For if any ambiguity still holds you in anything, I repeat the same things. Where he says, By the word of the Lord, do not take it to be the unsubstantial sound of a voice, which, if some strong man should send it forth from the mountains, an echo is wont to re-sound: of which there is heard only, in fancy, a resounding, but no substance is made. But concerning this word of our Lord the Father, who is our salvation, as everywhere the divine Scriptures testify, it is because the Son of God is substantial God, through whom all things were made. Therefore, because he said: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host (Ps. 33:6), know that this substantial Word was born from nowhere else than properly from the Father:
but also, when he said the Spirit of His mouth, he meant that Spirit which proceeded from that same united substance, just as we have found it laid down, not of another nature than of that very one: and through this, the substance of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is united, which the Greeks call ousia. But also the operation of that same Trinity in creating is united. On the Unity of the Faith. To Theophilus. The faith of the one substance of the Trinity is this: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, without beginning of times, above all sense and speech and spirit, one power, one God; but three appellations, one authority. The Word of God is born of the Virgin Mary, receiving a living body. But this very mind is not the surpassing Word of God.
The Word was not comprehended by the flesh, but was in the flesh and above the flesh, as God foreknowing, the power of God, the truth of God. Yet He suffered a human suffering: the Word of God is impassible. And in the passion indeed the body dies, that it may give life to the first-formed man who had fallen through disobedience. O man, you seek out the Godhead — I rebuke you: if you believe, you do well. To believe is commanded you; to dispute is not permitted. But if you dispute, and say, How the Father? you have fallen away from the light; and if you should say, How the Son? the prophetic word will meet you, saying: His generation who shall declare (Acts 8:33)? See therefore lest you likewise fall away from the light: for no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father.
He who introduces three powers, confesses three gods. But we believe three persons, one Godhead. And when you have named the Father, you glorify the Son; and when you have named the Son, you adore the Father. If again we say one person of the Trinity, we judaize, because the Jews say one person and confess one God. If we introduce three gods, we are like the Gentiles. But we confess the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit. The unity is not separated, the Godhead is not divided; God of God, not two gods: power of power, but one power: light of light, but one light: truth of truth, but one truth:
the witness is not heaven, not earth, not sea, not light, not darkness, not angels, nor archangels, nor cherubim, nor seraphim, but the Son was with the Father before the beginning. No one knows the Unbegotten, except Him who is born of Him: He knows whence He was born; nor does anyone know the Begotten, except Him who begot. The Father knows whom He has begotten, likewise the Begotten knows the Begetter — the counsel and wisdom of the Father, one power, and one Godhead. Do you seek the nativity of the Son of God? Read His own nativity from the Virgin Mary; but the nativity of the Son of God before the beginning is with the Father. For I confess one Unbegotten, and one Begotten. I confess the Father almighty, without beginning, without end, who holds all things, and is held by none;
He governs all things, and is governed by none; He sees all things, but is Himself invisible. I confess Jesus Christ the Son of God, with all the counsel and power of the paternal Godhead. And as great a power as the Father has, so great does the Son also have. The Begotten is not diminished by Him who is Unbegotten. The Holy Spirit is neither born, nor unbegotten, not made, nor created. But if I should say 'born,' I set up two Sons from one Father, and not one from one, or alone from alone. Either one Father, of whom are all things, or one Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. And if I should say 'unbegotten,' then there is no longer one almighty unbegotten Father; but I set up two gods. And if I should say 'a thing made,' I inquire in the manner of the Gentiles:
for the Gentiles adore a thing made by the hand, and not the Maker of heaven and earth. What then have you to declare? A phantom? God forbid: since the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven. As therefore two pieces of wood joined together, cast into a furnace of fire, and from the two pieces of wood an inseparable flame proceeds; so from the power of the Father and the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit, having the very power of the Godhead; as the most blessed Paul set down, saying: The mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Not God the mediator of God — for there is one even unto the Trinity — but receiving a body of the Virgin Mary, putting on the old man who had fallen through disobedience: made the mediator of the flesh, by the power of the Father, that is, Jesus Christ.
But when He took up the apostles, as the evangelist testifies, and ascended into a high mountain, and was transfigured before them, and behold a bright cloud overshadowed them: He did not in truth show forth the splendid power of the Father, as certain men teach through their empty talk, saying: As three persons in one power, so three appellations, but one God. Three appellations of one voice — the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Again, those men, dividing the power and Godhead of the Trinity, say: As emperor, prefect, and count. God forbid! I do not hand down this doctrine, or that exposition, but rather anathematize it. For it is written in the divine precepts: The visible things of this world are compared to the invisible (Rom.
1:20). For the earthly emperor consists of three, but the empire is one. If he should lay aside the diadem from his head, he is a Caesar, not an emperor. But if he should lay aside the purple, he is now a prefect, a man alone. If any blaspheme the Holy Spirit, they are not Christians, but are like the Jews. For the Jews adore one person, but we confess three persons. As the earthly emperor, so also the heavenly: the man in the purple, and the purple on the man; but the crown of the head contains both the purple and the man, and shows one empire of power: so the Father in the Son, and the Son in the Father; but the Holy Spirit, the conjunction of the Godhead, the power and unity of the Trinity. A Little Book of the Faith. To Theophilus.
I believe in God the Father almighty, and in the only-begotten Jesus Christ our Saviour, and I confess the Holy Spirit to be one God. Not one as if solitary, nor the same who is Himself Father to Himself and Himself Son; but the true Father begot the true Son, as it is, God of God, light of light, life of life, perfect of perfect, whole of whole, full of full; not created but begotten; not from nothing, but from the Father, of one substance with the Father. And the Holy Spirit, true God; not unbegotten, nor begotten; not created nor made, but proceeding from the Father and the Son, ever in the Father and the Son co-eternal. Yet one God, who is of the one Father, and is wholly what the Father is.
God born is the Son, and in the Father is all that He is; He begot the Son wholly. The Father, in begetting the Son, did not diminish, nor lose the Godhead of His own fullness. But holding most certainly that all which God the Father is, this the Son born of Him is, we most devoutly confess one God with the Holy Spirit. We believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, His Son, through whom all things were created, both which are in the heavens and which are on earth, visible and invisible; who for our salvation descended from heaven, who had never ceased to be in heaven. Born of the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary. The Word made flesh did not lose what He had been, but began to be what He was not. God not changed, but remaining, yet also born a man;
not in appearance, not airy, but corporeal, having sense and a soul: so that we understand Him true man, as true God; so true God, that we in no way doubt that He must be confessed to have been true man. We await that this same our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and according to the Scriptures died and was buried, and according to the Scriptures rose again from the dead on the third day: was taken up into the heavens, sits at the right hand of the Father, whence we await Him to come to judge the living and the dead, intending in His death and blood to obtain the remission of sins:
and that we shall be raised again by Him in these bodies, and in the same flesh in which He was born, suffered, died, and rose again, intending to receive from Him the soul together with this flesh, and either eternal life for good merits, or an eternal sentence for sins: this is what was pleasing. Amen. An Exposition of the Catholic Faith. To Theophilus. We are commanded to believe in the omnipotence of God the Father, and the indeed undivided and inseparable Trinity of His Son Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. For this both the prophets sang, and the Lord handed down, and the apostles held and taught.
This is the redemption of the world, this is our faith and life: that we confess the one substance handed down to us, three persons subsisting, perfect, equal, co-eternal, and that we hold the firm confession of the faith unharmed even unto the end. And this is what the Greeks call Homoousion: for that which subsists has it not from elsewhere, but is its own and from itself. But the other things which are, what they have, they have as received. For this reason God speaks to Moses, saying: I am who am (Exod. 3:14). And again: You shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me. There were indeed then angels, thrones, dominions, heaven, earth, and seas. But because that alone is the uncreated nature, and in three persons one Godhead subsists, for this reason He says:
I am who am. But whoever says three hypostases, that is, three substances, attempts, under the name of piety, to assert three natures. And if it is so, why should we be separated from the walls of Arius, being joined to him in faithlessness? For he divides the divinity by degrees, and so confesses God of God, that is, the Son of God, as though He were made of God, not born of God. Who, if He is born, is of one substance; if He is made, He is not a true Son. And if He is not a true Son, neither is He true God. Or if He is true God, and is not of the Father, there are two having each their own wills and diverse dominions. But our Lord Jesus Christ in His Gospel testifies that He is one with the Father, and of the Father, when He says:
I came forth from God (John 16:27). And again: I am in the Father and the Father in me (John 14:10). Likewise: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And: He who sees me sees also the Father (John 14:9). Indeed these things were written for this reason, that His true divinity should not be denied. But perhaps you usurp to yourself those things which were written on account of His incarnation, for instance: He who sent me is greater than I (John 14:28). And: I have not come to do my own will, but His who sent me (John 6:38; cf. 5:30). And: The Son can do nothing of Himself (John 5:19). And: It is not mine to give to you, but to those for whom it is prepared by the Father (Matt. 20:23). And other things similar to these.
