Of whom David says: Man ate the bread of angels (Ps. 78:25). Behold, that the Son came into being of the Father's substance we not only reasonably believe, but also approve by testimonies, Scripture saying: He who loves the begetter loves him who is born of him (1 John 5:1); since true faith is not ignorant of what it believes, even if it cannot yet see what it hopes and believes. But those who deny that the Son was born of the Father's substance must surely say whence they think the Son of God came into being: whether from nothing, or from something? If he came into being from nothing, he is to be called a creature, not the Creator. But if he is said to be from something, then God himself also made that from which he begot the Son.
Or is it perhaps said that he had something coeternal from which he could beget the Son? If something coeternal is reckoned as that from which the Son is believed to be begotten, the error of the Manichaeans is confirmed by this assertion. But if there was not something from which the Son was begotten, and yet he is not said to be born of the Father's substance, this remains: that those who contend to preach him lesser in divinity must evidently confess that the Son of God came into being out of nothing. But perhaps it is said that the Son was born of the Father's will: let it then be said whether the Father begot the Son of himself or from elsewhere? For if he begot of his very self, the will could not precede the generation, because it is impious to believe that in God anything which was not always should have newly come about.
Whence it is known that God indeed founded every creature out of nothing by his will, but begot the Son of his substance, or nature. But if the Son is said to be born from elsewhere, either his origin is asserted to be out of nothing, or (as was said above) it is proclaimed, against the rule of true faith, that something besides God always existed. The blessed Apostle indeed, knowing the Son to be begotten true God of the Father's essence, and on this account with the Father one Lord God, and not unmindful of the Lord's precept by which we are forbidden to serve two masters, commanded that the Lord Christ be served as true God, whom he knew to be honored equally with the Father, the Lord himself saying: That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father (John 5:23).
Whom the apostle John, with the Lord himself speaking in him, testifies to be true God, saying: That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). Wherefore the rule of true faith is to be held, by which the Son of God is believed to be born ineffably, without beginning, of the Father's substance, that is, of that which he himself is, and is worshiped and held as true God together with the Father. For neither is it lawful for Christians to serve as true God him who is not by nature God; nor is it right for anyone not to serve Christ the only-begotten Son of God as true God. For that he who serves Christ pleases God the blessed Paul most evidently makes clear—he who had forbidden [service] to be given to those who by nature are not gods—saying:
For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit: for he who in this serves Christ pleases God (Rom. 14:17-18). Wherefore, knowing Christ to be true God, let us not dare to separate him from the equality of the paternal substance: for he is true God who is by nature God; and he is by nature God who had deity from the eternity of a true nativity, and did not possess it by the grace of a gift. For what is born is connected with its kind; but what is adopted is advanced by bounty alone. Objection 5.
The perturbations of minds which are uttered without reason, when they exhort that heed be paid, the truth seems not to be comprehended by them nor to be professed, on this account: that it is absurd to say or believe that the Father and the Son are unbegotten. He who persuades himself to devise these things wishes to deceive himself by fraud—things which indeed demand this to be said to those who assert the Father and the Son to be equal. Response. Those indeed perturb minds, whether cowardly or unlearned, who would say that the Father and the Son are unbegotten; but they do not do this who are known to preach the Father and the Son equal. For in two unbegotten a diverse Divinity is found. But in one begotten, of one unbegotten, a natural unity is demonstrated.
For two unbegotten cannot have one nature, where neither does one find in one a true generation from himself, nor does one from one truly acknowledge in himself the substance of nativity. But we say the Father and the Son to be neither two unbegotten, nor call them two begotten, nor confound them personally, nor separate them substantially. And therefore we say them equal without ambiguity, because we in no way find them diverse from each other: one begot one, one was born of one. And because of the immutable Father the immutable Son came into being, and the eternal and perfect Father begot a coeternal and perfect Son, therefore the Son could have the true substance which he has from the true Father neither lesser nor diverse.
For it is an affront to the divine nature if the Father, in begetting the Son, could not be in the Son as great as he remains in himself; and to the begetter (which is impious) a natural power is taken away, if the equality of the paternal substance be denied to the Son—since apostolic doctrine does not keep silent about this, the evangelist John saying: Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal to God (John 5:18). Which equality was not objected by the malevolent hostility of the Jews (as it seems to some), but was declared by the wholly truthful authority of the evangelist.
He who, as he truly said that Jesus broke the sabbath, and truly also said that he called God his Father, so truly said that, through the profession of the paternal name, he had made himself equal to the divinity and omnipotence of the begetter. This equality the true Son himself, proclaiming and demonstrating it in himself, says: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). And in another place: All things that the Father does, these the Son also does likewise (John 5:19). The same one himself says: Father, glorify your Son, that the Son also may glorify you (John 17:1). And in another place: That all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father (John 5:23). And many other things, which, avoiding prolixity, we have omitted.
They therefore show that He makes Himself equal to God by the profession of a father's manhood, that He is one with the Father, that He does all the same things that the Father does in like manner, that being glorified He also glorifies, and that He claims for Himself the equality of the Father's honour; and that, just as these things do not belong to one who is less, so, with the scruple of doubt removed, they belong to one who is equal. Objection 6. Meanwhile, while it is said concerning the light, they do not understand what is written: that the Father of lights is one, and He who is called the Light is another, who shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended Him not.
Therefore one ought to note what the law commands or teaches the minds of men, since between that Author of light and this light shining in the darkness—which enlightens every man coming into this world, through whom the Son was made life and was shown to be the light of men, having been made that which is shown—the Father is not, and cannot be equated. Reply. This the equality of the Father and the Son always demonstrates: that whatever there be of derogation or of honour is at once common to both. Whence it comes about that, when the Son is distinguished from equality with the Father contrary to the rule of faith, it detracts more from the Father than from the Son.
This the assertion of this passage more clearly demonstrates, whereby, while the Son alone is believed to be called Light, the name of light is denied to the very Father who begot the Light. But he who does not substantially possess the name of light cannot substantially have the appellation of Deity. For the blessed apostle John says: For God is light (1 John 1:5). If therefore He who is God is light, then he who is not light is not God; wherefore the Son is to be believed light of light, since He is God born of God, lest, while the Son is called light, God the Father be intolerably blasphemed. And lest we think that the Father is called light by conjecture rather than by truth, we must prove this also by testimonies. In the holy oracles it is said of Wisdom:
Wisdom is more mobile than all things that move; and by reason of her pureness she pervades everywhere. For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty God; and therefore no defilement can fall upon her. For she is the brightness of the eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of the majesty of God, and the image of His goodness. Wisdom is called the brightness of the eternal light—which eternal light all Christendom professes to be the Father.
But if perchance some think that this eternal light, whose brightness is Wisdom, ought not to be taken as the Father, it is necessary that, while they deny God the Father to be the eternal light, they seek out another eternal light whose brightness they may clearly show Wisdom to be. But let them themselves see how they can find either a light that is not God, or another light besides Wisdom that is coeternal with God. Let it therefore be acknowledged that the Father is the light of light, so that at least thus the Son may not be doubted or denied to be equal to the Father. We have now taught by one testimony that God the Father is light; it is better if we show the same thing also by apostolic preaching. Blessed Paul testifies that we are the sons of God, saying: Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God:
for you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness to our spirit that we are the sons of God (Rom. 8:14, 15, 16). John the evangelist also says: But as many as believed in Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God (John 1:12). Therefore, that Paul might show that God, whose sons we are, is light, he called those same sons of God also sons of light, saying thus: But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief; for you are all the children of light, and children of the day (1 Thess. 5:4-5). And the Son to His disciples:
That you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:45). But no one will be able to deny that the Son Himself is light, of whom the evangelist says: He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). And again: And the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (Ibid., 5). The Son too testifies with His own voice that He is light: I am (He says) the light of the world (John 8:12). And that it may be recognized that the Father is in the Son, light in light, we are fully taught in the testimony of John, who says: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all; and he added:
If we walk in the light, as He also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another (1 John 1:5, 7). And that he might show he had said this of the Father, he added: And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (Ibid., 7). The Father, whom he called light, he asserted to be in the light. What then is that light, but the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9)? It has therefore been shown that the Father is light, just as the Son is light; and it is likewise demonstrated that the Son is day just as the Father too is day, the prophet saying: Show forth His salvation from day to day (Ps. 95:2). Wherefore let it be acknowledged that the Father is in the Son who is light, and the Son in the Father who is light, He Himself testifying concerning Himself who is light:
I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 14:12); as though He should say: I am in the light, and the light in me. And where no diversity of light is found, let no equality of Deity be denied; lest, while God is said by apostolic preaching to be light, he who is not said to be light be denied also to be God (which is impious). Objection 7. We have omitted (var. admitted, or lost) the superfluous arguments which would not weary the hearers, and this was the reply to that for which the opinion required an exposition. And since there is a distance between the Father and the Son, and that which is said is not so because there is no difference between them, the Saviour Himself says, who is to be believed: There is another who bears witness of me (John
5:32). Likewise, the Son Himself says of the Holy Spirit: And I will send you another Paraclete (John 14:16). He called the Father another, and He called the Paraclete to be another; and when the divine laws and mysteries are not heeded, men become professors of paganism, when they assert that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Reply. The true faith never has, nor ever had, superfluous arguments, but always right ones; nor does any weariness arise from these, if only the truth be heard without the zeal for contention—which for this reason called the Father another, that it might distinguish the persons, not that it might demonstrate a substantial distance: for when He called Him another, He showed that He has His own person;
but by naming the Father, He demonstrated that He has one substance with Him, in this manner: for if the Father, who bears witness to the Son, is truly another, so that the person of each may be distinguished, He is also truly Father, so that the substantial unity may be demonstrated. But if the fatherhood of the Father is true, the birth of the offspring is also true; and if the birth of the Son is true, there cannot be a substantial diversity between the Father and the Son.
For the true and eternal substance, from which the true birth arose, just as it could not be diminished or divided by begetting, so, remaining whole in itself, it bestowed itself wholly upon the coeternal truth of the birth; namely, that there should exist not only equality between begetter and begotten without diversity, but also that natural unity should remain without confusion or loss. For both the name and the truth of the divine birth, just as they show the person of begetter and begotten to be distinct, so do not permit the substance to be thought diverse. The Father, therefore, was called another for this reason: that the truth of the generation might be shown, not that He might be thought either prior or greater:
for if we ought to take as greater the one whom we hear called another, we are compelled also to confess the Paraclete, the Spirit—because He was called another—to be greater than the Son: for just as the Son called the Father another, so He also named the Paraclete another. If therefore it pleases you, and the truth of faith demands this—that he who is called another should be thought better—then since the Father is called another, and the Paraclete another, from this the Son would now be made subject to both, so that at least thus the Paraclete would be made coequal with the Father, who, because He was called another, is said to be set before the Son; so that by the sharing of this pronoun, in the Father and the Paraclete the sharing of Deity would be demonstrated;
but if the Paraclete, though He is called another, is nevertheless not preferred to the Son, neither therefore is the Father to be preferred to the Son because He is called another: for by this pronoun the distinction of persons is shown, not of nature. Finally, lest, deserting the rule of truth through ambiguity, we be carried about through devious errors, the Lord Himself showed us both that He retains one substance with the Father, and that He has another person, saying in the Gospel: I and the Father are one (John 10:30). Which saying, those who strive to weaken the signification of divine unity in the Father and the Son, are eager to refer not to substantial unity but to a concord of will. But if the Lord wished to be so understood, He could have said:
I and the Father will one thing; not, I and the Father are one. But now let each choose what he will: whether he thinks that in God to be is one thing and to will another; or whether he believes that to be is the same as to will, so that the truth of this dominical saying may appear to him more clearly. For if he says that in God there is one will, which is called to will, and another essence, which is known as to be, then that which was said according to essence—I and the Father are one—cannot be referred to the will. For to be is said from essence;
but if in God (as is certain) that which is to will is thought to be the same as to be, then, while the unity of will is asserted, let the substantial unity also not be denied; so that both in that He said one there may be recognized nothing other than what the Father is, and in that He said we are there may be recognized that the Son Himself is not He who is the Father. This doctrine our Fathers, following Christ in all things, held, saying that the Father and the Son are of one substance. Which in Greek was called Homousion, for this reason, namely: because at that time a new heresy had arisen among the Greeks, which strove to separate the Only-begotten from the substance of the begetter, to this end, that whosoever received that doctrine should appear to be a worshipper not of the Creator but rather of the creature.
But it is astonishing that in this word only the sound is regarded by some, and the meaning of the term is not investigated, whereas very many things were not said of old, yet are found inserted into the profession of faith according to the opportunities of times and occasions. Just as unbegotten Father is nowhere read in the canonical Scriptures, and yet according to the truth of faith the Father is proclaimed unbegotten—namely against Sabellius, who understands the Father and the Son to be one not by communion of substance, but confounds them by singularity of person. But if the sound, and not the sense, is considered in words, let not the Church be reckoned by the name catholic, which is found placed neither in the Old nor in the New Testament.
But if all these things, though they be in no canonical volume, are nevertheless worthily held in faith, why should it be thought forbidden to us in the case of Homousion not to consider the sound of the word, but the sense; nor to attend to the novelty of the word, but to understand the power of the mystery? But it is astonishing that those who, for the belief of one substance, wish us to be called Homousians, how they are unwilling to be called Triusians for three and diverse substances; although, even if they flee to be reckoned by such a name, the quality of their belief nevertheless shows them to be this. Worthily therefore we worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the property of persons being preserved, as one God;
for the true faith neither receives three gods, which the many-worshipping pagans do, nor asserts its God to be created, which the worshippers of the creature proclaim. Objection 8. Let men who desire to follow the saving precepts take heed that it is a crime and exceedingly blasphemous: for the falsehood of profession can never profit those who seek to worship or venerate God by injuring Him through blasphemy. If injury is not tolerated from men, how can it be tolerated by the Lord Himself, the Author? For He shows His rebuke concerning the unfaithful, saying: This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me (Isa. 29:13). Reply.
The apostolic faith does not injure God, but honours Him, since it asserts that the divine substance could neither be diminished nor changed; and therefore it proclaims the Son equal to the Father, since the one substance of both preserves in each the fullness of its perfection. Then, therefore, is injury inflicted upon God, when through a diversity of divinity the creature is worshipped along with the Creator; whereas the name of creation is to be received in the Son only in this respect, that for the redemption of men He was made man from among men. The Holy Spirit too, if the Lord wished Him to be understood a creature, He would never have commanded to be joined to Himself and the Father in the sacrament of baptism, saying: Go, teach all nations, baptizing (var.
baptize) them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Objection 9. But as for what is said concerning His generation: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee (Ps. 109:3), who could doubt that it was said of the fleshly birth? Since the very preceding writing shows you, so that you may understand what the prophet says, that in the splendours of the saints He was begotten before the day-star. And the splendour of the saints is shown to be the heralding of the prophets, and their prophecy to have been fulfilled concerning Him, that He might make this manifest even the prophet, saying: From the womb before the day-star I begot thee; and it came to pass gloriously, which the prophetic mouth foretold, that He would be born of a virgin.
Who could doubt that this birth came to pass just as Scripture records? Reply. He is much deceived who does not believe this passage of Scripture to be fitting to the divine birth, and who, hearing that God said, From the womb before the day-star I begot thee—because in God a fleshly womb cannot be believed—supposes that the sense of this passage is to be applied only to that generation which is according to the flesh; whereas the preceding verse rather suggests the understanding of the divine generation, in which the Father says to the Son: With thee is the principality (Ibid.), so that the Father and the Son may be recognized to be one principle. But the name of womb was said by a transferred term, whereby the divine nature itself might be signified;
just as the incorporeal substance of God is wont to be named by corporeal names, so that the sense of men may be led by the customary terms of their own nature to an understanding of the divinity. For the eyes of God are said to see all things, as it is written: In every place the eyes of God behold the good and the evil (Prov. 15:3). But who could doubt that God so sees all things through His nature, just as we confess Him to fill all things through the infinity of His nature? But we also find diverse terms of corporeal members named in God for this reason (as has been said), that through the operations of these things the property of His own incorporeal substance may be understood.
So therefore here too He said that He begot the Son from the womb, so that no one should reckon Him whom we hear begotten from the womb to be alien from the nature of the Father. But in that He said before the day-star, He showed the perpetual birth of the Son not to be subject to a temporal beginning: for Lucifer (the day-star) is the name of a star, and in the beginning of the world, when God had created the luminaries and the stars, He commanded them to be for days, and months, and seasons, and years (Gen. 1:14), by which cycles of names all time is revolved. But in the splendours of the saints, the prophecies of the prophets have not been rightly understood: for the splendour of the saints consists not in the office of preaching, but in the brightness of the resurrection; concerning which splendour the Lord says:
Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43). This splendour of the future resurrection the prophet Daniel also commemorates in these words: And many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth shall rise up in the opening, these unto life eternal, and these unto reproach and everlasting confusion: and those who understand shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and of the just many, as the stars for ever (Dan. 12:2-3); but this splendour shall then be bestowed on the saints by the Lord, when, according to the saying of the Apostle, He shall reform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). In this splendour, therefore, the saints shall then fully understand that the Father and the Son are one principle;
nor to differ from one another either in substance or in majesty. Although, therefore, we confess that the Son was, according to the flesh, procreated from the womb of the Virgin, we nevertheless do not doubt that He was begotten of the womb of the Father, that is, of the Father's substance; nay rather, we so confess the Son to be born true God of the womb of God, just as we do not doubt that a true man proceeded from the womb of the Virgin; lest (which be far from us), if a true man is believed to have been born of the mother's substance, and a true God be denied to be of the Father's substance, the human nature be esteemed greater—which was able to procreate that which it is—than the divine substance, which was unable to beget true God. Objection 10. It is not the least (var.
exceeding) disgrace, that a mind which understands ill should be deceived by its own frauds, so that sometimes two are said to be one, sometimes three one. Does not the boon of benefit fail to appear, when one is not designated together with two? It is a mockery to believe that one God consists of three parts, when (what is worse) it is still said of them that He is thus to be believed one God, though the Father is not He who is the Son, nor the Son He who is the Holy Spirit; concerning whom they profess that they have differences among themselves, yet that each cannot have his own honour, unless a malignant breast be found to couple them in one God. Reply.
By no frauds, whether his own or another's, is he deceived who so worships one God that in the Trinity he knows neither to confound the persons nor to separate the substance. And he understands that one nature to be one God, in which he acknowledges the eternity of true divinity; for it is said to us: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one (Deut. 6:4). Likewise: Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve (Ibid., 13). But if we ought to receive the Lord God as the Father alone, then let us neither serve the Son as God nor adore Him; for whatever does not pertain to the nature of the Lord God alone ought not to be adored by us as God.
But what shall we say of the Son, whom in the heavens the angels and all the powers ever adore and praise, so much so that even when placed in the form of a servant, and on account of the suffering of death made a little lower than the angels, the angels are commanded to adore Him, Moses saying: Rejoice, O heavens, together with Him, and let all the angels of God adore Him (Ps. 96:8; cf. Deut. 32:43 LXX). Men too David, divinely inspired, joins to this adoration, saying: All the kings of the earth shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him (Ps. 71:11). How then is He adored both by men and by angels, if He is separated from the substance of the one God? How do we dare to render to Him that service which is owed to God only, if His nature is not one with the Father?