Works 2 part 5/8

but all these are held in God in one and the same manner; yet they cannot be defined in a single manner. Take care, however, lest, because we have said 'manner' in God, you understand Him to be modified by certain limits, who by the immensity of His virtue exceeds all things. For just as, when we say 'immense,' we do not wish 'immoderate' to be understood, or when we predicate 'perfect,' we do not introduce one 'making progress'; that is, we do not assert that He arrived at the highest summits of perfection by advancing gradually through some efficacies of virtues, learning by experience: so also you ought to take this word. But let us return to the proposed matter. Therefore see by how many names of words we call God, who is without doubt simple:

wise, good, omnipotent, provident, and perfect. And these indeed in relation to Himself. But in relation to us: merciful, kind, just, and benign. Yet no one will dare to assert Him to be composed of a manifold quality of virtues, who, subsisting in the singular omnipotence of virtue, is believed to be of a pure and simple nature. But this one and the same virtue of His nature, the understanding of the human condition, impeded by the natural obstacles of its ignorance, could not unfold in a single word. And therefore it uses various and manifold appellations of names; so that from this it may be more easily conjectured of what kind and how great is the nature of the divine virtue. Which, though it be one and the same and simple, yet we do not wholly unfold in a single word.

For if, for example's sake, we run through the various kinds of divine operation, and inquire by what virtue He stretched out the vaulted heaven with such great loftiness, and founded the earth with immovable stability, and poured out the seas through the soluble channels of the plains—whether as wise or as omnipotent; it is surely answered, both as wise and as omnipotent. And is He therefore composed of a diversity of virtues? By no means, but there are many kinds of significations of one virtue, because in Him wisdom does not work one thing, omnipotence another, providence another. XXV. Finally it is written: 'God by His wisdom founded the earth, He established the heavens by prudence, by His understanding the depths broke forth' [Prov. 3:19].

Shall we then be so senseless as to say that the heaven indeed subsisted by one virtue, that is, prudence, but the earth by another, that is, wisdom; and that by yet another virtue of God, that is, His understanding, the depths burst apart? But see how the divine Scripture, that it might renounce the error of this absurd opinion, gathers up again into one, and unites, the virtue of appellation that which it had divided through the kinds of names, saying: 'Thou hast made all things in wisdom' [Ps. 103:24]. And again: 'All these things my hand has made' [Acts 7:50]. You see therefore that in God, whose nature is simple, whether 'hand,' or 'wisdom,' or 'prudence,' or 'understanding,' indicates not a diversity of things, but one virtue.

Which being so, no further place is left for the question raised, by which it is asked whether God the Father generated the Son by will or by nature; since in God (as we have thoroughly taught) the will is nothing other than the wisdom, nor the wisdom other than the nature, which is also called virtue. And since Christ is all these, as the Apostle says: 'But we preach Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God' [1 Cor. 1:23-24], it appears that He was begotten of the Father by the free omnipotence of natural virtue; since nature in God is not, as Arius ridiculously supposes, reckoned by the condition of necessity (lest the Father Himself, who subsists naturally, should seem to subsist of necessity);

but it is of free power, and a virtue bound by no necessities; which, because it received from nowhere else its being, is therefore called 'nature,' as it were the fount and origin of all things. In this nature, therefore, is the Son; and subsisting in this fount of origin He proceeded, as it were wisdom from the wise, virtue from the strong, splendor from the light. Which profession or nativity (that is, the Son) demonstrates such virtue to be in itself, that it was both always in the Father, and, brought forth, never departed from the Father: just as wisdom does not desert the wise, just as his own virtue does not forsake the strong, just as splendor does not separate itself from its own light. XXVI. Arius said: It seems to me that you can never loose the knot of the question attempted by me.

For above, as I recall having said in just these words so that I may here repeat it, God, who embraces all things and has nothing outside Himself, can in no way flow away through any increase of generation, nor can the Infinite overflow in the least; nor, certainly, has He divided His own substance into the Son, nor has He named as Son only that part of the paternal substance set apart from Himself and cut off in due proportion beforehand, withdrawing from Himself just as much as He seems to have conferred upon the Son. To these arguments it is established that you have given no reply. Athanasius said: See into what madness you are slipping, that you should think the secret of the divine birth—unknown even to the powers above—can rather be tracked out by philosophical reasonings than beheld through the reverence of faith;

and known, according to the dignity of its own marvel, only to the Son alone and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit—yet you shut it up within the bounds of human reason, and, as though it were some commonplace matter of no secret, you handle it with the bold hand of disputation. And whereas not even of creatures, which lie beneath the gaze of human sight, can a full account be rendered (since they subsist by the unsearchable working of wonders), you sift their Creator—who excels these by something far more marvelous—with your questioning, you circumscribe Him with argument, and you cheapen Him with unworthy and profane reasonings.

But while you are unwilling to submit to faith, while you disdain to be subject to marvelous and ineffable things, while you are tossed by the heats of impatience and measure things immense and infinite, you bring the point of your purpose to this: that either God did not beget at all, or, if He begot, He lay subject to all the constraints of conditions which you object. XXVII. But you who babble such trifles with a sacrilegious mouth, and wish to introduce a God subsisting in bodily mass—because the things you object suit only things visible and existing in palpable matter. For while you strive to show the Son begotten from without and not of the Father's substance, you have passed over, abandoning the simplicity of faith, to the questions of an empty philosophical art;

so that, because the divine nature cannot fall away from its own infinity, nor overflow further through flowing abundances of effusions, it should be judged most like to dull and grosser matter, which cannot bestow anything out of itself without loss to itself. Therefore, since a bodily thing takes on increase, and a thing subject to death feels diminishment, let us see whether God—who is in none of these—by generating the Son out of Himself, has neither divided His substance in due proportion (as Arius supposes in empty dread and the superfluous terror of fear), nor withdrawn from Himself anything to confer upon the Son, so that by this very thing He either today lacks it and is not perfect, or, if He does not need it, seems to abound superfluously.

First, therefore, withdrawing from every limitation of bodily passions, and leaving behind all the conditions of visible natures, let us discourse spiritually concerning the spiritual birth, and let us presume nothing about it from the conjecture of our senses. Divine Scripture, then, in order to show the impassibility of the Father's begetting, has declared the Son to be the mind, the wisdom, the power, the word, the light. The mind, namely, by which all things are thought; the wisdom, by which the things thought are ordered; the power, by which the things ordered are perfected; the word, by which the things perfected are announced; the light, by which the things announced are made bright. And all these kinds of names are not diverse, but are one power. XXVIII.

For because His greatness could not be known by the utterance of a single word, therefore He is distinguished by the manifold appellation of names, so that from the diversity or quality of the name we may recognize the magnitude of the power. Since, then, counsel is not separated from Him whose counsel it is, since power is not severed from the strong one, since wisdom is not distinguished from the wise one, since mind is not torn from the one who minds, since the Word is not taken away from the paternal Source, since splendor is set apart by no division from its own light—it is manifest that the Father has received no increase, nor felt any loss in generating the Son; because these are both naturally present in God, and He Himself is naturally present in them:

as the Son Himself more openly declares, saying: I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 10:38 and 14:10-11). For to be and to be within is neither an overflowing abundance, that is, redundant beyond itself (since this very being-within—that is, being in the Father—Arius does not accept, but cavils that it flows outside); nor is it a casting-off of loss, when the heart begets wisdom, when the intellect generates counsel, when the mouth utters speech, when the light emits splendor. For the splendor is within the light, and the light within the splendor, and thus each subsists in the other by nature, so that neither can be without the other; because wherever there is light, there too the splendor shines forth with equal brightness of the radiant light. Therefore the Father is not an abundance of superfluous redundancy, as though flowing outside Himself;

but rather out of Himself and in Himself, as the wise one begot Wisdom, the Son, and therefore He has in no way at all departed from the magnitude of His own infinity. Nor has He set apart from Himself any little portion of His substance in due proportion, because the light, in begetting the splendor, is not subject to any separation. And thus, by pursuing each point, you will find the Father in His generation neither augmented by the fault of redundant accumulation, nor diminished by the loss of a divided portion, nor sundered by the division of a separated substance: because the nature of things, to which that sacred and ineffable generation is compared, admits in itself nothing of the sort that could be subject either to overflow, or to diminishment, or to loss. XXIX. Probus the judge said: C—