All which things do not weaken the Son, nor depreciate Him, but distinguish Him from the Father, and show His humility and incarnation. Nor let those things scandalize the faithful soul, by which the Lord is recorded to have hungered, slept, wept, to have been sorrowful even unto death, and the passion too and the cross: since they were written and done for this, that both examples of endurance might be furnished, and His true incarnation might be known. For in that the Lord is said to have hungered, understand the assumption of a true body. But in that with five loaves and two fishes He satisfies five thousand men, recognize His true divinity. Surely when He says: I am the bread which came down from heaven (John
6:41), it does not fall into our understanding that bread should be believed to hunger: so also it is to be understood concerning His sleep. For just as through sleep the truth of the body is recognized, so through that wherein He straightway commands the winds and the waves, His true divinity is approved. For also in that He pours forth tears over Lazarus, the suspicion of a phantom is taken away: for tears are the humors of a true body. But when He says, Lazarus, come forth (John 11:43), and immediately he who already stank, with the earth opening itself, emerges alive, it is the indication of His great divinity. Now that which He said, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Mark 14:34), can be understood from this very raising of Lazarus, how it ought to be taken:
because surely the divinity which by a word raised the dead did not fear death, but indicated a human affection through the sorrows of the soul. Likewise the cross, the passion, the burial are dispelled by one or another saying of the Lord, that impotence or infirmity should not the less be ascribed to Him, when He says to the Jews: Destroy this temple (surely He meant His own body), and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Likewise He says: I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again (John 10:18). If He raises the temple of His own body, if it is in His power to lay down the soul through the passion, and to take it up through the resurrection, let the opinion of infirmity cease in Christ, where the sublimity of so great a power is declared.
All things therefore are to be understood devoutly: all things therefore are to be handled with honor. Both are to be confessed in the Lord: both the form of God, in which He always was; and the form of a servant, which was assumed on account of the servants. Both the passion according to the flesh is to be believed, and the impassibility according to the divinity. Questions of the Heretics, and Answers of the Catholics. Heretic. Did God the Father beget the Son of His will, or of necessity? Answer. Neither of will, nor of necessity, because no necessity remains for God. But also, to me asking: Is God good, or not? Surely He is good. Of will, or of necessity? If of will, then there is a greater and prior will, of which He is good.
If of necessity, the necessity is greater, and God is held to be weaker. Wherefore, the Son is born of the Father, not of will, nor of necessity, but of substance, because that which is the Godhead is above will and necessity. Heretic. Again I ask you: What is the Father and the Son? Answer. God and the Word. Heretic. Therefore He is not simple, but composite, because He is Himself also the Word. Answer. Does God work, or not? And the things which He does, does He do by will, or not? Heretic. Surely by will. Answer. Therefore He is Himself also the will: and He is composite according to your questioning, not simple. Heretic. But God, remaining in eternity, alone is eternal. For all things which He always is:
but He is not many things, but one and simple — this which God always is. Answer. And therefore it is impossible for one to be separated from one, that is, the Son from the Father, or the Father from the Son. On account of the identity of the Godhead I say, I and the Father are one: while 'I and the Father' is not understood as solitary, nor is what 'we are one' perceived as diverse. We say therefore that the paternal Godhead was never alien from its own generation. And therefore the paternal Godhead is indeed made intelligible to us in respect of time, but it will itself be subject neither to time nor to novelty; lest the paternal Godhead be found empty, or superfluous, or surely progressing. For it is free from all quality, from all quantity, from all beginning, from all composition.
But when He is called 'begotten,' it is shown to signify nothing other than Father and Son. For nothing is so impious as to call Him the Son of God, and to deny Him true God: as to speak of a Father, and to confess a Father without generation. For whatever shall not have existed in the way that God ought to exist, ought not to be believed God. I am who am: but I am not changed: and therefore that which is divine cannot be changed; lest it not be what it always is. But it is changed from its own simplicity, if it is a new Father; if from eternity He is with Him, and the Son is not in Him: and it is mutable, if not by nature, but by will, after nature, He begot the Son. Heretic. But only the Father is to be believed wise and powerful. Answer.
If, when you venerate the Son together with the Father, you detract from the Father, you who venerate One together with Him as less wise. If therefore you decree Him less wise, you surely ought not to assert Him either God or the Son of God. But if you assert Him fully wise, rightly do you hold Him God or the Son. Heretic. But it is manifest that the Son is changed by the Father, while the Father indeed cannot be changed by the Son. Answer. If it is so, I ask whether the Father begot an imperfect Son, and dismissed Him as suspect, to whom thereafter He would deign to impart the rudiments of wisdom not so much by the office of a begetter as by the authority of a master. There is therefore either the case that God the Father, perfectly wise, must teach;
there is also the case that God the Son, imperfectly wise, might learn — and how are all things which the Father has the Son's, if He is not perfectly wise, or fully able? How are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge found out in the Son? Or how is He named God above all things? Heretic. But only God the Father, without beginning, without origin, simple too and indeterminable, ought to be known. But His operation, that is, the Son, ought not to be understood without end: especially since every work both sustains a beginning, and cannot lack an end. Athanasius. This too we confess: for the nature is indeterminable and simple. That therefore which remains incomposite and simple cannot be determined by any laws.
But answer me asking: is God — whom you commemorate as having always been without beginning and end — thus indeterminable? For you establish that nothing can accede to Him, not only according to nature, but not even according to the action of nature; so that He may be declared neither a new Father, nor a begetter that ever gaped with desire, in order that He may be known as truly indeterminable, and not progressing. He will surely progress if He hastens to proceed to the action of a new generation, whereby He could the less from this come to know that someday He would be Father of Himself. But for us let Him suffice who was in the beginning, and with whom He was, since God was with God.
But if the Son is not by nature, neither is He rightly pronounced Father and Son, because neither a begetter nor a begotten is implied. But if, according to Paul, the fullness of the divinity is held in the Son, why is the God of fullness denied? And if in Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are held hidden, why is He pronounced a God ignorant? And if the Word is in the beginning, and is held God with God, why is He not believed natural God? But far be it from the apostolic faith, that in the generation of the Son either that which the Father is should be increased in divinity, or diminished, lest He be Father. But neither does the Born sustain advancement, nor the Begetter diminution. Heretic.
For how do you join nativity to everlastingness, since nativity is posterior to everlastingness? Athanasius. As though indeed He were first conceived of seed, or coagulated in the womb, when Scripture says: His generation who shall declare (Acts 8:33)? For you also slander the Begetter, as though it had acceded to Him that He should beget. But if there acceded to Him that which He did not have before, He is found imperfect: if it did not accede, He is found to have been everlasting with the everlasting in everlastingness. Of the everlastingness of the Son, hear through David the Son speaking words to the Father: And I am always with You: You have held my right hand, and in Your will You have led me, and with glory You have taken me up (Ps. 73:23-24). Likewise David:
With You is the principality in the day of Your power, in the splendors of the saints; from the womb before the morning star I begot You (Ps. 110:3). Heretic. You call the name of the Father 'Unbegotten,' and of the Son 'Begotten.' What will you say of the Holy Spirit, who surely is placed in the third degree — do you confess Him 'begotten' in the Scriptures, or call Him 'unbegotten'? If begotten, then the Son is no longer only-begotten, in that there is also another born of the Father. If He is not born, surely there is also another unbegotten, and now there is no longer one God the Father, of whom are all things, but there are two Fathers. But if the Spirit is neither born of the Father, nor unbegotten, it remains that He be called a creature. Athanasius.
If you believed the Scriptures of the Lord, or the Lord speaking, you would never compare the Creator to creatures, when you read: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host (Ps. 33:6). Likewise David himself: You shall send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created (Ps. 104:30). I have heard also the Father speaking: The Spirit went forth from me (Isa. 57:16). Likewise He Himself through the prophet Joel: I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28). And the Lord in the Gospel says to the apostles: I will send to you from the Father the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth: He proceeds from the Father, and receives of mine (John 15:26; 16:14). It would indeed suffice for the faithful to believe this very thing, that the Son is begotten:
but the Spirit is proceeding from the Father, of whom what sort or how great the procession is, it is granted to no one to know, just as it was said also of the Son: His generation who shall declare (Acts 8:33)? But more strictly, on account of the unbelieving, it must be inquired into, and answer me as I ask about the beginning. Heretic. I answer. Athanasius. Surely you confess God to be both Creator, that is, the founder of all things, and that which was founded by Him, and nothing in between. Heretic. Why should I confess what cannot be doubted? Athanasius. Is everything founded convertible, because it has a beginning, and does not lack an end? Do you confess everything which is eternal to be inconvertible and immutable, having neither beginning nor end? Heretic. Surely I say so, because it is so.
Athanasius. Is the Creator commixable with creatures, or not? Heretic. He indeed communicates Himself to the creature, yet is never mingled, lest He be found mutable and convertible, and a partaker of corruption. Athanasius. You have said rightly. And how do you read: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19)? If the Holy Spirit is a creature, how is He united to the Creator in name, in power, in redemption, in sanctification? And Him whom you think to be named in the third place, the apostle Peter places in the first; he who does not divide the Trinity by degrees, knows no numbering, but places the third first, when he says to Ananias:
Why has Satan filled your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3)? And a little after: You have not lied to men, but to God (Acts 5:4). Therefore he who lies to the Holy Spirit, lies to God: because the Spirit is God. Hear also Paul the apostle saying: For no one knows the things which are in a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him: so also the things which are in God no one knows, except His Spirit which is in Him (1 Cor. 2:11). Who surely, if He were a creature, as you strive to have believed, could not know what is in the Creator. Whence the same Paul: For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor (Rom. 11:34)? If therefore the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, as we read;
if He sets free, if He sanctifies, if He is the comforter, if He is good as God — as it is written: Your good Spirit shall lead me into the right land (Ps. 143:10); if He washes, if He justifies, if he who shall have blasphemed Him, as it is written, has no remission, neither in this age, nor in the age to come (Matt. 12:32) — which things surely are proper to none but God: what then more is to be sought concerning Him, or to be doubted? Since through the magnitude of His works He manifests what He Himself is: surely He who is not alien from the powers of the works is not alien from the majesty of the Father and the Son; in vain is the name of divinity denied to Him whose power cannot be denied.
There is also this point, that every creature is capable of receiving the divine powers and stands in need of the glory of God; for the Spirit is one who gives the capacity, not one who merely receives it, and He needs nothing, but pours Himself out abundantly upon those in need. For of the Son it is written: 'Thy name is as oil poured out' (Cant. 1:2). Likewise God speaks of the Holy Spirit: 'I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh' (Joel 2:28). Where have you ever read, 'I will pour out my angel,' or any other of the heavenly creatures, as is said of the Spirit? We read also that the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and whatever region of the earth each one was working for the building up of the Church, He was wholly present with each of them.
The angels are single beings, one with each; and where one is sent, while it is there, it is necessarily absent elsewhere. But the Spirit is wholly present everywhere with all, which belongs to God alone. Let us therefore adore the Father, let us adore also the Son, let us adore also the Holy Spirit, with one and the same veneration. If He, together with the Father and the Son, bestows upon us the remission of sins, sanctification, and everlasting life, then surely together with the Father and the Son let us also render Him glory. But if He is not to be worshipped together with the Father and the Son, then neither is He to be confessed in baptism. THE HERETIC: A little while ago we both confessed God the Father to be invisible, incomprehensible, unchangeable, eternal without end. ATHANASIUS: So it is. THE HERETIC.