 9.

For since with God the order of all persons and all things has been arranged, before this predestination of Christ unto glory many would be said to have been predestined. And in this way Christ is found to be less than the rest of men — He who is found to be better and greater and more ancient than the very angels. 10. Either, therefore, let all these things be abolished, that divinity may not be taken away from Christ; or, if they cannot be abolished, let His proper divinity be rendered back to Christ by the heretics. XVII. 1. What if Moses follows this same rule of truth, and has handed it down to us at the beginning of his writings, that by it we may learn that all things were created and founded through the Son of God, that is, through the Word of God?

For he says the same thing as John, the same as the rest — nay, both John and the rest are understood to have received from him what they say. 2. For if John says, 'All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing,' and the prophet declares, 'I speak my works to the King,' while Moses introduces God commanding that, first of all, light be made, the heaven be established, the waters be gathered, the dry land appear, fruit be called forth according to its seeds, animals be produced, lights and stars be set in heaven — then he shows that no other was present with God, to whom these works were commanded to be done, save Him through whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing. 3. And so, this is the Word of God —

for 'my heart has uttered a good word' — he shows that in the beginning the Word existed, and that this Word was with the Father, and moreover that the Word was God, and that all things were made through Him. But indeed this Word was made flesh and dwelt among us — namely Christ, the Son of God — whom, since we both afterwards receive as man according to the flesh, and behold before the foundation of the world as the Word of God and as God, we rightly, according to the order of the Old and New Testament, both believe and hold to be Christ Jesus, both God and man. 4. What if the same Moses introduces God saying, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness,' and below, 'And God made man, in the image of God He made him, male and female He made them'?

If, as we have already taught, the Son of God is He through whom all things were made, then assuredly the Son of God is He through whom man also was established — man for whose sake all things were made. 5. But indeed, when God commands that man be made, God is reported to be He who makes man; yet it is the Son of God who makes man — namely the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing. And this Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Therefore Christ is God. Through Christ therefore man was made, as through the Son of God. But God made man in the image of God. He is therefore God who made man in the image of God.

Christ therefore is God, so that rightly neither does the authority of the Old Testament waver concerning the person of Christ, since it is upheld by the manifestation of the New Testament; nor is the power of the New Testament cut off, since the truth of the same rests upon the roots of the Old Testament. 6. From which, those who presume Christ, the Son of God and of man, to be man only, and not also God, act against both the Old and the New Testament, since they corrupt the authority and truth of both the Old and the New Testament. 7.

What if the same Moses everywhere introduces God the Father as immeasurable and without end — not as one enclosed within a place, but as one who encloses every place; not as one who is in a place, but rather in whom every place is — containing all things and embracing all, so that He rightly neither descends nor ascends, since He Himself both contains and fills all things — and yet nonetheless introduces God descending to the tower which the sons of men were building, seeking to consider it and saying, 'Come, and let us at once descend and there confound their tongues, that no one may hear the voice of his neighbour'? Whom do they wish to have descended here to that tower, seeking then to visit those men? God the Father? Then He is already enclosed within a place.

And how does He Himself embrace all things? 8. Or does he perhaps mean an angel descending with angels and saying, 'Come, and let us at once descend and there confound their tongues'? But indeed in Deuteronomy we observe that God reported these things, and that God spoke them, where it is set down: 'When He scattered abroad the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.' Therefore neither did the Father descend, as the matter indicates, nor did an angel command these things, as the matter proves. 9. It remains, therefore, that He descended of whom the apostle Paul says, 'He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things' — that is, the Son of God, the Word of God. And the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us. This will be Christ.

Christ therefore will be declared God. XVIII. 1. Behold, the same Moses reports in another place that God was seen by Abraham. And yet the same Moses hears from God that no one of men sees God and lives. If God cannot be seen, how was God seen? Or if He was seen, how can He not be seen? 2. For John too says, 'No one has ever seen God,' and the apostle Paul, 'Whom no one of men has seen, nor can see.' But surely the Scripture does not lie. Therefore God was truly seen. From which it can be understood that it was not the Father who was seen, who has never been seen, but the Son, who was both wont to descend and to be seen, because He descended. 3.