—it is indeed established that the nature of light, or of word and wisdom and the other powers that you have mentioned, cannot, in its operations, be held by these conditions. But whether, as you say, the birth of the Father's generation is rightly compared to such examples, it behooves you to teach by divine testimonies. Arius said: In the foregoing course of my argument I have begun thus, that Athanasius is hurled headlong into the depths by the treachery of his blindness. For while he wishes to display the eloquence of his speech, unknowingly he is caught up in a crime, saying that divine Scripture declares that which makes the Son equal to His begetter in the substance of God; whereas the Son Himself testifies of Himself and says: The Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and: He who sent me gave me a commandment (John 12:49);

and: I have not come of myself, but He sent me (John 8:42); and: I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me (John 6:38); and: As the Father said to me, so I speak (John 12:50); and: What He gave me, I have kept (John 17:12); and: All that the Father gave me, no one takes from me (John 6:39); and: I will ask Him, and He will furnish me more than twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26:53); and: If this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, Thy will be done (ibid. 42); and: Let this cup pass from me. Not as I will, but as Thou wilt (ibid. 39); and: The things that are pleasing to Him I do always (John 8:29); and: To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give to you (Matt. 20:23);

and: He gave Him a name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9); and: He exalted His child; and: The Lord thy God hath blessed thee (Ps. 44:8); and: He raised Him from the dead. He made Him to sit at His right hand (Eph. 1:20), and many things similar to these, which for the sake of brevity I omit.

If, then, He has one greater than Himself, if He was sent by Him, if He came not of His own spontaneous will, if He did not do His own will, if He speaks what is told Him, if He keeps the things given to Him, if He asks, if He prays concerning the cup, if He received His name from another, if He is exalted by another, if He does not by His own power grant the seats to the disciples who request them, if He does the things pleasing to the Father, and is raised from the dead by Him—does it seem just that one who says such and so great things of his own subjection should be made equal to the Father? XXX. Probus the judge said:

If, against these abundant testimonies of divine authority which have been brought forward by Arius concerning the Son's subjection, anything seems available to Athanasius, let him not delay to declare it, so that, with the superstructure of mere speech removed, the Son may be shown rather from the divine lights to be either unlike or co-equal to the Father; so that, the truth being recognized, those things which befit sound faith and reason may be confirmed. Athanasius said: However much the cunning of Arius may run on in loftiness of speech, and applaud itself for the testimonies it has brought from the authority of the divine law—by which, namely, it strives to set the Son apart from equality with the Father:

all the things which were inserted by him at length will, by these very testimonies, be frustrated by us without any difficulty in their intent. Christ, therefore, the Son of God, in the form of a servant which He took from the Virgin, is said to be subject to the Father, the Apostle Paul no less affirming: When, he says, the fullness of times came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law (Gal. 4:4). He, therefore, is said to be subject who is known to be born under the law of a woman, and in that form shows the Father greater than Himself—the form which He voluntarily took from the Virgin. For in the form of God the Father, the angelic choir is proved to have rendered Him ministry. For thus it is written in the Gospel:

And the devil departed from Him, and angels came and ministered to Him (Matt. 4:11). He objects that He did the Father's will and not His own. In this saying of these words He ought rather to be deemed praiseworthy, because He who equably did the Father's will showed His equality; the Apostle confirming: This, he says, is the will of God in Christ Jesus (1 Thess. 5:18). For, since He added, As the Father said to me, so I speak (John 12:50)—why should the human race, understanding what is right, be troubled at hearing this word? For if Christ spoke otherwise than God the Father, then indeed He would be shown unequal or unlike the Father. But if He speaks the things which the Father speaks,

He is never found unequal or unlike the Father. What He gave me, He says, I have kept (John 17:12); and: All that He gave me, no one takes from me (John 6:39). The divine gifts, therefore, are in this way to be understood as attributed to the Son. XXXI.

For the Father gave to the omnipotent Son omnipotence, bestowed majesty upon majesty, gave power to power, gave prudence to prudence, gave foreknowledge to foreknowledge, divinity to divinity, eternity to eternity, co-equality to co-equality, immortality to immortality, invisibility to invisibility, the kingdom to the King, life to life; and He gave no other than that which He has, and gave as much as He has, or if there be any other things which the Father is shown to have conferred upon the Son indivisibly and inseparably. But all these He is proved to have given to one who already had them rather than to one in need, to whom it is said by the Son: All mine are Thine, and all Thine are mine (John 17:10).

