Collected Works 7 part 3/4

Meanwhile, let a ready answer be at hand for me here against that which they bring forward also from John's Apocalypse, 「I am the Lord who is and who was and who comes, the Almighty,」 and wherever else they think that the appellation of God Almighty does not befit the Son as well: as though He who is to come were not Almighty, whereas the Son of the Almighty is as much Almighty as He is God the Son of God. CHAPTER 18. But lest they should easily perceive this fellowship of the paternal names in the Son, the Scripture disturbs them whenever it establishes one only God—as though it had not also set forth both two Gods and two Lords, as we have shown above. Therefore, because we find both two and one, they say, on this account both are one, and one and the same are both Son and Father.

Moreover, the Scripture is not in peril, that you should come to its aid out of your argumentation, lest it seem contrary to itself: it has its reason both when it establishes one only God and when it shows two, the Father and the Son, and it is sufficient for itself. That the Son is named by it is established: for, the Son being safe, it can rightly have defined one only God whose the Son is. For He who has a Son does not cease to be Himself the only One, namely in His own name, as often as He is named without the Son. But He is named without the Son when He is principally defined as the first person, who was to be set forth before the name of the Son, because the Father is known first and after the Father the Son is named. Therefore there is one God the Father, and besides Him there is no other: which He Himself, in so bringing in, does not deny the Son but another God:

For the rest, a Son who is other than the Father is not thereby no Son at all. Indeed, examine the context of pronouncements of this kind, and you will find that their intent bears almost entirely upon the makers and worshippers of idols, namely, that the unity of the Godhead should drive out the multitude of false gods; and yet He has a Son, who is so far to be reckoned as within the Father as He is undivided and inseparable from Him, even though He is not named. Nay, if He had named Him, He would have separated Him, saying thus: 'There is none other beside me except my Son'; for He would then have made even the Son another, whom He had excepted from the rest. Suppose the sun were to say, 'I am the sun, and there is none other beside me except my ray': would you not have marked its emptiness, as though the ray too were not reckoned as within the sun?

And so, that there is no other God beside Himself—this is on account of the idolatry both of the nations and of Israel; and also on account of the heretics, who, just as the nations fashion idols with their hands, so likewise fashion them with their words, that is, another God and another Christ. Therefore even when He proclaimed Himself one, the Father was providing for the Son, that Christ should not be believed to have come from another God, but from Him who had foretold, 'I am God, and there is none beside me,' who showed Himself to be sole, yet together with the Son, with whom alone He stretched out the heaven. CHAPTER 19. Nay, this very saying of His also they will seize upon as an argument for singularity: 'I have stretched out the heaven,' He says, 'alone.'

So far as concerns the other powers, He is 'alone,' setting up a defence beforehand against the conjectures of the heretics, who will have it that the world was framed by angels and by diverse powers, who also make the Creator Himself either an angel, or one who was suborned by others outside Him, being moreover ignorant of the work of the world. Or, if He alone thus stretched out the heaven, how do these heretics presume perversely, as though that Wisdom which was single were not admitted, which says, 'When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him'? And if He said, 'Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has been His counsellor?'—assuredly He speaks of what was apart from that Wisdom which was present with Him. Yet in Himself and together with Him He was framing all things, not ignorant of what He was doing.

But when He says 'apart from Wisdom,' He means 'apart from the Son,' who is Christ the Wisdom and Power of God, according to the Apostle, alone knowing the mind of the Father: for 'who knows the things that are in God, save the Spirit who is in Him?'—not one who is outside Him. There was therefore One who would make Him not simply God, but alone in respect of the rest. Nay, let even the Gospel be refused, which says that all things were made by God through the Word, and without Him was nothing made. For, unless I am mistaken, it is elsewhere written also: 'By His Word were the heavens established, and by His Spirit all the powers of them.' And this Word, being both Power and Wisdom, will Himself be the Son of God. Thus, if all things were through the Son, then also in stretching out the heaven through the Son He did not stretch it out alone, except in that sense in which He is alone in respect of the rest.

And indeed straightway He speaks of the Son: 'Who else has cast down the signs of the ventriloquists and the divinations from the heart, turning the wise men backward and making their counsel foolish, establishing the words of His Son?'—by saying, namely, 'This is my beloved Son, hear Him.' Thus, by subjoining the Son, He is Himself the interpreter of how He stretched out the heaven alone, namely, alone together with the Son, just as together with the Son He is one. Accordingly it will also be the Son's voice, 'I have stretched out the heaven alone,' because by the Word were the heavens established. Since it was with Wisdom assisting in the Word that the heaven was prepared, and all things were made through the Word, it is fitting that the Son too stretched out the heaven alone, because He alone ministered to the operation of the Father.

The same will be He who says, 'I am the first, and in what is to come I am,'—the first, namely, of all being the Word: 'In the beginning was the Word,' in which beginning He was put forth by the Father. But the Father, having no beginning, as put forth by no one, as unbegotten, cannot be seen as first: He who alone always was could have no order of succession. Therefore, if for this reason they have thought that the same one is to be believed both Father and Son, in order to vindicate one God, the unity of Him is preserved who, though He is one, has also a Son, who is likewise Himself comprehended in the same Scriptures. If they are unwilling that the Son be reckoned second to the Father, lest being second He make two Gods to be spoken of, we have shown that even two Gods are related in Scripture, and two Lords.

And yet, lest they be scandalized at this, we render the account whereby God is not said to be two, nor two Lords, but whereby Father and Son are two—and this not from a separation of substance, but from an arrangement, since we proclaim the Son to be undivided and inseparable from the Father, other not in condition but in degree; who, even though He be called God when named singly, does not on that account make two Gods, but one, by this very fact that He must be called God out of the unity of the Father. CHAPTER 20. But labour must still be bestowed upon refuting their arguments, in case they should excerpt anything from the Scriptures for their opinion, being unwilling to consider the rest, which likewise keep the rule, and that indeed with the unity of the Godhead preserved and the sound of the monarchy.

For just as in the old Scriptures they hold to nothing else than 'I am God, and there is no other beside me,' so in the Gospel they cling to the Lord's answer to Philip, 'I and the Father are one,' and 'He who has seen me has seen the Father also,' and 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me.' To these three little passages they would have the whole instrument of both Testaments yield, whereas the fewer things ought to be understood in accordance with the more. But this is the peculiar mark of all heretics. For because the things that can be found in the forest are few, they defend the few against the many, and take up the later against the earlier. But the rule of everything, always established from the beginning in the earlier parts, prescribes also for the later ones, and assuredly for the fewer as well. CHAPTER 21.

Consider therefore how many things they prescribe to you even in the Gospel, before Philip's questioning and before all your argumentation. And first of all, the very preface of John the evangelist immediately shows what He was before who was to become flesh: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made.' For if these things may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, then without doubt there is shown to be one who was from the beginning, and another with whom He was: one the Word of God, another God—although the Word too is God, but in that He is the Son of God, not in that He is the Father—one through whom are all things, another from whom are all things.

But in what sense we call Him 'another' we have already set forth often. In calling Him another, we necessarily mean not the same one; yet not the same in such a way as if separate—another by arrangement, not by division. This one, then, was made flesh, not He whose Word He was. The glory of this one was seen 'as of the only-begotten from the Father,' not as of the Father. This only-begotten one made known the bosom of the Father, not the Father His own bosom; for it precedes: 'No one has ever seen God.' Hence too, if the Lamb of God is designated by John, it is not He whose Beloved He is. Certainly He is always the Son of God, but not He whose Son He is. This Nathanael straightway perceived, as also elsewhere Peter: 'Thou art the Son of God.' And He Himself confirms that they had rightly perceived this, answering to Nathanael indeed, 'Because I said, I saw thee under the fig tree, therefore thou believest;'

but affirming Peter blessed, to whom neither flesh nor blood had revealed what he had perceived concerning the Father as well, but the Father who is in heaven. By which saying He established the distinction of both persons, of the Son on earth, whom Peter had acknowledged to be the Son of God, and of the Father in heaven, who had revealed to Peter what Peter had acknowledged, namely, Christ the Son of God. When He entered into the temple, He calls it the house of the Father, as the Son. When He says to Nicodemus, 'God so loved the world,' says He, 'that He gave His only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have life everlasting'; and again, 'For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him; he who believes in Him is not judged;'

'he who does not believe in Him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.' And John, when he was asked about Jesus as he was baptizing, said, 'The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand; he who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe in the Son of God shall not see God, but the wrath of God abides upon him.' But to whom did He show Himself to the Samaritan woman? If as the Messiah who is called Christ, He assuredly showed Himself to be the Son, not the Father, since elsewhere too Christ is called the Son of God, not the Father. Thereupon to His disciples He said, 'It is mine to do the will of Him who sent me, that I may accomplish His work.' And to the Jews concerning the healing of the paralytic, 'My Father works even until now, and I work.'

'The Father and I'—the Son says. And indeed for this reason the Jews were the more desiring to kill Him, not only because He broke the Sabbath, but because He called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. Then, therefore, He said to them, 'The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it; for whatever things He does, these the Son also does likewise: for the Father loves the Son, and has shown Him all things that He does, and will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel; for as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. For neither does the Father judge, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father; he who does not honour the Son, does not honour the Father who sent the Son.'

'Amen, amen, I say to you, that he who hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but passes from death to life. Amen, I say to you, that the hour is coming when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and when they have heard it they shall live: for as the Father has eternal life in Himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have eternal life in Himself, and has given Him to exercise judgment in His power, because He is the Son of Man'—through the flesh, namely, just as He is also the Son of God through His Spirit. Further He adds, 'But I have a testimony greater than John's; for the works which the Father has given me to accomplish, these very works bear witness of me that the Father has sent me;'

'and the Father who sent me, He Himself has borne testimony of me.' And subjoining, 'Neither have you ever heard His voice, nor seen His form,' He confirms that formerly it was not the Father, but the Son, who was seen and heard. Finally He says, 'I have come in my Father's name, and you did not receive me'—so much was the Son always in the name of God, and of King, and of Lord Almighty, and of the Most High. And to those asking what they ought to do He answered, 'That you believe in Him whom God has sent.' He affirms Himself also to be the bread which the Father would furnish from heaven; therefore that everything which the Father would give Him comes to Him, and that He would not cast it out, because He had come down from heaven not to do His own will but the Father's;

and that it is the will of the Father that whoever sees the Son and believes in Him should obtain life and resurrection; and further, that no one can come to Him except him whom the Father draws; that everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Him: 'Not that anyone has seen the Father,' adding here too, in order to show that the Word is the Father's, through whom they are made taught. But when many depart from Him and He offers to His own apostles the choice of departing themselves as well, what did Simon Peter answer? 'To whom shall we depart? Thou hast the words of life, and we believe that thou art Christ': is He the Father, or the Father's Christ? CHAPTER 22. But of whom does He say the teaching was at which they marvelled? His own, or the Father's?

When they were likewise in doubt among themselves whether He Himself was the Christ—assuredly not the Father but the Son—He said, 'You know me, and you know whence I am, and I have not come of myself, but He who sent me is true, whom you do not know; I know Him, because I am with Him.' He did not say, 'Because I am He,' and 'I have sent myself,' but 'He sent me.' Likewise, when the Pharisees had sent to seize Him, He says, 'Yet a little time I am with you, and I go to Him who sent me.' And when He denies that He is alone—'But I,' He says, 'and the Father who sent me'—does He not show two, as much two as inseparable? Nay, this was the whole of what He was teaching, that the two are inseparable:

since indeed, setting forth also the Law which confirms by the testimony of two men, He subjoins, 'I bear testimony of myself, and He who sent me, the Father, bears testimony of me.' But if He were one, being at once both Son and Father, He would not have been cited under the patronage of the Law, which imposes faith not by the testimony of one but of two. Likewise, being asked where the Father was, answering that neither He nor the Father was known to them, He spoke of two who were unknown, since if they had known Him they would have known the Father: not indeed as though He Himself were both Father and Son, but because through their undividedness the one cannot either be recognized or be unknown without the other. 'He who sent me,' He says, 'is true, and I speak in the world the very things which I have heard from Him:'

the Scripture interpreting from without that they had not perceived what He had said concerning the Father, whereas indeed they ought to have perceived that the words of the Father are in the Son, by reading in Jeremiah, 'And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth'; and in Isaiah, 'The Lord gives me the tongue of instruction, to know when it is fitting to speak the word'; just as He again says, 'Then,' He says, 'you shall know that I am He, and that of myself I speak nothing, but as He taught me, so also I speak, because He who sent me is with me.' And this is toward the testimony of the two who are undivided.

Likewise, in the altercation with the Jews, reproaching them that they wished to kill Him, He says, 'I speak the things which I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your father'; and 'now you wish to kill a man who has spoken the truth to you which He heard from God': and, 'If God were your Father, you would love me; for I came forth from God and have come' (and yet they are not separated, though He said He came forth, as some seize upon the occasion of this saying; He came forth, however, from the Father as a ray from the sun, as a stream from the fountain, as a shoot from the seed): and, 'I have no demon, but I honour my Father': and, 'If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; there is One who glorifies me, the Father, whom you say to be your God, and yet you do not know Him;'

'but I know Him; and if I should say I do not know Him, I should be like you, a liar; but I know Him and keep His word.' And when He subjoins, 'Abraham saw my day and was glad,' surely He shows that the Son of Abraham was seen of old, not the Father. Likewise concerning that blind man He says that He must do the works of the Father; and to him, after the restoration of his sight, 'Dost thou,' He says, 'believe in the Son of God?' And to the man asking who this was, showing Himself, He assuredly showed the Son, whom He had said was to be believed in. Thereafter He professes that He is known by the Father and the Father by Him, and that He is therefore loved by the Father because He lays down His soul, since He had received this commandment from the Father.

And when He was asked by the Jews whether He Himself was the Christ (assuredly God's Christ, for even to this very day the Jews hope for the Christ of God, not the Father Himself, since Christ the Father was never written to be about to come), He says, 'I speak to you, and you do not believe; the works which I do in the name of the Father, these bear witness of me.' What testimony? Namely, that He is the one about whom they were asking, that is, the Christ of God. Concerning His sheep also, that no one should snatch them out of His hand, He says, 'For the Father, that which He has given me, is greater than all'; and, 'I and the Father are one.' Here, then, the foolish—nay rather the blind—wish to fix their footing, who do not see, first, that 'I and the Father' is the signification of two;

then, in what follows, 'we are,' which is not from the being of one person, since it is said in the plural; then, that He says 'we are one,' not 'we are one person.' For if He had said 'we are one person,' He might have helped their opinion: for 'one' seems to be the signification of the singular number. Furthermore, when of two of the masculine gender He says 'one' by a neuter word—which does not pertain to singularity, but to unity, to likeness, to conjunction, to the love of the Father who loves the Son, and to the obedience of the Son who obeys the will of the Father—saying 'we are one,' I and the Father, He shows that there are two whom He makes equal and joins. Indeed He adds also that He had shown many works from the Father, for none of which He deserved to be stoned.

And lest they should think that they ought therefore to stone Him, as though He had wished to be understood to be God Himself, that is, the Father, because He had said 'I and the Father are one'—whereby He showed the Son of God to be God, not whereby He showed Himself to be God the Father—He says, 'If in the Law it is written, I said, You are gods, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world that He blasphemes, because He said, I am the Son of God? If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do, and you are unwilling to believe me, believe at least on account of the works, and know that I am in the Father and the Father in me.'

Through the works, then, the Father will be in the Son and the Son in the Father, and thus through the works we understand that the Father and the Son are one; so entirely did He persevere in this purpose of leading them to believe that there are nevertheless two in one power, since otherwise the Son could not be believed unless two were believed. CHAPTER 23. But after these things, when Martha confessed Him to be the Son of God, she erred no more than Peter and Nathanael: although, even if she had erred, she would straightway have been instructed. For behold, in order to raise her brother from the dead, the Lord, looking up to heaven and to the Father, says, 'Father'—assuredly the Son—'I give Thee thanks that Thou always hearest me; because of these crowds standing around I have said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me.' But also in the troubling of His soul: 'And what shall I say?'

'Father, save me from this hour? Nay, for this cause I came into this hour; but, Father, glorify Thy name.' In which name the Son was: 'I,' He says, 'came in my Father's name.' Thereupon—since, namely, the voice of the Son toward the Father had sufficed—behold, out of abundance the Father answers from heaven, testifying to the Son, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear Him': so also in this instance, 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.' How many persons seem there to you, most perverse Praxeas, save as many as there are voices? You have a Son on earth, you have a Father in heaven. This is not a separation, but a divine arrangement.

For the rest, we know that God is even within the depths and consists everywhere, but by force and power the Son too, as undivided, is everywhere with Him. Yet in the very economy the Father willed the Son to be held on earth, but Himself in heaven. Whither the Son too, looking up, both prayed and made request of the Father, and whither He taught us also, uplifted, to pray, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' although He is everywhere too. This seat the Father willed to be His own: 'Heaven,' He says, 'is my throne.' Hence too He made the Son a little lower than the angels by sending Him down to earth, intending nevertheless to crown Him with glory and honour by taking Him up again into the heavens. These things He was already furnishing Him when He said, 'I have both glorified and will glorify.' The Son makes request from the earth, the Father promises from the heavens.

Why do you make both the Father and the Son a liar? If either the Father was speaking from the heavens to the Son while He Himself was the Son on earth, or the Son was praying to the Father while He Himself was the Father in the heavens—what sort of thing is it that the Son should likewise make request of Himself in making request of the Father, if the Son was the Father, and again that the Father should promise to Himself in promising to the Son, if He was the Father? So that, even if we were to say that there are two divided, as you keep flinging about, it were more tolerable to preach two divided than one shape-shifting God.

And so to these the Lord now proclaimed, 'This voice came not for my sake, but for yours,' that these too might believe both the Father and the Son, each in their own names and persons and places. But still Jesus cries out and says, 'He who believes in me, believes not in me, but in Him who sent me,' since through the Son one believes in the Father, and the authority for believing in the Son is the Father: 'And he who beholds me, beholds Him who sent me': how? Namely because, 'I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who sent me, He Himself gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak'—'for the Lord gives me the tongue of instruction, to know when it is fitting to speak'—'the word which I speak, as the Father has told me, so also I speak.'

How these things were spoken, the evangelist and assuredly so dear a disciple, John, knew better than Praxeas. And therefore he himself, from his own understanding, says: 'Now before the solemnity of the Passover, Jesus knowing that all things had been delivered to Him by the Father, and that He was from God and was going to God.' But Praxeas will have it that the Father Himself went forth from Himself and departed to Himself, so that the devil put into the heart of Judas the betrayal not of the Son but of the Father Himself: which is well neither for the devil nor for the heretic, since not even in His own good Son did the devil work the betrayal. For the Son of God was betrayed, who was in the Son of Man, as the Scripture subjoins: 'Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.' Which God?

Assuredly not the Father, but the Word of the Father, who was in the Son of Man, that is, in the flesh: in which He was already glorified even before—in power, indeed, and in word—even before, Jesus says, 'And God,' He says, 'will glorify Him in Himself'—that is, the Father will glorify the Son, whom, having Him in Himself, though stretched forth to the earth, He soon glorified through the resurrection, when death was overcome. CHAPTER 24. There were plainly some who even then did not understand: since Thomas too, for some time unbelieving, says, 'Lord, we do not know whither Thou goest, and how do we know the way?' And Jesus: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me; if you had known me, you would have known the Father also; but from now you know Him and have seen Him.'

And we have now arrived at Philip, who, roused by the hope of seeing the Father, and not understanding how he had heard that the Father was seen, says, 'Show us the Father, and it suffices us': and the Lord, 'Philip, have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me?' Whom does He say ought to have been known by them? For this alone must be examined. As the Father, or as the Son? If as the Father, let Praxeas teach that Christ, having so long consorted with them, could at any time—I do not say be understood, but even so much as be reckoned—to be the Father. For us all the Scriptures, both the old ones foreordain Him to be the Christ of God, and the new ones the Son of God.

This was preached beforehand, this was proclaimed by Christ Himself, nay, even by the Father Himself openly from the heavens, professing the Son and glorifying the Son: 'This is my Son'; and, 'I have glorified and will glorify.' This was believed by the disciples, this was not believed by the Jews: wishing this to be believed by them, He named the Father at every hour, and preferred the Father, and honoured the Father. If this is so, then it was not the Father who had consorted with them so long a time that they had failed to know, but the Son: and the Lord, reproaching him with ignorance of Him whom he had not known, assuredly wished to be recognized as the very one whom for so long a time He had reproached them with not recognizing, that is, the Son. And now it can appear in what sense it was said, 'He who sees me sees the Father also:'

namely, in the sense of what is above, 'I and the Father are one.' Why? Because, 'I came forth from God and have come'; and, 'I am the way, no one comes to the Father but by me'; and, 'No one comes to me unless the Father draws him'; and, 'The Father has delivered all things to me'; and, 'As the Father gives life, so also the Son'; and, 'If you have known me, you have known the Father also.' For according to these things He had shown Himself to be the vicar of the Father, through whom the Father is both seen in deeds and heard in words and known in the Son as the Son administers the deeds and words of the Father: because the Father is invisible, which Philip too had learned in the Law and ought to have remembered—'No one shall see God and live.'

And therefore he is rebuked for desiring to see the Father as though visible, and is instructed that He becomes visible in the Son by virtue of His powers, not by a representation of His person. In short, if He had wished the same Father to be understood as the Son by saying, 'He who sees me sees the Father,' how does He subjoin, 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?' For He ought rather to have subjoined, 'Do you not believe that I am the Father?' Or by what did He amplify, if He did not make manifest what He had wished to be understood, namely, that He was the Son? Further, by saying, 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me,' He amplified for this reason rather, lest, because He had said, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father also,' He should be reckoned the Father: