祈願書 第 2 章

The Roman world looks up to you as its queen; and since there is now nothing in human affairs in which you ought further to advance, not content with earthly heights, by a holy faith in God you long to possess heavenly things, which the true Son of God promises to those who devoutly believe in Him. And this you labor at as one of the wisest, understanding that all this exaltation of empire will profit nothing, unless you strive after the heavenly glory to be obtained through the knowledge and defense of the true faith. And yet it appears how pleasing you are to Christ our God and Lord, who has granted you this kingdom;

when with anxious inquiry you ask how those passages are to be resolved which the Arians set against Catholics by their interpretations of the sacred law. Having an affection for the true faith, you desire, as far as is possible, to understand what you faithfully believe. For then especially is the religious soul fed, as it were upon divine banquets, when it understands what it believes. But although you abhor the impious utterances of the heretics, yet with religious zeal you desire to be instructed against them, so that you may already reject their reasoning — for to attack what you abhor merely as it were by the power of your realm would seem to be of presumption, not of proof.

But to this desire of yours, so devout, so necessary and most beautiful, even though you see me unequal to it, yet I dare not come forward as one resisting. For I confess that on the one hand this consciousness of my unfitness and the inexperience of my uncultivated speech overwhelms me, so that I would be silent; on the other hand the fervor of faith reckons it a peril for me to be silent. For how does it not seem a peril, if, being provoked against an impious foe, we should turn our backs, as it were out of shame, while our conscience has the power of speaking? Especially since in a cause of faith it is not loftiness of words that must be sought, when the divine testimonies alone suffice, which accomplish more than any more abundant eloquence. Nor must the consciousness of one's own faults be brooded over, since it is rather relieved, if first one does not lack God.

Let him not tremble to confess, after the example of that thief in the Gospel, who on the very day he confessed God, on that same day earned to enter with Him into the paradise which he had confessed. Let us therefore begin, obedient to your most religious commands, to clash with the adversary — not indeed presuming on our own strength, but having confidence in the protecting patronage of the Savior, against whom, after the manner of the heathen and with the fury of the Jews, the impiety of the heretics stirs up war. But since in those things which you have deigned to write in the person of the heretics, I saw many things to be confused, so that you seemed to me not to know fully what the Arians assert,

I thought it better first to make clearly manifest how they believe, and how under the ambiguity of language they ensnare simple souls; and this especially when under a common confession they commend their impious words. For only then at last is the faithful reply made plain unto the resolution, if first the impious evasion of the sacrilegious sect is exposed. Concerning the impious profession of the Arians. I. The Arian impiety asserts many things together with us indeed in the same words, but not in the same meanings, when it is called to the confession of the divine faith. For in the same words as we, it sounds forth God the Father, and God the Son, and that all things were made by God the Father through the Son, and that the Son was begotten before the ages.

But although it agrees with us through these words, it nonetheless, by sacrilegious interpretations of the words, breaks away from the pious meanings of the Catholic Church, speaking of the Father in such a way that He did not truly beget; pronouncing the Son also in such a way that with Him He is Son by adoption, not by nature — that is, as one taken up from elsewhere to the name of Son, not truly begotten of God the Father. For although it confesses that the Son was born before the ages, yet it attributes a beginning to Him by saying, 'There was a time when He was not.' And even so it says that all things were made through Him in such a way as to assert that He was substituted out of things that were not, because it has presumed that He was not truly begotten of God the Father.

and hence it is that it wishes to have this persuaded — that Christ is indeed God, but not true God, since a beginning is reckoned to Him; and the Son indeed in such a way that He is understood to have been made, not born. For if He was not truly born of the Father, but substituted out of nothing, on this account too it believes Him mutable, because in its faith He is not true God, not true Son. And in order to commend these impious notions among the ignorant or the simple, it employs also, as it seems to itself, testimonies of the divine Scriptures, saying that it is proved from the person of Wisdom: 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works' (Prov. 8:22). And that Christ is Wisdom the Apostle too confirms by saying, 'Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor.

1:24). It is established therefore, by the Apostle's interpretation, that Christ, who is Wisdom, is a creature; '(and now,)' it says, '(it follows)' that He is not true God, who is a creature; nor true Son, who is not begotten of God, but created; 'there was therefore a time when He was not.' II. These are the weapons of wickedness set forth, against which we are provoked to go, that the impiety of the opposing assertion may be exposed — not indeed, as we have said, by our own ingenuity, but with the grace of God always aiding pious endeavors. Only do you, I pray, be not wearied by my uncultivated speech, but, intent upon the powers of the matters themselves, give your vote to the truth. And this we write not as one composing a book, but as if we were contending with the adversary present before us in definite disputations.

And first of all, against this which they say, 'There was a time when He was not,' it must be met that He always was; and the testimony from the Gospel must be set against it, John saying, 'In the beginning was the Word' (John 1:1). For just as Christ is the Wisdom of God and the power of God, so also is He the Word of God. When therefore he says, 'In the beginning was the Word,' how does the Arian impiety say, 'There was a time when He was not'? 'In the beginning,' he says, 'was the Word'; he did not say, 'In the beginning the Word was made.' And surely that which was in the beginning must be believed always to have been. For if, as the impiety supposes, the Son is a thing made,

without doubt the divine Scripture would have set forth this very thing — that which was made — at the beginning, according indeed to that account by which Moses too spoke, saying: 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.' For if the Son of God too were a thing made, John would have said, 'In the beginning the Word was made.' But the Evangelist foreseeing — or rather the Holy Spirit through the Evangelist — those men of impious mind who were to come, who would say of the Son, 'There was a time when He was not,' for this reason began thus: 'In the beginning was the Word'; for nothing is prior to Him who is found before the beginning. The divine Scriptures were set forth for this purpose, that we might direct our faith according to their meaning, not that we might insert our own meanings into their sacred utterances.

Let one consider whether there are certain passages which by their obscurity are thought to give occasion for ambiguity; certainly in this passage there is no occasion for ambiguity. It is not lawful for the interpreter to think otherwise than is written; nor is there need that we should now thrust in our own meanings: it suffices for the full knowledge of the faith to be grasped, that we recite the divine words. 'In the beginning,' he says, 'was the Word.' Is there here any notion of time, is there any suspicion of ages, or any interval of a point or of any moment, that you should dare to say, 'There was a time when He was not'? III. 'In the beginning was the Word'; and lest perchance you should understand 'word' to be that which is the function of one speaking, there follows, 'and the Word was with God.'

He did not say, 'the word which God spoke,' but, 'and the Word was with God'; finally he himself interpreted what the Word is, saying, 'and the Word was God.' If in the beginning was the Word, and this same Word was with God, and the Word was God, the aim of the impiety is confounded. For it is proved from this passage that Christ the Son of God both always was, and always was inseparable from the Father, and always was God. For just as He is without beginning, when it is said, 'In the beginning was,' so also when it is said, 'was with God,' His inseparability from the Father is declared without beginning. And when this Word is defined to be God, it is not ambiguous that without beginning He is believed to be God.

For this which he prefaced by saying, 'In the beginning,' must be referred to all that follows; that is, 'In the beginning was the Word'; and when there follows, 'and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' without doubt 'in the beginning' is to be understood. Finally he himself thus concludes, saying: 'This was in the beginning with God.' How then was there 'a time when He was not,' He who always is? How is He 'out of things that were not,' He who always is with the Father? How is He a creature, He who is always God — nay, He through whom every creature exists? For there follows, 'All things were made through Him.' How was He 'made out of things that were not,' through whom all things were made? For if He too was made, how were all things made through Him?

For He cannot, when He came into being, be His own author, He who was not; and therefore He must be believed unmade, through whom all things were made; because it is vain and absurd that He Himself, when He did not exist, should be said to have been made through Himself. IV. Likewise Paul too teaches that Christ always was, and is God, and is equal to the Father. For then is He truly God, when He is equal to the Father; because He would not be said to be equal, if He were not held to be true God. For it is an injury to the true God, if one not God be called equal to Him. He therefore sets down in his Epistle: 'For let this be your mind, which was in Christ Jesus:'

'Who, being established in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil. 2:5-7). If Christ is truly man, since He takes the form of a servant, He is truly God also, since He is declared to be in the form of God; nor would He on any other ground call Him equal, unless he had willed it to be understood that to be in the form of God is to be true God. And He who is true God assuredly always is; and of Him who is always God it cannot be said, 'There was a time when He was not.' But the apostle Paul also says that all things were made through Him, writing:

'For in Him were all things created, whether those in the heavens or those on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created through Him and in Him, and He is before all' (Col. 1:16, 17). Therefore He Himself always is, through whom and in whom all things were made. And the Psalmist too singing says: 'Thou hast made all things in wisdom' (Ps. 103:24). Yet he did not say that Wisdom itself was made; because the Apostle also, when he says, 'and He is before all,' denied that He was made. For if he had wished Him who was not to be believed made, he would have so set it down: 'and He Himself was made before all':

but when he says, 'and He is before all,' He gave a beginning to all those things, of which He is prior — nay rather their Maker; but He Himself is without beginning, who is recorded to be before all not as made, but as existing. Again the Apostle: 'One God,' he says, 'the Father, from whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him' (1 Cor. 8:6). And here, when he says that all things are through Christ, he most plainly distinguished the Maker from the things made, and showed that the nature of a created thing cannot be understood in Him who made all things. V. But let us see whether Moses too taught this same thing which the apostles announced, that is, that all things were made by God through the Son. Among other things, when he relates the framing of the world, he says:

'And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between water and water; and it was so. And God made the firmament, and God divided through the midst of the water' (Gen. 1:6). When he says, 'And God said, Let there be a firmament,' in the one speaking the person of the Father is to be understood; but when he says, 'And God made,' in the one making the person of the Son is to be understood. For if you do not think it is to be so understood, the apostolic assertion will be imperiled, which says: 'One God the Father, from whom are all things and we in Him; and one Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through Him':

for unless you believe the whole framing of the world to have been made through the Son — nay rather all things invisible as well as visible — how do you receive into faith the voice of the Apostle saying, 'One Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,' and that also which we cited above, 'for in Him were all things created,' and also that, 'Thou hast made all things in wisdom'? But this John too has pursued: 'All things were made through Him': how 'all things,' if you deny it to have been said of the Son of God, even 'and God made the firmament; and God divided through the midst of the water'? Therefore Moses too introduces the Son as Maker, not made.

For if he had learned by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that He was made, among the other things which he was describing as made, he would have recorded that He too was made first. VI. But more absolutely does he proceed further below, where now the inhabitant of the framed world is to be made: 'And God said, Let us make man after our image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26). For it is not of one person to say, 'Let us make after our image and likeness,' nor yet of a diverse deity. For the plurality of these words, that is, 'let us make' and 'our,' signifies the persons of the Father and the Son. But in that he says 'image' in the singular, the one deity, the one power of both persons is manifested. If Christ is a creature, how is He admitted as a partner with God in the work?

For it is to Him that it is said, 'Let us make.' If He is not true Son, how is there one image to Him with the Father? An adoptive son does not have the image of the one adopting: he can indeed have bounty, but he cannot have the nature of the image. I know indeed that there are distinctions of images, which it would now be long and unnecessary to pursue. But what bears upon the matter I claim, saying: In this place there is no distinction of image, where one image of the Father and the Son is declared. For he did not say, 'Let us make after our images,' but, 'after our image.'

And lest perchance with stupefied mind, O whoever you are, you heretic, you should usurp the claim that 'let us make' could be said even of one person — namely as if it were the affection of one deliberating within himself, not the designation of persons — there follows, 'and God made man; after the image of God He made him' (Gen. 1:27). The things which are openly set in the light, if anyone does not see them, he is blind: 'God,' he says, 'made; after the image of God He made.' Is it not most plain that already then the Holy Spirit through Moses was handling the evangelical mysteries, saying 'God and God,' yet not two gods, because the image of the Father and the Son is one? And, O how providently are all things set forth!

The sacred Scripture proclaims 'God and God,' so as to exclude Sabellius, who defends that the person of the Father and the Son is one; and lest it should introduce two gods, among the words by which there is a plural signification of persons, it inserted one image. That this is so you will find, attending to the testimony which says, 'Let us make man after our image.' What are you doing, Arian impiety? If Christ is a creature, how is there one image to the creature and the Creator? VII. But lest again Arius, under the occasion of persons, should introduce diversities of natures, diversity of nature does not admit the communion of one form. Many are the voices in the books of Moses by which the impious against the Son — nay, even against the Father — may be refuted:

for how does this impiety not extend against the Father also, which with profane spirit is exercised against the Son, when they take away from the Father what is truly the Father's, taking away from the Son what is truly the Son's? For how is He truly Father, who according to them did not beget? How is Christ truly Son, whom they deny to have been truly begotten of Him? But, as I said, many are the voices in the books of Moses by which this impiety of theirs may be refuted:

but since we do not pursue these very things with the diligence of one writing a book, but as it were, like men in haste, we trace certain summaries on a sheet, that we may seem in some way to have obeyed your command, the other voices must be passed over, especially since in divine utterances it is not the number of testimonies, but the authority that is to be sought, which is fitting even if it be brought forth by a single voice. Let it suffice meanwhile concerning this one passage that Moses agrees with the Gospels and the apostles. Moses proclaims 'God and God': just as we spoke above of the testimony from Genesis, so John also announced 'God and God,' saying: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1).

No one said two gods, although he said 'God and God'; no one but announced one image of the Father and the Son, and therefore the Catholic faith knows to say one God in its confession; yet not so that through the confession of one God the Son should be denied to be what God is — because just as the Father is God, so also the Son is God. For if the Son is not God just as the Father is God, how is there one image to them according to Moses? Or how, according to Paul, is Christ in the form of God, existing equal to God? VIII. But when John too asserts the Word to be God, in the beginning to be with God, not to be outside God, by this inseparability of the Word of God from God He seems to me to signify the same thing which is in the significance of image and form.

For if by one image and the same form the inseparability of the Father and the Son is shown, why should it not be believed that, when John announces the inseparability of God and God by this which he says, 'and the Word was with God, and this was in the beginning with God,' he has signified one image and the same form of the Father and the Son? This sense would plainly seem ambiguous, were it not that the same Evangelist pursued this very thing a little below more plainly, saying, 'and we saw His glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father' (John 1:14): just as the image is one and the form the same, so also the glory of the Son is no other than that which is the Father's. Meanwhile you who call Christ Son by adoption, how do you understand His glory as that of the only-begotten of the Father?

For if you profess that there are many sons of God by adoption — and if Christ too is adoptive — how is He only-begotten of the Father, since He is not so only-begotten while there exist also others by adoption as sons? But if He is truly only-begotten of the Father for this reason, because He alone is begotten of that true Father, how is He asserted to be adoptive, since one adoptive among many adoptive cannot have the property of being only-begotten of the Father? But even if there are adoptive sons, yet of none of them is it said, 'and we saw His glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.' But of Christ alone it is said, 'and we saw His glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father': therefore He is not adoptive, of whom this is said, which cannot be said of the adoptive.

And rightly is there to Him one image with the Father, because He alone is only-begotten of the Father. What wonder then, if in the image of the Son the image of the Father is sealed? Therefore the Savior Himself also said, 'He who sees Me, sees the Father also' (John 14:9): I do not say this, as Sabellius does, as though He were saying that He Himself is the Father, who is also the Son. For I confess that He is the Father, who begot; but that He is the Son, who was born. But when He says, 'He who sees Me, sees the Father also,' just as He shows that the person of the Father and the Son is not one, so He shows that the deity is one, since in the substance of the Father and the Son no diversity is found. IX. Again in this place too I will say: if the Son is a creature, how is it that he who sees the Son, sees the Father also?

No one sees the Father in the vision of a creature: for from the inspection of a creature the Creator can be seen; but the Father is not seen except from the inspection of the Son. If therefore Christ is a creature, and not truly Son, the Father cannot be seen in the vision of a creature; and how does He say, 'He who sees Me, sees the Father also,' except because He is truly Son born of God the Father? And therefore when you see the Son, it is necessary that you see the Father also. For without the Son there is no Father, just as neither is there Son without the Father. Hence too He added, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me' (John 14:10): not indeed through any passive confusion; but because it follows that where the Father is, there the Son also is known to be;

and where the Son is, there too you may know the Father to exist. There is also another sense of that saying, 'He who saw Me, saw the Father also': not that he who saw Jesus with bodily eyes in the body is said to have seen the Father; otherwise the Lord's rebuke to Philip is absurd, when He says, 'So long a time I am with you, and you have not known Me, Philip?' (John 14:9). For according to the body not only Philip saw Jesus, but also all the Jews who opposed Him; nor yet through this — that they saw Jesus according to the body — are they to be believed to have seen the Father also. What then is, 'He who saw Me, saw the Father also'? Direct the gaze of your heart, and see, according to the discernment of a spiritual faith, that Christ the Son of God is not a creature, but the Creator:

behold Him to be truly God without beginning, everlasting; and according to this, that He is God, invisible, inestimable, incorruptible, unchangeable, and in all things such as is also the Father who begot Him: and thus, seeing the Son, that you have seen the Father also is not doubtful. X. In this sense receive also that which He says, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.' Since the Father is perfect, He begot a perfect Son; and since He is invisible, incomprehensible, inestimable God and true light, the Son too was born such as is He who begot Him: and therefore He says, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me'; for since all the things that are of the paternal power and deity are held in the Son, the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father:

and therefore He prefaced it: 'If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also' (John 14:7); and here it is shown that the substance of the Father and the Son is the same, in that the knowledge of both is one. But the knowledge of a creature and of the Creator is not one, because the substance is not one. But of the Father and the Son the knowledge is one; therefore the Son is not a creature, but is Creator, just as the Father too is Creator; and He is God, just as the Father too is, yet not on this account do we speak of two gods. This is where you, O impious heretic, with diabolical fury, kindle as it were into folly at this confession, when you hear 'God and God,' and yet we do not say two gods. For, puffed up with secular letters, in this question you are incurably sick;

and you think that you ought to constrain us to say two gods, since we confess 'God and God.' Do not, O wretched one, gather against Christ the Lord of all creation the artful arguments of Aristotle — you who in some fashion profess yourself a Christian — nor come against the pious confession of the ineffable mystery concerning God as a slanderer with a counting-board, as it were a circumscriber from the discipline of earthly reckoning. Rather look into the divine books, and concerning the divine faith use divine discourses. You have surely read, 'And in Thy light we shall see light' (Ps. 35:10). What distance is there here of light from light? For it would have set down a distance, had there been one, lest anyone should believe there to be no distance of light from light:

but if there is no distance, then they are not two lights, but one light, since in the light of the Father the light of the Son is recognized. This is the light of which Daniel too speaks, saying, 'And the light is with Him' (Dan. 2:22): for this is not said of any creature, but of the splendor of God Himself, who is everlasting light. If the Father is everlasting light, without doubt the Son too is everlasting light. But if the Son of God is denied to be everlasting light, how in the everlasting light of the Father is seen the light of the Son, which is not everlasting? But in the praises of God this saying of the saints is not false: 'And in Thy light we shall see light.' Therefore the light of the Son too is everlasting, which does not differ from the everlasting light of the Father;

and therefore, although the Son is light, and the Father is light, yet the light of the Father and the Son is one, because in the Father and the Son there is no distinction, no separation of light, just as neither of image according to Moses, nor of form according to the apostle Paul. XI. But the mystery of the inseparable unity is according to this, that both — that is, the Father and the Son — equally and indivisibly, and not according to a portion, are one God; and the mystery of plurality is according to this, that there is one Father, and one Son. Even from this passage is made manifest what we read in the Gospel, the Savior Himself saying, 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30). For 'are' signifies a plurality of persons, since here is the Father, and here the Son:

but 'one' marks out the one and the same substance and deity in the Father and the Son, so that the Father and the Son are truly one God; since both — that is, the Father and the Son — are one according to deity, not one according to persons. 'I and the Father are one': by this one utterance both Sabellius is excluded and Arius is refuted. For Sabellius says that the Father Himself is also the Son, in this manner, as though one had two names, and he interprets 'one' to have been said for this reason, that the singularity of one person might be believed. On the contrary, Arius, looking to this which He says, 'are,' understanding in this word a plurality, introduced an impious plurality of gods, believing one everlasting God, and another who began to be God;

one omnipotent, and another who is not omnipotent. But, O blindness in both! They have before their eyes what they might piously behold, yet strive impiously to wrangle by incautious stumblings: let them at least lend themselves their own senses, and they will perceive the truth of the pious faith. Let Sabellius, from admiration of the powers which Christ wrought, believe Christ to be true God, and not one who once began, but one who always was, and can do all things: let Arius believe this, and not blaspheme against Christ, whom he confesses to be the Son. Likewise Arius denies Christ to be the Father: let Sabellius too deny this, and piously believe that Christ is truly God, not being the Father, but the Son. Yet more plainly will I say it. Let Sabellius overcome Arius, that Christ is true God;

and let Arius overcome Sabellius, that Christ under the confession of the true God is also true Son: and to me a Catholic both have prevailed — nay, with me let both prevail over the error of impiety, when together with me they have understood the truth of the sacred faith, which both understands a plurality of persons, and the unity of the deity in this pronouncement of the Lord saying, 'I and the Father are one.' But this divine pronouncement, and this pious understanding of the divine pronouncement, the followers of Arius, when they seek to subvert it, interpret in another manner, and say: they are indeed one, but not in substance, not in deity, not in power, but in will — that is, because they have one and the same will, therefore He says, 'I and the Father are one.'

Say, O most impious ones, the Word of God is substantive; and does he who gave language its speech not know how to speak, and was he ignorant of how to unfold your lofty meaning in words proper and fitting, and was he ineffectual to say, 'I and the Father will one thing,' if indeed in this passage he wished a unity of will, and not of substance and deity, to be understood? XII. But now, I beg you, O Queen, remember what chapters you have deigned to write in the person of the heretics. The heretics themselves allege: 'The Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak' (John XII, 49); and 'I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father' (John VI, 38).

This is the craft of the heretics: that in one place they deny what in another place they confess; so that when they see themselves vehemently bound by the resolutions of the present questions, they always slip away with a serpent's slipperiness. Surely you say, O heretics, that the Father gave a commandment to the Son, what he should say and what he should speak; and how, as though he did not know how to speak, do you correct his words—nay rather now the Father's words; for the Son, what he says and what he speaks, he both says and speaks according to the commandment which the Father gave him. Do you not now understand that, when with a profane spirit you strive to exercise your madness against the deity of the Son, you also burst out raging against the Father? The Son cries out, 'I and the Father are one.'

And you, like grammarians supplying as it were the inefficacy of the Lord's pronouncement by changing the underlying verb, correct it and say: 'What he says, are, must be understood as will; namely so that it was thus spoken, I and the Father will one thing.' But the Son cries out even against you, saying those words which he spoke to the Jews, the sharers of your impiety: 'Why do you not understand my speech?' (John VIII, 43). Let parables and allegories and riddles have their own place; yet in this passage it is most openly and fully said, 'I and the Father are one'; and in what manner they are one, he declares elsewhere also, when he says: 'Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me' (John X, 38).

And lest he should seem to claim for himself what was not his, in order to show the truth of his statement, he first said: 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself; but the Father, abiding in me, he himself speaks, and the works that I do, he himself does' (John XIV, 10). And elsewhere also: 'As the Father taught me, these things I speak; and he who sent me is with me, and has not left me alone, because the things that are pleasing to him I always do' (John VIII, 28, 29). Not because the Son was ignorant of what he ought to say—for what is there that the Wisdom of God should not know? But that he might soften the hardness of your untamed faith toward a devout understanding of the divine unity, also by the authority of the Father, he said:

'The Father abiding in me, he himself speaks' (John XIV, 10); or that other word, 'As the Father taught me, these things I speak' (John VIII, 28). Now just as the works of the Son are the works of the Father—in that, while the Son works, the Father abiding in him works—so what the Son speaks, the Father abiding in him speaks nothing other than what the Son speaks; for neither does the Son speak anything other than what the Father abiding in him speaks. Therefore the speech of the Father and the Son is the same, just as their operation is also the same; and for this reason he said, 'Otherwise believe for the very works' sake' (John XIV, 12). These things he certainly did in like manner as the Father, so that at last, even by the authority of the works, it might be believed that the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. XIII.

But in what way that which he said is to be understood—'I in the Father and the Father in me'—has already been expounded above. Yet now I shall say it more briefly. It is to be heard according to the indifference of substance: 'I in the Father and the Father in me.' But also that which he said, 'I and the Father are one'—according to the indifference of substance the Father and the Son are one. I do not wish, then, O impious heretic, that you should take away the indifference of substance of the Father and the Son, and inopportunely insert a unity of will, which elsewhere you impiously deny by saying: 'It is written, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the Father' (John VI, 38).

You who, in this passage, being ignorant of the mystery of his statement, so impiously deny that the will of the Father and the Son is one—how shall I believe you that you sincerely confess that one and the same will of the Father and the Son is signified in that which the Lord pronounced, saying, 'I and the Father are one'? If you truly believe that the Father and the Son are one in will, I do not see how you can deny that they are also one in substance and in divinity and in power. For why should there not be one substance, one divinity and power, in which there is one will? For if their will is on equal terms, on equal terms is their divinity. If their divinity is not on equal terms, neither is their will on equal terms.

For the will of God, and the will of anyone whatsoever who is not God, cannot be equal; because the force of the will of him who is God is one thing, and the force of the will of him who is not God is another. The will of God is naturally good, it is perfect, it is unchangeable, ever existing the same, existing without beginning, and persevering without end. But the will of him who is not God, in that it has a beginning—just as he himself who is not God can both waver and be turned, just as he himself who is not God—and through this it is not truly good, because not naturally good, nor truly perfect, since it can be turned and diminished: so that what it willed today, it may not will tomorrow, and what it did not will today, it may will tomorrow. XIV.

Let me say it more plainly by an example: that angel who is now the devil, before he became the devil, had a good will; but when he became the devil, by the agitation of his own choice he lost the good will; for this reason, namely, because he subsists from a thing made, and is not God by nature. This is to be thought also of every rational creature: for even if some of them have not turned aside, nor do they turn aside from the good will, yet they have in their nature the power to turn aside, because they are creatures and not God. For this very fact that they do not turn aside, they obtain by the perpetual observance of discipline, not from the truth of an unchangeable nature.

But God himself alone is without beginning good and perfect and unchangeable without beginning, having also a good and perfect and unchangeable will; not by institution, nor from any progress of observance does he have a good and perfect and unchangeable will, but from the truth of an unchangeable nature, by which he is also a good and perfect and unchangeable God. Let it be seen whether perhaps there is any heresy that rejects this meaning; yet you above all consent to this, O Arian, you who say that the very Son of God—whom you confess to be the Lord of all creation—is turnable and changeable, in that you proclaim him to have been made by God out of nothing, yet not truly born of God.

If this is your opinion, that every creature is turnable and changeable, and you say that Christ is a creature: then he too, according to you, existing of a turnable and changeable nature by reason of his condition, does not have an unchangeable and immutable will. And how do you interpret that the Father and the Son are one in will, when, according to you, the wills of the Father and the Son are diverse and contrary; namely because the one is immutable and unchangeable, while the other is changeable and convertible? You are caught and exposed, O fraudulent heretic, in how you try to entrap and ensnare simple souls. For, constrained and confined by the testimony of the Lord's pronouncement, who said:

'I and the Father are one,' so that, however you might fly away from this utterance which in clear words shows the unity of deity in the Father and the Son, you succumbed by necessity, not by choice, to this: that, as it were for a memorial in the present passage, with the tips of your lips, and so to speak, on the mere surface of the words, you might insert a unity of will, in order that you might the more expressly and vividly and to the very marrow exclude the unity of deity. For you take away the meaning of unity of substance, which is easily believed from the very simplicity of the words; and you interpret the meaning as unity of will;

so that, because the aforesaid rationale of his is not easily understood by all, you might meanwhile deceive the simple hearer, while you so act that he may not understand the unity of divinity. For the catholic faith too most sincerely and most truly believes the unity of will in the Father and the Son, not with the lips only but with the whole heart—a faith which also acknowledges the unity of substance and of divinity. For just as the Son is with the Father immutable and unchangeable in substance, so also is he with the Father immutable and unchangeable in will. And therefore the will of the Father and the Son is one, just as there is also one power and one image—or rather, let me say, that the Son himself is the will of the Father.

For just as the one image of the Father and the Son is so according to Moses, yet the Son himself too is written by the Apostle to be 'the image of the invisible God' (Colossians I, 15); so also, since the will of the Father and the Son is one, it is piously defined that the Son is the will of the Father. Just as he is the image of the invisible God, understand likewise concerning power also. For the catholic faith says that there is one power of the Father and the Son; and yet the Apostle writes that Christ is 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians I, 24). Piously, therefore, it is said that the Son is the will of the Father, just as the same one is himself the wisdom of God. And yet, if this meaning still troubles you, attend to what we say: certainly Christ is the wisdom of God.

But what is the will of God, other than the wisdom of God? For in God the will is not one thing and the wisdom another: in men indeed there can be a will that is not this same wisdom; because the will of man arrives at the wisdom possible for him by learning and meditation and progress. But the will of God arrives at wisdom not by learning, not by meditation, not by progress, but it, needing nothing, is naturally substantive wisdom. Whence Christ also, being the wisdom of God, is likewise the will of God; for in God the will is not one thing and the wisdom another. Concerning what the heretics say. 'Out of nothing,' they say, 'God made for himself a son: if he made him out of nothing, he is a creature, and not a son.' I.

David, striking the forehead of Goliath with a single cast of a stone, laid low that mighty enemy of great bulk (1 Samuel XVII, 50). But it is not of our strength to conquer with a single stone, for a twofold reason, as I think: because neither do we have such powers as David also had; and these men too much present a forehead hardened to impudence by their impieties. Hence, although we have already cast many stones not in vain, yet still, in the grace of God, it must be repeated by us, and that impudent forehead of theirs, which is without the seal of the Lord, must be battered with frequent stones of testimonies;

so that, even if their flesh does not pour out gore, yet, pierced with many wounds, at least their shame may blush with a suffusion of blood, if even from those things which you had written to be theirs they are overwhelmed. You say these are the words of the heretics. 'Out of nothing,' they say, 'God made for himself a son. If he made him out of nothing, he is a creature, and not a son.' And what is it, that you call him a son whom you affirm to be a creature, when you say that he was made out of nothing? You cannot, then, call him both a son and a creature: for a son consists from birth, but a creature from being made. Why do you profess things contrary to yourself? Choose one of two: say either a son truly a son, or a creature truly a creature.

If you so call him a son as to call him truly a son, you have denied that he is a creature. And how do you say that he was made out of nothing, whom you truly confess to be a son? But if you say that he is truly a creature, why do you name him a son, when in him you deny the truth of that name? II. But let us strike the impudence of his forehead with the living stones of the divine voice. You say that he is a creature; I say that he is a son; who shall pronounce between us concerning the truth of the profession? I think you would gladly have him judge, by whom you say Christ was made out of nothing, while we refuse it. Let us hear, then, what he himself pronounces from the heavens. 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matthew III, 17). Did he say:

'This is he whom I made out of nothing'? And see, that he said this then for the first time, when Jesus as man came to baptism; and, I think, for no other reason than because it could be believed that he was not the Son of God, who appeared bodily, and who, among other men, came himself too as a man, a sinner, to baptism, though he had no sins of his own. Lest therefore, when Jesus accomplishes the sacrament of baptism in the man he had assumed, he should not be believed to be truly the Son of God, the Father cries out from heaven, 'This is my beloved Son.' John too had indeed understood that this one was his Lord, when, to him coming to baptism, he said: 'I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?' (Matthew III, 14).

But lest perhaps among others the testimony of John should not seem so great as to overcome faith in the flesh and lowliness in Christ, and absolutely all the things that were done through his flesh; he than whom none is greater, he than whom none is a better discerner, gives testimony from the heavens, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' For as much as faith concerning the flesh of the Savior was manifest, so much ought faith concerning the deity of the Savior also to have been manifest: for then he is true God, if he is also a true Son. His flesh indeed, or rather let me say the man, no one doubted, because it could not even be doubted;

but that which was in the man, and was born together with the man, since it could not be seen through nature, lest it should be uncertain, is shown by the voice and as it were by the finger of the Father, who says: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'; and meanwhile, by equal authority, the faith of both substances—that is, of God and of man—is commended in Christ. For the Son of God himself was sealing in himself the faith of the man through the conception and birth of the Virgin, through the wailing of infancy, through the cradle and swaddling-cloths, through his mother's very breasts, through the very nourishment of the maternal milk, through the increases of bodily age, through this very thing that he came to be baptized.

You see how, meanwhile, up to the baptism he expressed in himself the truth of the man, doing this the more closely the more difficult it could be believed, that God should become man. And lest perhaps you think the Son of God was compelled to this, and not willingly made also the son of man, hear the Apostle saying concerning him: 'Who, when he was established in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant' (Philippians II, 6, 7). If, then, 'he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,' he was not compelled, but willingly made the son of man, existing in the form of God, equal to God. You have, therefore, the Son expressing in himself the faith of the man. III.

Likewise let us see the faith of the divinity expressed in him; and although it has been sufficiently expressed above concerning the faith of his divinity, and there are still many other more copious things by which the faith of his divinity appears, yet those I now pass over in silence: for it suffices me if the Father alone meanwhile shows the faith of the divinity in Christ, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' What do you say, heretic? You believe Christ without doubt, that he made himself the son of man; what do you judge concerning the Father? Is he truthful in your estimation, when he testifies that Christ is his Son? If you do not believe the Father, when he testifies that Christ is his Son, then Christ is of greater authority with you, whom you believe concerning the faith of the man in himself;

and the Father is less worthy of credit, whom you do not believe concerning the testimony of the Son. And how do you claim the Father to be the greater God, whose voice you depreciate as if it were of the least account? Or how do you assert Christ to be the lesser God, whom you believe as much as you do not even believe him whom you proclaim greater? This honor of yours is great which you bestow on the Father, that you do not believe him when he professes concerning his Son! Who nevertheless again and elsewhere professes that he is his Son, when the Lord ascended into the mountain with the apostles Peter and James and John, and his face shone like the sun (Matthew XVII, 2). Let the divine testimony again strike the impudence of your forehead: 'And behold,' he says, 'a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice from the cloud, saying:

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him' (Matthew XVII, 5). Certainly Moses and Elijah were seen alike speaking with him, whom assuredly you cannot deny to have been made sons of God by adoption; and how is it that the divine voice testifies concerning Christ alone, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear him'? For if Christ too is a son by adoption, when he stood between two adoptive sons, he would surely have said, 'And this one is my son,' lest Christ alone should be believed to be a son; but when he said, 'This is my beloved Son,' he separated the sons of adoption, so that the property of true birth might be believed in Christ alone as Son.

But it is not enough that he professed Christ alone to be his Son; he added also that which was due to a true Son, saying, 'hear him.' He showed a great—nay, even an equal—authority in the Son, since the Son is to be so heard, just as the Father also is to be heard: 'Hear him,' he says. Whatever, therefore, Christ shall have already said, he is to be heard. And let us see whether he nowhere says that he is the Son of God, whether he nowhere professes that he has God as Father. It is his own voice: 'Every plant which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up' (Matthew XV, 13). And again: 'You have made my Father's house a house of merchandise' (John II, 16). Elsewhere also: 'And do you believe in the Son of God?' (John IX, 35).

He would never presume to say, 'My Father,' 'my Father's,' and 'do you believe in the Son of God?' unless there were a confidence of nature, which claims the appellation of truth in 'Father,' from the consciousness of his own birth. For why should he speak so boldly—he 'who humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the death of the cross'? IV. There are also very many other testimonies; but we are now not writing a book to pursue them all, but for the sake of brevity we close the sum with a few testimonies, so that that voice may be overwhelmed which denies that Christ is the Son of God. Indeed, Christ says that he is also the Son of man, when he says: 'And you shall see the Son of man' (Mark XIV, 62). And, 'Whom do they say the Son of man to be?' (Matthew XVI, 13).

For this is the sacrament of faith in Christ: that when you have believed him to be the Son of God, you may also believe that he was made the son of man. For that which he is the Son of God, he possesses by nature; but that which he was made the son of man, this he bestowed upon us as a benefit: and therefore he who does not believe Christ to be the Son of God is impious; but he too who disdains to confess that Christ was made the son of man is ungrateful. You, however, heretic, believe that Christ was made also the son of man, and when the Savior says this very thing of himself, you do not deny it. But indeed, when the Father has said, 'This is my Son,' and when the Son has said, 'My Father'; you, like the heart of Pharaoh, harden yourself, and do not believe?

It remains to your impudence that, like a melancholic not perceiving the truth, you should say that the Father and the Son have lied. 'I do not,' he says, 'deny that he is a son; but I deny that he is a true son': therefore Peter too merited the voice of blessedness for this reason, because he did not believe Christ to be a true son, although he confessed him to be the Son of the living God. Great indeed is the sacrament of the confessed faith in Peter's conscience, that while he says with his lips, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matthew XVI, 16), yet in his heart he holds that he is not the true Son of the living God! I am a man: I hear words, I understand words; the silent interpretation of the heart I cannot hear. He said Christ to be the Son of the living God:

unless he had added 'adoptive,' I understand nothing other than what he also speaks. Let Christ see to it, who as Lord and God looks upon his heart; but to me, who hear only with the ears, there ought to have been made manifest through the voice the confession of his heart, on whose account Peter too is questioned: for Peter was not questioned for himself alone, but for all of us; so that when he confesses well concerning Christ, we too might likewise learn to attain to blessedness by a like confession. And meanwhile let us see whether Peter worthily obtains the proclamation of blessedness, believing in his heart that he is not the true son, but adoptive; whether this is a worthy revelation of the Father, and not rather of flesh and blood.

Very many indeed are sons of God by adoption: not only Jeremiah, who, while he was still in his mother's womb, was sanctified (Jeremiah I, 5); nor John the Baptist alone, who as an infant in his mother's womb leaped for joy in the spirit (Luke I, 44); but neither Elijah alone, who has not yet suffered death, nor any whatsoever from the number of the prophets, one of whom, as is related in the Gospel (Matthew XVI, 14), was thought to be Christ; but to this name of adoption harlots and tax-collectors have come, though by amendment. And lest anyone think that I blaspheme, let him hear it said in the Gospel: 'Harlots and tax-collectors shall go before you into the kingdom of heaven' (Matthew XXI, 31), where there are none but sons of adoption.

When therefore the grace of adoption is denied neither to blasphemers nor to the base, if they correct themselves: did the Father reveal this to Peter as a great sacrament, namely that he is indeed the Son of the living God, but rather by adoption, and not by birth, and only in name, and not also in the truth of the name? Plainly, he who believes this is not blessed, but the most wretched of all men, having not only the understanding of flesh and blood, but even the spirit of the devil. But I beg you, O Queen, that you may perceive that many things could have been said in this place, which, hastening to what follows, I pass over; believing that, given the occasion, like one of the wisest, you can perceive more than we speak, according to the saying of Solomon:

'Give occasion to a wise man, and he will be wiser' (Proverbs IX, 9). V. This is your doctrine, Arians, this your singular interpretation, this the secret mystery of your faith: 'By adoption,' he says, 'Christ is a son, and not a true son.' Let us question John also: this one too could have learned the truth, either because he was present when Peter's praised confession was made, or from the special love of the Savior, by which he was so near to him that he even reclined upon his breast (John XIII, 23). Let us see what, clinging to his breast, he drew in. 'No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father' (John I, 18). No creature sees God according to that which God is; and therefore he said:

'No one has ever seen God.' But it follows, and he says: 'except the only-begotten Son': therefore the only-begotten Son is not a creature, who sees God whom no creature has seen. And lest perhaps you should believe him to be one of the adoptive sons, he cut off the occasion of the impious meaning, when he called him not only a son, but even the only-begotten Son. This name has no companions: and although others are called sons, yet they are sons by adoption, not by nature. But Christ alone is the only-begotten Son, because he alone is the true Son, not by adoption, but by nature, not by appellation only, but also by lineage: he alone, I say, is the true Son, who is also in the bosom of the Father. The adoptive sons are in the bosom of Abraham;

but he who is the true Son, and is the only-begotten Son, is in the bosom of the Father. Understand, however, even in this, the Son inseparable from the paternal substance, in that he is said to be in the bosom of the Father. Likewise we read: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son: that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life' (John III, 16). I do not see how the love of God toward the world is commended, if he whom he gave for the redemption of the world is not a true and only-begotten Son. The world without doubt is a creature; if Christ is a creature, what did he confer upon the world, giving a creature for a creature? Every creature is reckoned of servile condition: if Christ is a creature, he is a servant;

how did he redeem unto liberty, since a servant can by no right confer liberty? And yet Abraham, in order to commend the love which he had toward God, offered his own and true only-begotten and most beloved son as a holocaust, when God himself had commanded this very thing to be done as a proof of his love toward him to all. And you say, O impious one, that God, wishing to commend his love to the world, did not have a true son whom he might give, but used necessity, after the manner of barren women, so that, because he did not have a true son begotten of himself by nature, he might give even one made out of nothing? VI.