For He is the image of the invisible God, so that the meanness and frailty of the human condition might from that very time gradually grow accustomed to behold God the Father in the image of God, that is, in the Son of God. For step by step and by degrees human frailty had to be nourished through the image unto that glory, that it might at some time be able to behold God the Father. 4. For things that are great are dangerous, if they are sudden. For even the sudden light of the sun after darkness, with its excessive brilliance, will not show day to eyes unaccustomed to it, but rather will produce blindness.

And lest this happen to the harm of human eyes, the rising of that luminary, little by little dispelling and scattering the darkness, gently rising by gradual increments, accustoms the eyes of men by degrees, through the increase of its rays, to bear its whole orb. 5. So therefore Christ also, that is, the image of God and the Son of God, is beheld by men insofar as He could be seen. And therefore the frailty and meanness of the human lot is nourished, advanced, and brought up through Him, so that, accustomed to behold the Son, it might at some time be able to see even God Himself, the Father, as He is — lest, struck by the sudden and intolerable splendour of His majesty, it should be overwhelmed, so that it could not see God the Father, whom it always longed for. 6. From which, He who is seen is the Son.

But the Son of God is the Word of God. And the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us; and this is Christ. What evil reasoning is it to doubt that He is called God, who in so many ways is understood to be approved as God? 7.

And what if an angel met Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah, who had been cast out from the house and likewise put to flight, at a fountain of water on the way to Shur, and asked her the reasons for her flight and received them, and thereafter offered her counsels of humility, made for her moreover the hope of a mother's name, pledged and promised that from her womb there would be a great seed, opened that Ishmael was to be born of her, and with other things disclosed the place of his dwelling and described his manner of life — and yet the Scripture sets forth this angel as both Lord and God (for he would not have promised the blessing of the seed, had he not been both angel and God)? Let the heretics inquire what they may handle in the present passage. 8. Was He the Father who was seen by Hagar, or not? For He is set down as God.

But far be it to call God the Father an angel, lest He be made subject to another, whose angel He would be. 9. But they will say He was an angel. How then will He be God, if He was an angel, since this name was never granted to angels? Unless, indeed, because the truth on both sides shuts us up into this judgment, by which we ought to understand that it was the Son of God — who, since He is from God, is rightly God, because He is called the Son of God; and who, since He is subject to the Father and is the announcer of the Father's will, is declared the Angel of great counsel. 10.

Therefore if this passage suits neither the person of the Father — lest He be called an angel — nor the person of an angel — lest he be declared God — but does befit the person of Christ, that He should be both God, because He is the Son of God, and an angel, because He is the announcer of the Father's disposition — then the heretics ought to understand that they act against the Scriptures, who, while they say they believe Christ to be also an angel, are unwilling to declare Him also God, though in the Old Testament they read that He often came for the visitation of the human race. 11. Moses further added that God was seen by Abraham at the oak of Mamre, while he himself sat at the door of his tent at midday, and that nonetheless, when he had beheld three men, he named one of them Lord;

and when he had washed their feet, he offered them hearth-baked loaves with butter and an abundance of his own milk, and urged the guests, being detained, to eat. 12. After which he hears that he is to be a father, and learns that Sarah his wife will bear him a son, and is informed of the destruction of the Sodomites, who deserved to suffer it, and recognizes that, because of the outcry of Sodom, God had descended. 13. In which passage, if they wish the Father to be seen as having then been received with two angels into hospitality, the heretics have believed the Father to be visible. But if an angel — since of three angels one is named Lord — why, contrary to custom, is an angel called God?

Unless it be that, in order that invisibility proper to Him may be rendered to God the Father, and meanness proper to him be left to the angel, none but the Son of God — who is also God — is to be believed to have been seen by Abraham and received into hospitality. 14. For what He was to be, He rehearsed in mystery, being made the guest of Abraham, destined to be among the sons of Abraham; whose sons' feet, as proof that it was He, He washed, repaying in the sons the right of hospitality which their father had once lent Him. 15. Whence also, that there might be no doubt that this was the guest of Abraham, in the destruction of the Sodomites it is set down that 'the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven.' For so also the prophet, in the person of God: