Works 7 part 3/12

'For whatever the Father does, these the Son likewise also does' (John 5:19). Learn that this is one working in the nature of the Godhead, which grants eternal life to those who believe. And, 'No one comes to me unless the Father draw him' (John 6:44). And, 'No one goes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6). Learn that through the Son one goes to the Father, and from the Father one comes to the Son. Is it the case, as I have already said before, that he designated fullnesses in the plural number in this place, O heretic, since the fullness of the Godhead is united, which works the eternal way for those who believe?

Surely all we who believe have received of this very united fullness of the Father and of the Son, and indeed of the Holy Spirit, and it is always full, because nothing is lacking from the undivided Trinity of the Godhead. And through this there is one equality, which is the ineffable, everlasting brightness. Indeed, let us dwell longer on these matters, and let us make so prolix a discourse with carefully chosen excuse, so that, in setting forth the question of Arius, we may not seem to have fled as though quibbling. Lastly, let them hear Isaiah pronouncing this sentence against the dogmas of their iniquity:

'For the fool speaks foolish things, and his heart understands vain things, and he accomplishes iniquities, and speaks error against the Lord, to make empty the hungry souls, and he will make the thirsty souls empty. For he has wickedly devised an evil counsel to destroy the lowly with iniquitous words, and to scatter the words of the humble in judgement' (Isa. 32:6). But the godly have devised wisdom, and this counsel shall stand; whence it behooves us, refining and distinguishing all things according to the evangelical rule, to approach the matter of the contradicting opponent's thought in the saying above: 'He who sent me is greater than I' (John 14:28). Take note that this was said with regard to the assumed manhood, as it is written:

'He sent from on high and took me, he assumed me out of the multitude of the waters' (Ps. 17:17). And, 'Blessed is he whom you have chosen and assumed' (Ps. 64:5). And also, 'But the Lord assumed me' (Ps. 26:10). Was it then that the man assumed God, and not God the man? It was surely God who assumed the man, not the man who assumed God; for even though he assumed from the Virgin Mary, yet he did not lose that which he always was, one with the Father before the assumption of the man, nor did his Godhead in the man undergo any increase or decrease, since he was such in the man at the present time as he is known always to have been, before the assumption of the man, in the bosom of the Father, one with the Father. But you say to me in turn: In what way did God assume the man?

Are you ignorant that Isaiah prophesied: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel; which is interpreted, God with us' (Isa. 7:14)? And the Apostle confirms these things, saying that the form of God took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7). Heretic: For what reason is he 'God with us'? Athanasius: What else is understood than that the true God assumed a true man of the Virgin Mary for our salvation? Which Mary, however, drew her seed from the tribe of Judah, from David. Heretic: He who can now be called neither man alone without God, nor alone without the man whom he assumed — whence is he called the Son of God and the Son of Man? Athanasius:

As is safeguarded by the clarity of the evangelical judgement, 'Son of David, have mercy on me' (Luke 18:38-39). Which the Vessel of Election briefly resolved: 'Who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh' (Rom. 1:3). And, 'who was predestined to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification by the resurrection of the dead.' Behold, according to the man; behold, according to God. Yet he showed that there is one person with a twofold signification, as the same one repeats elsewhere: 'For there is one God.' And not in another person did he distinguish this by saying: 'There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus' (1 Tim. 2:5). As it is written: 'He is a man, and who shall know him?' (Jer. 17:9). Do you see that he is a mediator?

He can no longer be called God only, purely without the man whom he assumed, nor man without God. Consider that there is a twofold signification in the one person of the mediator, God and man: for of God he is God, and according to the flesh the same one is the Son of Man. Therefore this mediator is true God and true man, as he is also the form of God and the form of man. Whence Jeremiah, the most accepted of the prophets, says to this: 'This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned beside him: who found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). You see then, O heretic, that God was made known through his own working, that is, through the man.

But if you do not accept this proof of the Scriptures alone, I shall question you concerning my mediator — indeed, the mediator of us all. Answer me: in whose regard is it written or distinguished — whether of God or of the man — that he hungered, or thirsted, or wept, and being set in agony sweated blood, and at last truly endured the suffering of death? If you take it properly of God, saying that he underwent all these things, Isaiah meets you in contradiction: 'The eternal God, the God who made the ends of the earth, shall not hunger, nor labour, nor is there searching out of his wisdom; he gives food to the hungry, and strength to those who labour' (Isa. 40:28). And holy Jeremiah also indicates:

'Will he be as a man sleeping, and as a man who cannot be saved?' (Jer. 14:9). You see that God, who established all things out of nothing, will never hunger. Nor did his Godhead undergo any suffering, since at his nod all things are governed and made alive. Wherefore all the power of signs and wonders is to be ascribed to God who works them, and every necessity of the sorrow of suffering is to be imputed to the man, as we read in the prophet's saying: 'A man set in affliction, knowing how to bear infirmities: for his face was turned away, and dishonoured, and esteemed as nothing. This one bears our sins, and grieves for us' (Isa. 53:3). And he continued thus:

'And the Lord delivered him up for our sins; and he, because he was ill-treated, opened not his mouth. As a sheep he was led to the slaughter; and like a lamb before its shearer, voiceless, so he opened not his mouth in his humility' (Isa. 53:7). For what more, than that he, the man himself, testifies concerning himself: 'Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth?' (John 8:40)? Does this saying pertain to the Godhead: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death' (Matt. 26:38)? Is it on God's account that it is written: 'For the Son of Man must suffer many things from the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again' (Luke 9:22)? Is it on God's account that this prayer is offered:

'Father, if it be possible, take away this cup from me' (Mark 14:36), if all these things are to be imputed to the Godhead? God forbid. Since this man truly suffered for us, who took into himself a nature from the Virgin, from our weak root. Therefore the mortal, or passible, man truly bore our infirmities, who after the passion was again truly assumed by God. Which the Lord himself resolved: 'I lay down my soul, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself' (John 10:17). And so understand that first this man was assumed in his nativity from the Virgin Mary,

and in the passion, by his own power permitting it, he was delivered up, and after the passion was again assumed or received back by him, as it is written: 'For though he was crucified out of our weakness, yet he lives by the power of God' (2 Cor. 13:4). You see: he who according to our weakness was truly crucified as man, and according to the power of God lives. Lastly, consider that God spoke on behalf of the dispensation of his man, whom he assumed: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' (John 2:19). Did he not speak this concerning the temple of his body, which after three days he himself raised from the dead? Did the man who prayed that the cup might pass from him speak against himself:

'I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again' (John 10:18)? Do you see that where there is all power, there is in the Godhead no authority of death? But where there is the infirmity of the body, there is the sorrow of the heart. Did the man alone, O heretic Photinus, without God, turn water into wine? Or by his own confidence walk with his feet upon the sea? Did the man who seemed to have feared death, without God, raise the dead? Did Simeon carry a phantom in his arms? Did the earth tremble through the power of the man alone? Or did the rocks and stones, dashing against one another, split apart? Did the man without God rebuke demons, or work mighty deeds?

Did the man without God command the winds, and quiet the calm waves of the deep? Did the man alone rise from the dead, or stand in the midst of the disciples with the doors shut, among them, and teach them concerning the kingdom of God? Did the man alone, of himself, without God, have power to ascend above all the heavens? Since God wrought all these wonderful deeds on behalf of the man he assumed, therefore all the power of signs and wonders is to be ascribed to God who works them, and every infirmity of suffering is to be imputed to the man. Indeed, take these sayings according to the invisible nature of the Godhead, and not of the man, of him who says: 'He who sees me sees also my Father' (John 14:9). And in another place the same one repeats:

'No one has seen the Father except the Son. No one knows the Son except the Father' (Matt. 11:27). Or this: 'No one has seen God and lived' (Exod. 33:20). And the Apostle too testifies to this: 'Who is the image of the invisible God' (Col. 1:15). Which the invisible Father himself resolved: 'Let us make man after our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26). You see that there is one image of the invisible divine nature, of the Father and of the Son, and indeed purely of the Holy Spirit too, which no one of men has ever seen, nor can see, as it is written: 'No one has ever seen God' (John 1:18).

For if the man was truly assumed, seen, handled, scourged, wrapped in a robe, crowned with thorns, given gall and vinegar to drink, fastened with nails on the wood of the cross, his side pierced with a lance, and flowed with blood and water, and was at last delivered to burial and laid in the ground — did he not truly endure all these things according to the nature of the man, O Marcionite? Lastly, receive what is written concerning the very nature of the man — and you too, O Manichaean, a sun-worshipper like the pagans: was it said concerning the nature of God: 'See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me having' (Luke 24:39)?

Surely it was on account of the man, and not of the Godhead, that after the resurrection he ate fish and honeycomb. Was it that the Godhead might be seen by Thomas that he asks of him: 'Reach hither your finger, and see my hands, and put forth your hand into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing' (John 20:27)? God forbid. Since he himself had first said concerning his Godhead: 'No one has seen the Son except the Father.' And, 'He who sees me sees also my Father' (John 14:9). Was there here any phantom made, where the whole truth of the man, after the passion and after the resurrection, was declared? I shall question you too, Photinus, who deny that Christ is true God, and confess him to be a mere man only. Is it on account of the man that this is safeguarded:

'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' (John 1:1)? Was the man in this beginning, O Homoousian-twister? And was not God the Son of God always one with the Father before absolutely every beginning? Indeed, this man he assumed but lately from the Virgin Mary. Were things visible and invisible made through the man, as the teacher of the nations testifies: 'All things were made through him, things visible and invisible, both those that are in heaven and those that are on earth; whether thrones, or powers, or dominions' (Col. 1:16)? Take note in this saying.

And you too, like the synagogue of Satan, with a false name, O apostate Jew, who assert that the Father spoke to the angels, 'Let us make man after our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26); whereas the image of the angelic creation is spirit or fire, which yet was made by God the Son, as it is written: 'All things were made through him, and without him was nothing made' (John 1:3). Or this: 'Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire' (Ps. 103:4). Could the angel, who was made unto ministry, himself have made his own image? God forbid.

Plainly God the Son of God made man after the image of his own one immortality, and after the likeness of his own equality, so that man, in the righteousness in which he had been made, might remain of an incorrupt image, and might possess the likeness of the will by imitating, through spiritual working, his Maker; yet such a man was not made properly such as is the pure image of the Creator's Godhead, because there is a great difference between being referred to as 'after the image and likeness,' and there is a great distance, lest one who is made by God be said to be as great in kind and quantity as the Maker. Whence after the transgression, Adam lost the image of immortality in which he had been made, because he consented to the devil, as it is safeguarded: 'For God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the perdition of the living.'

Or this: 'Who indeed destroyed death, but brought to light life and immortality' (2 Tim. 1:10). Or this: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your sting?' (1 Cor. 15:54). Or to this: 'The last enemy to be destroyed is death' (1 Cor. 15:26). And also this: 'For God wills all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth' (1 Tim. 2:4). And this too is written: 'And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good' (Gen. 1:31). And in the Gospel it is set down: 'In him that which was made was life, and the life was the light of men' (John 1:4). And so, what we lost in Adam, through Christ our Lord we received again in baptism, as it is written:

The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As therefore we have borne the image of the earthy, let us bear also the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15:47). You see that the image of the first man, made through transgression, is mortal, that is, earthy; and that the image of the second man, made through justice and truth, is immortal, that is, heavenly: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22). Learn now, you Ebion and you Photinus, that the Son of God was ever God with the Father, who established man and the whole universe, who testifies that He existed before Abraham in the splendor of the Gospel's authority, saying: Before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58); or this:

Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had before this world was. Surely He who lately took up this man from the Virgin Mary speaks thus. Whence the assumed man, the Son of David, that is, the son of Abraham, is proclaimed by the Evangelist to be so; while He who assumed the man is also God according to His divinity, and is the son of David according to the dispensation, the son of man; while He is both God of God, and according to the flesh man, the son of man; while He is both God and man, and the man is not without God, and God is not solitary without the man whom He assumed.

Therefore let the whole tangled forest of heretics know itself, where so many kinds of dragons and beasts find their lair, that in this they blaspheme: for some preach God as solitary, without the man, while others confess only a mere man without God. By confusing everywhere the reasons of the dispensation, they ascribe the human weakness of the mortal man to the immortal divinity, or they directly compare the impassible Godhead to the nature of a passible man; in this the wretches labor, that some deny the true God, and others deny the true man as the Son of God. Answer me, you Manichaeans, sons of darkness, in whom so many kinds of serpents have their slippery windings:

You do not confess the Son of God, that is, the true God, as true man from the Virgin Mary for our salvation, as it is written: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us (Isa. 7:14). If it seems to you a phantom that the angel Gabriel testified to Mary, saying: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace before God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus (Luke 1:30); or with the Evangelist testifying to these things: And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger (Luke 2:7);

if it seems to you a phantom, what did she conceive or bring forth, or what did she wrap in swaddling clothes and lay in the manger? Or take this example, the angel testifying to the shepherds: And the angel said to them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people; for unto you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:10-14).

Did the angels exult in heaven over a phantom? Was it a phantom that the Magi worshiped, coming from the East? Was it a phantom that, according to the Law, was handled with hands on the eighth day and circumcised? Were children slain for the sake of a phantom? Did John baptize, handling a phantom with his hands? Was He a phantom upon whom John saw the Holy Spirit coming in the form of a dove and remaining on Him? Did He wash the feet of the disciples with His hands as a phantom? Did a phantom truly eat and drink? Did a phantom make clay from spittle, and anoint the eyes of the blind man, who then saw? Did a phantom on the fourth day raise up Lazarus who already stank?

Did a phantom give life back to the widow's only son? Did a phantom grant the centurion his servant? Did a phantom hang on the cross, when, with the hinges of the world trembling, the centurion who saw it gave confession, saying, Truly this was the Son of God (Matt. 27:54)? Did Joseph wrap a phantom in a linen cloth, and lay it in the tomb? Did a phantom rise from the dead after three days, and ascend into the heavens, and sit at the right hand of the Father? Far be it, O Manichaean, in whom the devil has wrought all the phantoms of error: especially since all these things mentioned above, which were spoken as miracles wrought specifically for man, the true God wrought in man, or for man, or through the true man.

Therefore in this passage recognize also you, O Arian, whom the devil dared to use to sow his seed of tares as weeds among the good wheat in the Lord's field, as it is written: I know thy works, that thou hast only a name that thou livest, and behold, thou art dead. Be therefore vigilant, and strengthen the things that remain, which are about to die. For I do not find thy works full before the Lord. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard; keep them, and do penance. But if not, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee (Rev. 3:2-3). Do you hear, O heretic, who have only the name of Christian, and speak with the mouth of the devil, who are ignorant that it was said on account of the dispensation of the man: He who sent me is greater than I (John 14:28)?

The Heretic. Tell me, orthodox one, if it was set down on account of the dispensation of the man, as you assert: He who sent me is greater than I—then at what time was He sent by the Father? Perhaps you will say, His divinity is then known to have been absent from Him. Athanasius. O blindness of an utterly confused conscience, which is thoroughly infected with the serpent's venom! Surely if He was absent from the Father, how is the nature undivided? And if He was divided, how is the One in the One? And if He was absent while He was and is in the man, why was He always proclaimed to us by the fisherman John as one abiding in the bosom of the Father, who says: No man hath ever seen God, save the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him (John 1:18)? Finally, hear Him Himself speaking to these things:

The words which I have spoken to you are not mine, but His who sent me, the Father's (John 14:24). And also these: The works which I do are not mine, but His who sent me, the Father's; He doeth His works (John 14:10). And, If ye believe not me, believe the works, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 10:38). Behold, when the Son speaks, the Father speaks; and when the Son works, the Father works as one; and when the Father abides in the Son, the Son abides in the Father. You see that the nature of the divinity of the Father and the Son is undivided, since whatever the nature of the Son speaks, He speaks as one also with the Father; and whatever the nature of the Son works, this very nature of the divinity works as one also with the Father.

And when the Son naturally abides in the Father, likewise in turn the Father abides substantially in the Son. Hence, that you may be certain between Him who goes forth and Him from whom He went forth, as He Himself says: I came forth from the Father, and am come (John 16:28), the names are shown in the persons, and the united fullness of the divinity, which is undivided, is not divided: while He who was and is from the Father, as He Himself testifies: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me (John 14:11). Moreover, since this fullness of unity is present everywhere, and fills all things within and without, from the height of the heavens to the depth of the lower regions, as it is written: I am the Lord God, who fill heaven and earth, and all that is in them (Jer. 23:24).

You see that this fullness is united, that the divinity is undivided. Therefore consider that whatever is referred to the deity signifies undivided unity; whatever indicates the cause of the man shows the nature of weakness, as He Himself says, A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have (Luke 24:39). Does He not in this saying show the man? For according to God He continued thus: It is the Spirit that giveth life: for the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and life (John 6:64). You see that where He refers to authority, He shows the divinity to be undivided; where He refers to the man, He indicates the nature of weakness.

And by this, all power is to be ascribed to God, and all weakness is to be imputed to the man, as He Himself says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matt. 26:38). I ask, which is greater? He who assumed, or He who was assumed? God, or the man? That is, the form of God, or the form of the servant, the man? He who glorifies, or He who is glorified? As He Himself says: Now is the Son of man glorified, and God hath glorified Him in Himself (John 13:31). Consider now in these sayings that one person is declared by a twofold name, of God and of man, the Apostle saying: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Or this: Now a mediator is not of one. But God is one (Gal. 3:20).

You see that there is one God, and that no other in person is the mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus. But on the contrary you say to me, heretic: In one person, what can be distinguished? Therefore if you do not distinguish, be certain that you thereby show that the deity also suffered together. And why do you, heretic, distinguish the matter of the soul in one man, according to the Lord's saying, namely that the man is not to be feared who has power to kill the body, but cannot kill the soul? If you in this matter distinguish in the one person of a man only the soul, which is not destroyed by man: how much more do we distinguish, in the one person of God and man, that is, of the Son of God, the cause of immortality, that is, the deity, from the weak nature of the man?

Finally, hear God speaking to this: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Was the deity dissolved, Marcellio of Montes, as you assert, or the wisdom or power of God the Father, and not the man? Surely the man truly suffered, who was made the temple of God, who was raised up by Him, as the divine Scripture testifies: Pierce thou my flesh with nails for fear of thee (Ps. 119:120). Or this: And they shall look on Him whom they pierced (John 19:37). Did they fix the divinity with nails, or pierce it with a lance? Far be it. Is it not one person of the Son of God, through which so great a matter is distinguished?

I ask, if He Himself did not impute to His own immortality the weakness of the man which He assumed, do you ascribe to a passible man so great and so immense a deity, through which all things were made? Just as you (Arian) are wont to set forth that the Apostle said: All things are made subject to Him, except Him who made all things subject to Him. For when all things shall be subjected to Him, then He Himself also shall be subject to Him who subjected all things to Him (1 Cor. 15:27-28). This is plainly said not to pertain to the deity of the Son of God, since through Him all things were made, and they were always subject to Him, for there is no one who does not always have dominion over His own creation.