If all these things which the Father is reported to have conferred upon the Son are seen to be some in Him and others in the Son, we without doubt make the Son a liar, who says that the things which are the Father's are His own. But if in these things which He said the Son is found a liar, then also the evangelist, who says: Making Himself equal to God (John 5:18), is deceived in every respect; and thus neither is the Father shown to have conferred anything upon the Son wholly and truly. But if those things are true, as they are, which the Father conferred upon the Son inseparably and without distinction, let the tongues of demented men fall silent, which attempt to separate the Son from the Father's substance. The Son asks the Father, that He may maintain He bore true manhood.

For, that He might intimate the power of His deity, He commanded the sea and the winds, and fed five thousand men from five loaves. As a man He sorrowfully received the cup of His passion, but as God He gave to drink to believers the fountain of living water springing up unto eternal life. He received a name, that in this name things heavenly, earthly, and infernal should adore. He was exalted from the depths to the heights, that is, ascending from the flesh of human frailty to God. He sits at the right hand of majesty, that human weakness might not doubt to follow Him where it has seen its own Head glorified. He was anointed, that by the anointing of His own chrism we might be cleansed from the stain of the former man's sin. He was raised from the dead, that by the example of His resurrection we might be freed from the sting of death.

He testifies that He cannot give the seats to the disciples who request them, lest division should arise among them. For He who says, It is not mine to give to you, is the very one who long since granted to the twelve disciples the power of judging upon thrones. He did the things pleasing to the Father, because He knows not how to do contrary things. For because He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, He said: To do Thy will, O my God, I have willed (Ps. 39:9); and: Willingly will I sacrifice to Thee (Ps. 53:8). He who says, The Father is greater than I (John 14:28), said: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); and: That they may be one in us, as I and Thou are one (John 17:21-22); and: All mine are Thine, and Thine are mine (John 17:10);

and: Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 14:10-11); and: My Father works, and I work (John 5:17); and: As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will (John 5:21); and: He who sees me, sees also the Father (John 14:9); and: He who hates me, hates my Father also (John 15:23); and: Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee (John 17:1); and: I have glorified Thee upon the earth (ibid. 4); and: I have manifested Thy name to men (ibid. 6). And that every effort of human cavilling may be put to rest, I will bring forward as witness John the evangelist, whose testimony I used above, who says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God—

If these so great things befitting the divinity, by which we have taught that the Father and the Son are one, do not suffice for the perfidious, let us, if it seems good, add others. XXXII. Probus the judge said: If Arius shall strive to oppose this so valid and certain argument, it is certain that he is following not reason, but ranges more unbridled through the fields of irrational words. He who until now, circling about through some misty fog the doctrine of three substances, as he confessed above (just as Athanasius has shown the doctrine of one substance by very many documents), has been unable to demonstrate his assertion. Arius said:

Is it because Athanasius, from the divine oracles, by I know not what fine points, has been seen with rash daring to affirm that the Son is of one substance and co-equal to the Father—is it therefore that the Spirit, who is the minister of the Father and the Son, ought to be granted equal confession with them? When the Son Himself says: He shall glorify me, because He shall receive of mine (John 16:14); and: I will send you the Spirit of truth (John 15:26); and: The Spirit shall proceed from me, whom the Father will send in my name (John 14:26); and the Father says to the bones of the dead: I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live (Ezek. 37:5-6). Surely he who is sent or proceeds from the Father ought not to be equated to Him, when the prophet testifies of Him, saying:

Behold the Lord, who fixes the thunder and creates the spirit (Amos 4:13). Surely it will never seem to me that a creature is equated to its own Creator, or possesses one and the same power of command together with Him. Athanasius said: That the Son of God is the Wisdom and the Power, I have indeed already demonstrated above, where I proved that the Apostle said: Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). But now also, more truly and more securely, if you judge it necessary, I will repeat the testimonies concerning this same proof. XXXIII. Wisdom itself, that is, the Son, cries out through Solomon, saying: I came forth from the mouth of the Most High (Sir. 24:5); and: Before the hills, he says, He begot me (Prov. 8:25).

And that this same Wisdom is the splendor of the paternal light is likewise confirmed by the testimony of the aforesaid Solomon and of David and of the Apostle. Solomon too speaking thus: The splendor, he says, of eternal light, the spotless mirror (Wis. 7:26), through which and in which without doubt the Father is seen, as the Son Himself says in the Gospel: He who sees me, sees also the Father (John 14:9). Which David also more openly declaring, speaks to the Father, saying: With Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we shall see light (Ps. 35:10). Do you hear that light is discerned in light, that is, the Father is contemplated in the Son? Paul too proclaims things congruent with these, saying: Who, since He is the splendor and the image of His substance (Heb. 1:3).

He is also named the Word, just as the Father pronounces, to demonstrate the impassibility of His generation, saying: My heart has uttered a good Word (Ps. 44:2); and: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established (Ps. 32:6); and: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). God, he says, was the Word. Understand the Word not as something uttered forth and passing away with the sound of the voice, but as remaining substantially in its own power. But that He is also Counsel, Isaiah is witness, saying: He shall be called the Angel of great counsel (Isa. 9:6)—that is, the dispenser and author of the paternal deliberations or consolations; nay, the very consolation and deliberation itself.

He is also shown to be the mind of the paternal breast, as Solomon says: The Lord by His wisdom founded the earth, and established the heavens by His prudence. By His mind the depths burst forth. Of which mind Isaiah and the Apostle say: Who has known the mind of the Lord (Isa. 40:13; Rom. 11:34)? according to that Gospel saying: That no one knows the Son but the Father (Matt. 11:27). It has become clear, therefore, as far as I judge, that the Father, by generating the Son out of Himself and having that same Son within Himself, was neither augmented and diffused, nor at all diminished; while He who generates is recognized to remain in the substance of the born one's perfect nature: nor is either diffused outside Himself, while each is known to remain within the other.

As Isaiah declares the Father and the Son—not the Son as flowing outside the infinity of the paternal nature, as though beyond Himself, but as dwelling within Himself through the unity of common substance—when he speaks to the Son Himself, saying: In Thee is God, and there is no God beside Thee (Isa. 45:14). XXXIV. Probus the judge said: As far as the capacity of human sense affords for grasping reason, I deem most fully that Athanasius has utterly cut away the knotty points of the foregoing little question, all the ambiguities of scrupulous opinion in which our purpose was entangled. If this same thing has also become clear to Arius, let him declare it more openly;

and from these matters let us at length at some point pass on to others (if indeed you think any still remain), so that we may the more quickly bring the business of this work to its conclusion. Arius said: If with a watchful mind and most sagacious sense you scrutinize, point by point and in detail, the things said of the questions proposed by me, you will assuredly find that Athanasius has not given an answer to all things. Probus the judge said: What, then, are those things in which you reckon that you have not been satisfied? Designate them more plainly. Arius said: What need is there, by repeating the same things again, to draw out the long rope of disputation, when it is now fitting that you bring forth the final sentence of recognition. Probus the judge said:

That a half-full sentence ought not to be brought forward, your prudence too recognizes along with me. On this account it befits you also to bring forth in disputation some things concerning the Holy Spirit. Arius said: I confess the Holy Spirit to be not only less than the Father and the Son, but also the minister and obeyer of their will, as a creature rendering to the Creator the most reverent obedience of servitude. Who nevertheless is both better than all creatures, and after the Son is first. For if He were marked with the privilege of equal honor with the Father, as Athanasius professes, the Son would not say that He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He hears, that He will speak.

For he who speaks nothing by the authority of spontaneous power serves, through the obedience of ministry, the command of the one who orders. XXXV. Athanasius said: If the clemency of the judge grants and bestows permission, I will briefly demonstrate from the divine authorities that the Holy Spirit too is not a creature, but God and Creator together with the Father and the Son. Probus the judge said: As your profession holds, prove briefly the documentary proof which reason demands; not from the argument of speech, but from the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, that the Holy Spirit is co-equal to the Father and the Son; or (as you yourself confessed) show Him to be God or Creator of the common work;

so that when you have proved these things by truthful testimonies, Arius, convicted, may withdraw from his intent into the profession of true faith. Athanasius said: Much more does it appear from this that the Holy Spirit is not foreign to the substance of the Father and the Son, since not of Himself as though foreign and external, but as the associate of one and the same nature, He does and speaks the things which are common to the Father and the Son. For if He spoke of His own things, He would without doubt be held not only foreign to the Father, but also false and a deceiver: since (as the Son says) Everyone who speaks a lie speaks of his own things (John 8:44).