which He never wished to be reckoned, who always professed Himself the Son and to have come from the Father. Therefore He made manifest also the conjunction of the two persons, lest the Father should be desired separately as though visible in sight, and that the Son should be held to be the representative of the Father. And nonetheless He interpreted this too, how the Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father: 'The words,' He says, 'which I speak to you are not mine'—assuredly because they are the Father's—'but the Father abiding in me does the works.' Through the works, therefore, of His powers, and through the words of His teaching, the Father abiding in the Son is seen through the things by which He abides and through Him in whom He abides, from this very fact the property of each person appearing, when He says, 'I am in the Father and the Father in me.'
And indeed He says, 'Believe.' What? That I am the Father? I do not think it is so written, but, 'That I am in the Father and the Father in me'; and, if nothing else, believe at least on account of the works—those works, assuredly, through which the Father was seen in the Son, not by sight but by perception. CHAPTER 25. After Philip and the whole substance of this question, the matters which persevere to the end of the Gospel are in the same kind of discourse, whereby the Father and the Son are distinguished in their own property. He promises also that He will ask the Paraclete of the Father, when He has ascended to the Father, and that He will send Him, and indeed another. But we have already set forth in what sense 'another.' For the rest, 'He shall take of mine,' He says, just as He Himself of the Father's. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Paraclete makes three cohering, one from another.
Which three are one, not one person, in the way it was said, 'I and the Father are one,' with reference to unity of substance, not to singularity of number. Run through it still further, and you will find that He whom you believe to be the Father is called the Father's vine, and the Father the husbandman; that He whom you suppose to have been on earth is again in the heavens acknowledged by the Son, when, looking up thither, He delivered His disciples to the Father. But even though in this Gospel it is not revealed, 'My God, unto what hast Thou forsaken me?'
and, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' nevertheless after the resurrection and the glory of death overcome, the necessity of all His humility having been laid aside, when He could now have shown Himself the Father to so faithful a woman who out of love, not out of curiosity nor out of unbelief like Thomas, had ventured to touch Him, He says, 'Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren' (nay, in this too He shows Himself the Son, for He would have called them sons if He had been the Father) 'and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.' Father to Father, and God to God? Or Son to Father, and Word to God?
The very conclusion of the Gospel too—for what purpose does it seal these things that are written, except, 'That you may believe,' he says, 'that Jesus Christ is the Son of God'? Therefore whatever things from these you may have thought could avail you toward the demonstration of the same being both Father and Son, you strive against the definitive judgment of the Gospel: for these things were not written that you should believe Jesus to be the Father, or the Christ, but the Son. CHAPTER 26. On account of the single discourse of Philip and the Lord's answer to him, we seem to have run through the Gospel of John; lest one discourse should subvert so many things plainly declared both before and afterward, and it must be interpreted in accordance with all things rather than against all things, even against its own senses.
For the rest, not to bring in the other Gospels which confirm our faith by the Lord's nativity, it is enough that he who was to be born of a virgin is by the angel himself declared to be determined the Son of God: 'The Spirit of God shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' Here too they will indeed try to argue, but the truth shall prevail. 'Surely,' they say, 'the Son of God is God, and the power of the Most High is the Most High': nor are they ashamed to foist in a thing which, had it been so, would have been written. For whom did the angel fear, that he should not openly pronounce, 'God shall come upon thee, and the Most High shall overshadow thee'?
But in saying 'the Spirit of God'—even though the Spirit is God—yet not directly naming God, he willed that there be understood a portion of the whole, which was to pass into the name of the Son. This Spirit of God will be the same as the Word. For just as, when John says 'the Word was made flesh,' we understand also the Spirit at the mention of the Word, so here too we recognize also the Word in the name of the Spirit. For the Spirit is the substance of the Word, and the Word is the operation of the Spirit, and the two are one. Otherwise John will profess that one was made flesh, and the angel that another was to be made flesh, unless the Spirit is also the Word and the Word the Spirit. As therefore the Word of God is not himself whose he is, so neither is the Spirit—though he is called God—yet himself whose he is said to be.
No thing belonging to another is that very one to whom it belongs. Plainly, when something is from another, and so is his because it is from him, it can be such as is also he himself from whom it is and to whom it belongs: and therefore the Spirit is God and the Word is God, because from God, yet not himself from whom he is. But if the Spirit of God, as a substantive thing, will not himself be God but only so far God as being from the substance of God himself—in that he is both a substantive thing and as it were some portion of the whole—much more will the power of the Most High not be the Most High himself, since it is not even a substantive thing as is the Spirit, just as neither is wisdom nor providence: for these too are not substances but accidents of each several substance. Power befalls the Spirit as an accident, nor will it itself be the Spirit.
These realities therefore, whatever they be—the Spirit of God, and the Word, and the power—being conferred upon the virgin, that which is born of her is the Son of God. This he himself attests even in these Gospels, when as a boy at once he says: 'Do you not know that I must be in the things of my Father?' This Satan too knows in the temptations: 'If you are the Son of God.' This the demons also thereafter confess: 'We know who you are, the Son of God.' The Father he himself also adores. That he is the Christ of God, acknowledged by Peter, he does not deny. Exulting in the Spirit toward the Father, he says: 'I confess to you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise.'
Here too he affirms that the Father is known to none but the Son, and that the Son will confess before the Father those who confess him and deny those who deny him; bringing in the parable of the son—not of the father—sent into the vineyard after several servants, and slain by the wicked husbandmen, and avenged by the father; being himself too ignorant of the last day and hour, known to the Father alone; disposing the kingdom to his disciples as he says it was disposed to him by the Father; having power to ask legions of angels from the Father for his aid if he would; crying out that God had forsaken him; committing his spirit into the Father's hands; and after the resurrection promising that he would send to the disciples the promise of the Father; and lastly commanding that they baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into one:
for we are baptized not once but thrice, at each name into each several person. CHAPTER 27. And why should I linger on things so manifest, when I ought to attack those matters wherein they seek to obscure what is plain? For being everywhere hemmed in by the distinction of Father and Son—which, with the conjunction remaining, we arrange as that of the sun and its ray, of the fountain and the river, yet through the undivided number of two and three—they attempt to interpret it otherwise, still toward their own opinion, so that they equally distinguish both in one person, Father and Son, saying that the Son is flesh, that is, man, that is, Jesus; but the Father is spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And they who contend that the Father and the Son are one and the same, now begin rather to divide them than to unite them.
For if Jesus is one and Christ another, then the Son will be one and the Father another, since Jesus is the Son and Christ the Father. Perhaps they learned such a 'monarchy' from Valentinus, to make two, Jesus and Christ. But this contrivance of theirs has already been blunted by what was treated before, namely that the Word of God, or the Spirit of God and the power of the Most High—which they make out to be the Father—not being himself whose they are said to be, but from him and his. Yet in another way too they will be refuted in this passage. 'Behold,' they say, 'it was foretold by the angel: Therefore that holy thing which shall be born shall be called the Son of God: therefore flesh was born, therefore the flesh will be the Son of God.' Nay, it was said concerning the Spirit of God. For certainly the virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit, and what she conceived, that she bore.
That therefore was to be born which was conceived and to be brought forth, that is, the Spirit, whose name also shall be called Emmanuel, which is by interpretation 'God with us.' But flesh is not God, that of it should be said, 'The holy thing shall be called the Son of God,' but he who was born in it is God, concerning whom also the psalm says, 'Since God became man in her and built her up by the will of the Father.' What God was born in her? The Word and the Spirit, who together with the Word was born by the will of the Father. Therefore the Word in flesh: while about this too it must be asked, in what manner the Word was made flesh—whether as though transfigured in the flesh, or clothed with the flesh. Rather clothed. For the rest, God must be believed unchangeable and unformable, as being eternal.
But transfiguration is the destruction of the former state: for everything whatsoever that is transfigured into another thing ceases to be what it was and begins to be what it was not. But God neither ceases to be nor can be another thing. Now the Word is God, and 'the Word of the Lord abides forever,' persevering, that is, in his own form. And if it is not possible for him to be configured, it follows that he is to be understood as 'made flesh' in the sense that he comes to be in flesh and is manifested and seen and handled through flesh, because the other statements too demand to be taken thus.
For if the Word was made flesh by a transfiguration and change of substance, then Jesus will now be one substance out of two, out of flesh and spirit—a certain mixture, like electrum out of gold and silver—and he begins to be neither gold, that is, spirit, nor silver, that is, flesh, while the one is altered by the other and a third something is produced. Therefore Jesus will not be God; for the Word ceased to be, which was made flesh: nor man, in respect of the flesh; for the flesh is not properly flesh, because it was the Word. Thus out of both he is neither: he is something far different, a third thing, from either. But indeed we find him set forth directly as both God and man, this very psalm suggesting it: 'Since God became man in her, he built her up by the will of the Father':
assuredly throughout both Son of God and Son of Man, since he is without doubt God and man according to each substance, standing apart in its own property, because neither is the Word anything other than God, nor the flesh anything other than man. So too the apostle teaches concerning each of his substances: 'Who was made,' he says, 'of the seed of David'—this will be man and Son of Man; 'who was defined Son of God according to the Spirit'—this will be God, and the Word of God the Son: we see a twofold condition, not confused but conjoined, in one person, God and man, Jesus. But concerning Christ I defer.
And so preserved is the property of each substance, that the Spirit carried out its own works in him, that is, powers and works and signs, and the flesh discharged its own sufferings—hungering under the devil, thirsting at the Samaritan woman's well, weeping over Lazarus, troubled even unto death, and at last it also died. But if there were a third something compounded of both, like electrum, the distinct proofs of each substance would not so appear; rather the spirit would have done fleshly things and the flesh spiritual things, by transference—or else neither fleshly nor spiritual things, but things of some third form arising from confusion: nay, either the Word would have died, or the flesh would not have died, if the Word had been converted into flesh; for either the flesh would have been immortal, or the Word mortal.
But because both substances, each in its own condition, acted distinctly, therefore both their proper operations and their proper outcomes befell them. Learn then with Nicodemus that 'what is born in the flesh is flesh, and what is of the Spirit is spirit.' Neither does flesh become spirit nor spirit flesh: they can plainly be together in one. Of these Jesus consisted, man of flesh, God of spirit; whom then the angel, in respect of that part in which he was spirit, pronounced the Son of God, reserving for the flesh to be called the Son of Man. So too the apostle, calling him the mediator of God and men, confirmed each substance. Finally, you who interpret the Son of God to be flesh, show who is the Son of Man—or will it perhaps be the spirit?
But you wish the spirit to be held to be the Father himself, because God is spirit: as though there were not also a Spirit of God, just as the Word is God and yet is the Word of God. CHAPTER 28. And so you make Christ to be the Father, O most foolish one, you who do not even inspect the very force of this name—if indeed Christ is a name and not rather a designation: for 'anointed' is what is signified. But 'anointed' is no more a name than 'clothed' or 'shod,' a thing that is an accident to the name. Or would you, if from some argument Jesus were also called 'the clothed one,' just as he is called Christ from the sacrament of anointing, equally say that Jesus was the Son of God, but believe 'the clothed one' to be the Father? Now concerning Christ. If the Father is Christ, the Father is anointed, and certainly by another: or if by himself, prove it.
But the Acts of the Apostles do not so teach, in that outcry of the Church to God: 'For there gathered together in this city against your holy Son whom you anointed—Herod and Pilate with the nations.' Thus they attested Jesus to be both the Son of God and the Son anointed by the Father: therefore Jesus will be the same who as Christ was anointed by the Father, not the Father who anointed the Son. So too Peter: 'Let all the house of Israel therefore most firmly know that God has made both Lord and Christ—that is, anointed—this Jesus whom you crucified.' And John also marks as a liar him who shall deny that Jesus is the Christ, and on the contrary as born of God everyone who shall believe that Jesus is the Christ:
wherefore also he exhorts us to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, that we may have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So too Paul everywhere sets down God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ: when he writes to the Romans, he gives thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ; when to the Galatians, he presents himself as an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. And you have throughout the whole instrument of his those statements which pronounce in this manner and set forth two, God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, and that Jesus himself is the Christ, in the other name too the Son of God.
For thereafter, by the very right by which each name belongs to one, that is, to the Son of God, the one even without the other belongs to the same: and whether Jesus alone is set down, Christ too is understood, because Jesus is the anointed; or Christ only, he is likewise Jesus, because it is Jesus who was anointed. Of which names the one is proper, that which was imposed by the angel; the other an accident, that which comes from the anointing—provided always that Christ be the Son, not the Father. Finally, how blind is he who does not understand, even in the name of Christ, that another God is portended if he ascribes the name of Christ to the Father. For if Christ the Father is God who says, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God,' he certainly shows another Father above himself and God.
Likewise, if the Father is Christ, another is he who makes firm the thunder and creates the spirit and announces his Christ among men. And if 'the kings of the earth stood up and the rulers gathered together in one against the Lord and against his Christ,' another will be the Lord against whose Christ the kings and rulers gathered. And if 'thus says the Lord to my Lord' Christ, another will be the Lord who speaks to the Father Christ; and when the apostle writes, 'That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you the spirit of wisdom and knowledge,' another will be the God of Christ Jesus, the bestower of spiritual gifts.
Certainly, that we may not wander through all instances, 'he who raised up Christ will also raise up our mortal bodies'—as though the raiser will be another than the Father who died and the Father who was raised, if Christ who died is the Father. CHAPTER 29. Let it be dumb, let this blasphemy be dumb. Let it suffice that Christ the Son of God is said to have died, and that because it is so written. For the apostle too, not without heavy meaning pronouncing that Christ died, adds 'according to the Scriptures,' that he might soften the harshness of the pronouncement by the authority of the Scriptures, and overturn the offense to the hearer.
And although two substances are reckoned in Christ Jesus, the divine and the human, and it is agreed that the divine is immortal, while the human is mortal, it is clear in what sense he says he died: that is, in respect of the flesh and man and Son of Man, not in respect of the spirit and Word and Son of God. Finally, by saying 'Christ died'—that is, the anointed—he shows that which was anointed to have died, that is, the flesh. 'Therefore,' you say, 'we too, saying it in the same way as you say the Son, do not blaspheme against the Lord God; for we call him dead not from the divine but from the human substance.' Yet you do blaspheme, not only because you say the Father died, but also because you say he was crucified.
For by the curse of the crucified, which by the law falls upon the Son—since Christ was made a curse for us, not the Father—by turning Christ into the Father you blaspheme against the Father. But we, saying that Christ was crucified, do not curse him but report the curse of the law, since neither did the apostle blaspheme in saying this. But just as that which admits of being said of someone is said without blasphemy, so that which does not admit of it is blasphemy if it be said. Therefore neither did the Father suffer-with the Son. Namely, fearing a direct blasphemy against the Father, they hope to diminish it in this way, now conceding that the Father and the Son are two, if indeed the Son thus suffers but the Father suffers-with him. Foolish in this too. For what is 'to suffer-with' but to suffer with another?
Further, if the Father is impassible, he is certainly also incapable of suffering-with; or if capable of suffering-with, he is certainly passible. You gain nothing for him even by this fear of yours. You fear to call passible him whom you call able to suffer-with. But the Father is as incapable of suffering-with as even the Son is impassible from that condition in which he is God. But how did the Son suffer, if the Father did not suffer-with him? He is separated from the Son, not from God. For a river too, if it is polluted by some turbid matter, although one substance runs down from the fountain and is not severed from the fountain, yet the river's injury will not reach the fountain; and although it is the water of the fountain that suffers in the river, since it does not suffer in the fountain but in the river, it is not the fountain that suffers but the river which is from the fountain.
So too, could the Spirit of God suffer in the Son? Because it would suffer not in the Father but in the Son, would the Father not appear to have suffered? But it suffices that the Spirit of God suffered nothing under its own name: because if it suffered anything in the Son, it was indeed possible that the Father should suffer with the Son in the flesh. Nay, this being reconsidered, none will deny it: since neither can we suffer for God unless the Spirit of God be in us, who also speaks in us the things that pertain to confession, yet himself not suffering but supplying the ability to suffer. CHAPTER 30. Otherwise, if you go further, I shall be able to answer you more harshly and to confront you with a pronouncement of the Lord himself, so that I say: what do you seek concerning this?
You have him himself crying out in the passion: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Therefore either the Son was suffering, forsaken by the Father, and the Father who forsook the Son did not suffer; or if it was the Father who was suffering, to what God did he cry out? But this cry of the flesh and soul—that is, of the man, not of the Word nor of the spirit, that is, not of God—was uttered for this reason: to show God impassible, who thus forsook the Son in that he handed over his man unto death. This the apostle too perceived, writing, 'If the Father spared not the Son.' This Isaiah also earlier pronounced: 'And the Lord delivered him up for our transgressions.' Thus he forsook him in not sparing, thus he forsook him in delivering him up.
For the rest, the Father did not forsake the Son, into whose hands the Son committed his spirit. In short, he committed it, and at once expired: for while the spirit remains in the flesh, the flesh cannot die at all. Thus to be forsaken by the Father was, for the Son, to die. The Son therefore both dies and is raised again by the Father according to the Scriptures. The Son ascended into the heights of the heavens, who also descended into the lower parts of the earth. He sits at the right hand of the Father, not the Father at his own. Him Stephen, when he is stoned, sees still standing at the right hand of God, as one to sit thereafter until the Father put all his enemies under his feet. He too is to come again upon the clouds of heaven, such as he also ascended.
He meanwhile poured out the gift received from the Father, the Holy Spirit, the third name of the Godhead and the third degree of the majesty, the preacher of the one monarchy but also the interpreter of the economy, if anyone shall admit the discourses of his new prophecy, and the leader into all the truth which is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit according to the Christian sacrament. CHAPTER 31. For the rest, it is a thing of the Jewish faith so to believe in one God as to refuse to number the Son alongside him, and after the Son the Spirit. For what will there be between us and them save this difference? What is the work of the Gospel, what is the substance of the New Testament—establishing the law and the prophets up to John—if from thenceforth the Father and the Son and the Spirit, believed as three, do not constitute one God?
Thus God willed to renew the sacrament, that he might in a new way be believed to be one through the Son and the Spirit, so that now God might be openly known in his own proper names and persons, who formerly, though preached through the Son and the Spirit, was not understood. Let the antichrists therefore look to it, who deny the Father and the Son: for they deny the Father in saying that he is the same as the Son, and they deny the Son in believing him to be the same as the Father, giving them what they are not, taking away what they are. But he who shall have confessed Christ to be the Son of God, not the Father, God abides in him and he in God. We believe the testimony of God whereby he testified concerning his Son: 'He who has not the Son, neither has life.' And he does not have the Son who believes him to be other than the Son.