Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, LFC 43, 48 (1874/1885) Book 1. pp. 6-129.
[Translated by P. E. Pusey]
CHAPTERS IN BOOK I.
CHAPTER 10. That the Only-begotten is alone by Nature the Son from the Father, as being of Him and in Him, on the words, No man hath seen God at any time. |7
Archbishop of Alexandria.
[Introduction]
Exact of a truth, and God-taught is the mind of the holy Evangelists, from the splendour of their power to behold, as from some lofty mountain-spur and watch-peak, on all sides observing what is of profit to the hearers, and tracking with intent zeal whatever may seem to be of profit to those who thirst after the truth of the Divine dogmas and with good purpose search after the mind that is hidden in the Divine Scriptures. For not in those who search too curiously, and take pleasure in the many-tangled wiles of reasonings, rather than rejoice in the truth, does the Spirit make His revelation, since neither does He enter into a malicious soul, nor otherwise does He suffer His precious 'pearls to be rolled at the feet of swine. But with exceeding pleasure does He have fellowship with simpler minds, as having a more guileless motion, and shunning superfluous subtleties, whereto specially pertains the meeting with sudden fear, and from too great turning aside unto the right hand to err from the straight and royal road. For he that walketh simply walketh surely, as saith Solomon.
But while the holy Evangelists have a marvellous exactness in writing (for it is not they that speak, as the Saviour saith, but the Spirit of the Father which is in them): reasonably may one grant that the Book of John has been composed beyond all marvel, looking both to the supereminence of his thoughts, the keenness of his intellect, and the constant and |8 close-succeeding cumulation of conceptions. For course-fellows are they one with, another in the exposition of the Divine dogmas, and loosing as it were from the starting line they course charioteers to one goal. But a diverse fashion of speech is wrought out by them, and they appear to me to resemble persons, who are ordered to come together unto one city, but care not to approach it by one and the same beaten road. Thus one may see the other Evangelists with great exactness giving the account of our Saviour's genealogy in the Flesh, and bringing down step by step those from Abraham unto Joseph, or again carrying up those from Joseph to Adam. But we find the blessed John not caring to be over-studious about these, but with a most fervent and fire-full motion of intellect endeavouring to lay hold of those very things that are above human mind, and daring to explain the unspeakable and unutterable Generation of God the Word. For he knew that the glory of God hideth speech, and greater than our idea and utterance is the God-befitting dignity, and hard to utter and most difficult of unfolding are the properties of the Divine Nature.
But since it was necessary in some sort to mete out heaven with the span, and to suffer the scant measures of human nature to approach to what is by all unattainable and hard to be explained, that the approach might not be opened out for those who teach otherwise to come against the more simple, in that no voice of the saints who have been eyewitnesses and ministers of the word held in check their ill-surmisings, keen comes he to the very essence of the Divine dogmas, crying aloud, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word, was with God and the Word was God: the Same was in the beginning with God.
But I think that those who are engaged on the Holy Scriptures ought to admit all writings that are honest and good and free from harm. For thus collecting together the varied thoughts of many and bringing them together into one scope and understanding, they will mount up to a good measure of knowledge, and imitating the bee, wise workwoman, will compact the sweet honeycomb of the Spirit. |9
Some then of those of most research, say that after our Saviour's Cross and Ascension into Heaven, certain false shepherds and false teachers falling like wild beasts on the Saviour's flocks terrified them not a little, speaking out of their own heart, as it is written, and not out of the mouth of the Lord; yea rather, not merely out of their own heart, but out of the teachings of their own father, I mean the devil. For if no one can call Jesus Anathema, save in Beelzebub, how is not what we say of them clearly true? What things then are they which these men belched forth against their own head? They ignorantly and impiously affirmed that the Only-Begotten Word of God, the Eternal Light, in Whom we both move and are, was then first called into being, when He was born Man of the Holy Virgin, and taking this our common fashion, shewed Himself upon earth, as it is written, and conversed with men. On those then who are thus disposed, and who dare to slander the ineffable and eternal Generation of the Son, the word of the Prophet comes heavily, saying thus: But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulteress and the whore, against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth and draw out the tongue? not bringing forth good things out of a good heart, but spueing forth the venom of the blood-defiled dragon, of whom saith the Psalmist unto the one God That is over all: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
But since there was no slight disturbance in regard to these things amongst them that had believed, and the ill of the scandal thereof was consuming like a plague the souls of the simpler (for some drawn away from the true doctrines by their prattle imagined that the Word was then barely called to the beginning of Being, when He became Man), those of the believers who were wiser being assembled and met together, came to the Disciple of the Saviour (I mean this John) and declared the disease that was pressing upon the brethren, and unfolded to him the prattle of them that teach otherwise, and besought that he would both strenuously assist themselves with the illumination through the Spirit, |10 and stretch forth a saving hand to those who were already within the devil's meshes.
The disciple grieving then over them that were lost and corrupted in mind, and at the same time thinking it most unnatural to take no forethought for those that should succeed and come after, betakes himself to making the book: and the more human side, the genealogy of the legal and natural Birth according to the flesh, he left to the other Evangelists to tell at fuller length; himself with extreme ardour and courage of soul springs upon the prattle of those who are introducing such things, saying, IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. |11
CHAPTER I. That Everlasting and before the ages is the Only-Begotten.
What do they say to this [namely, In the beginning was the Word] who introduce to us the Son, as one new and of late, that so He may no longer be believed to be even God at all. For, says the Divine Scripture, there shall no new God be in thee. How then is He not new, if He were begotten in the last times? How did He not speak falsely when He said to the Jews, Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am? For plain is it and confessed by all, that many ages after the blessed Abraham was Christ born of the Holy Virgin. How at all will the words was in the beginning remain and come to anything, if the Only-Begotten came into being at the close of the ages? See I pray by the following arguments too how great absurdity, this cutting short the Eternal Being of the Son, and imagining that He came into being in the last times, yields.
But this same word of the Evangelist shall be proposed again for a finer test:
In the Beginning was the Word.
Than the beginning is there nothing older, if it have, retained to itself, the definition of the beginning (for a beginning of beginning there cannot be); or it will wholly depart from being in truth a beginning, if something else be imagined before it and arise before it. Otherwise, if anything can precede what is truly beginning, our language respecting it will go off to infinity, another beginning ever cropping up before, and making second the one under investigation.
There will then be no beginning of beginning, according to exact and true reasoning, but the account of it will recede unto the long-extended and incomprehensive. And |12 since its ever-backward flight has no terminus, and reaches up to the limit of the ages, the Son will be found to have been not made in time, but rather invisibly existing with the Father: for in the beginning was He. But if He was in the beginning, what mind, tell me, can over-leap the force of the was? When will the was stay as at its terminus, seeing that it ever runs before the pursuing reasoning, and springs forward before the conception that follows it?
Astonishment-stricken whereat the Prophet Isaiah says, Who shall declare His generation? for His Life is lifted from the earth. For verily lifted from the earth is the tale of the generation of the Only-Begotten, that is, it is above all understanding of those who are on the earth and above all reason, so as to be in short inexplicable. But if it is above our mind and speech, how will He be originate, seeing that our understanding is not powerless to clearly define both as to time and manner things originate?
To look in another way at the same, In the Beginning was the Word.
It is not possible to take beginning, understood in any way of time, of the Only-Begotten, seeing that He is before all time and hath His Being before the ages, and, yet more, the Divine Nature, shuns the limit of a terminus. For It will be ever the same, according to what is sung in the Psalms, But Thou art the Same and Thy years shall have no end. From what beginning then measured in respect of time and dimension will the Son proceed, Who endureth not to hasten to any terminus, in that He is God by Nature, and therefore crieth, I am the Life? For no beginning will ever be conceived of by itself that does not look to its own end, since beginning is so called in reference to end, end again in reference to beginning. But the beginning we are pointing to in this instance is that relating to time and dimension. Hence, since the Son is elder than the ages themselves, He will be free of any generation in time; and He ever was in the Father as in a Source, according to that which |13 He Himself said, I came forth from the Father and am come. The Father then being considered as the Source, the Word was in Him, being His Wisdom and Power and Express Image and Radiance and Likeness. And if there was no time when the Father was without Word and Wisdom and Express Image and Radiance, needs is it to confess too that the Son Who is all these to the Everlasting Father, is Everlasting. For how at all is He Express Image, how Exact Likeness, except He be plainly formed after that Beauty, Whose Likeness He also is?
Nor is it any objection to conceive of the Son being in the Father as in a Source: for the word source here only means the "whence." But the Son is in the Father, and of the Father, not as made externally, nor in time, but being in the Essence of the Father and flashing forth from Him, as from the sun its radiance, or as from fire its innate heat. For in such examples, one may see one thing generated of another, but yet ever co-existing and inseparable, so that one cannot exist of itself apart from the other, and yet preserve the true condition of its own nature. For how can there be sun which has not radiance, or how radiance without sun being within to irradiate it? how fire, if it have not heat? whence heat, save from fire, or from some other thing not removed from the essential quality of fire? As then in these, the in-existence of the things that are of them does not take away their co-existence, but indicates the things generated ever keeping pace with their generators and possessed of one nature so to speak with them, so too is it with the Son. For even if He be conceived and said to be in the Father and of the Father, He will not come before us as alien and strange and a Being second to Him, but as in Him and co-existing ever, and shining forth from Him, according to the ineffable mode of the Divine generation.
But that God the Father is spoken of by the saints too as the Beginning of the Son in the sense only of "whence," hear the Psalmist through the Holy Ghost foretelling the second Appearance of our Saviour and saying as to the Son: With Thee the Beginning in the Day of Thy Power in the beauty of |14 Thy Saints. For the day of the Son's Power is that whereon He shall judge the world and render to every one according to his works. Yerily shall He then come, Himself in the Father, and having in Himself the Father, the so to say unbeginning Beginning of His Nature in regard only to the "whence," by reason of His Being of the Father.
In the Beginning was the Word.
Unto many and various ideas does our discourse respecting the here signified beginning diversify itself, on all sides zealous to capture things that tend to profit, and after the manner of a hound, tracking the true apprehension of the Divine dogmas, and exactitude in the mysteries. For search, saith the Saviour, the Holy Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me. The Blessed Evangelist, then, seems here to name the Father Ἀρχὴ 1, that is the Power over all, that the Divine Nature Which is over all may be shewn, having under Its feet every thing which is originate, and borne above those things which are by It called into being.
In this Ἀρχὴ then that is above all and over all was the Word, not, with all things, under Its feet, but apart from all things, in It by Nature as Its Co-Eternal Fruit, having the Nature of Him Who begat Him as it were a place the most ancient of all. Wherefore He Begotten Free of Free Father, will with Him possess the Sovereignty over all. What then now too will be the nature of the argument in this, it is meet to see.
Hazardful have certain, as we said above, asserted that the Word of God was then first called into being, when taking the Temple that is of the Holy Virgin He became Man for us. What then will be the consequence, if the Son's Nature be thus, or originate and made and of like nature with all things else, to which birth out of not being, and the name and fact of servitude, are rightfully and truly predicated? For what of things that are made can with impunity escape servitude under the God That is Lord of all? |15 what does not stoop under the sovereignty and power and lordship that is over all, which Solomon himself too signifies to us when he says, For the throne of Sovereignty is established with righteousness? For ready and exceeding prepared unto righteousness is the Throne of the Sovereignty, that I mean which is over all. And what throne that is of which we are now speaking, hear God saying by one of the Saints, The Heaven is My Throne. Ready therefore unto righteousness is the Heaven, that is, the holy spirits in the heavens.
Since then one must needs confess that the Son is with the rest of the creatures subject to God the Father, as having the position of a servant, and together with the rest falling under the authority of the Ἀρχὴ, if He be according to them late in Birth and one of those who have been made in time:----of necessity does the Blessed Evangelist spring with energy on those who teach otherwise, and withdraw the Son from all bondage. And he shews that He is of the Essence that is Free and Sovereign over all, and declares that He is in Him by Nature saying, In the beginning was the Word.
But to the word Ἀρχὴ he fitly annexes the was, that He may be thought of as not only of renown, but also before the ages. For the word was is here put, carrying on the idea of the thinker to some deep and incomprehensible Generation, the Ineffable Generation that is outside of time. For that was, spoken indefinitely, at what point will it rest, its nature being ever to push forward before the pursuing mind, and whatever point of rest any might suppose that it has, that it makes the starting point of its further course? The Word was then in the Ἀρχὴ, that is in Sovereignty over all things, and possessing the dignity of Lord, as being by Nature from It. But if this be true, how is He any longer originate or made? And where the was wholly is, how will the "was not" come in, or what place will it have at all as regards the Son? |16
CHAPTER II. That the Son being Consubstantial with the Father is also God in His Own Person, even as also the Father.
And the Word was with God.
Having sufficiently shewn that already out of date and astray from the truth is the senseless mind of those who hold such opinions, and having, by saying In the beginning was the Word, closed every loophole to those who say that the Son is of the things that are not, and having utterly stripped off all their nonsense in these words, he goes to another akin and most perverse heresy. And like as some gardener at once most excellent and enduring, delights much in the toils of the mattock, and girding his loins, and in the working-dress befitting him, gives all diligence to present the appearance of his park free from the unseemliness of thorns, and ceases not throwing one upon another, and, ever going round about, removes the troublesome root, applying the stern tooth of the mattock; so the blessed John too, bearing in his mind the quick and powerful and most sharp word of God and considering with keenest glance and clearest attention the bitter shoots of the naughtiness of those who think otherwise, comes upon them so to speak at a run, and with mighty resolution cuts them off on every side, to those who read his books ministering defence in the right faith.
For see now again I pray, the vigilance of this bearer within him of the Spirit. He taught in the foregoing, that the Word was in Ἀρχὴ, that is, in God the Father, as we said. But since, with the eye of his understanding illumined, he was not ignorant, as we may suppose, that certain would arise, of their great ignorance saying that the Father and Son are one and the same, and distinguishing the Holy Trinity only |17 by name, but not suffering Them to exist in Their several Persons, so that the Father should be conceived of as in truth Father and not Son, the Son again to be by Himself Son, not Father, as the word of truth is:----needs against this heresy too as already confronting him, and mooted at that time, or about so to be, does he arm himself, and for its destruction, by the side of In the beginning was the Word he puts forthwith, And the Word was with God: every where adding of necessity the was on account of His Generation before the ages, yet by saying that the Word was with God, shewing that the Son is One, having existence by Himself, God the Father again, with Whom was the Word, Another. For how can that which is one in number be conceived of as itself with itself, or beside itself?
But that the reasoning of the heretics about these things also will be found without learning, we will teach by the considerations below, making an exact test of the questions regarding it.
Proof by demonstration and Scripture testimonies, that the Father is in His Own Person, and the Son likewise, the Holy Ghost being counted with Them as God, even though nothing is for the present enquired into regarding Him.
Consubstantial is the Son with the Father and the Father with the Son, wherefore They arrive at an unchangeable Likeness, so that the Father is seen in the Son, the Son in the Father, and Each flashes forth in the Other, even as the Saviour Himself says, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, and again, I in the Father and the Father in Me. But even though He be in the Father, and have again the Father in Him, Himself full well, as has been already said, perfectly exact unto the Form of Him Who begat Him, and depicting again in Himself without any shortcome, the Father whence He is:----not therefore will He be deprived of His separate existence, nor will the Father lose His own special Being; but neither will the surpassing Likeness and Resemblance work any confusion of Persons, so that the Father Who begat and the Son Who is Begotten of Him should be considered as one |18 in number. But sameness of Nature will be confessed of Both, yet the Individual Existence of Each will surely follow, so that both the Father should be conceived of as indeed Father, and the Son as Son. For thus, the Holy Ghost being numbered with them and counted as God, the Holy and Adorable Trinity will have Its Proper Fullness.
Another. If the Son Himself is Father too, what place has the distinction of names? For if He begat not at all, why is He called Father? How Son, if He were not begotten of the Father? For the Names ask as of necessity such an idea regarding them. But since the Divine Scriptures preach that the Son was Begotten, and the truth is so, He has therefore an existence by Himself. The Father too is again by Himself, if indeed that which is begotten is plainly one thing from another as regards that which begets.
Another. The blessed Paul writing his letter to the Philippians says of the Son, Who being in the Form of God, thought it not robbery to be Equal with God. Who then is He Who would not that His being Equal with God should be thought robbery? For must one not needs say, that One is He Who is in the Form of God, Another again He Whose Form it was? But this is clear and confessed by all. Therefore not one and the same in number are Father and Son, but of distinct Being and beheld in One Another, according to sameness of Essence, even if They be One of One, to wit the Son of the Father.
Another. I and My Father are One, said the Saviour, as knowing, that is, that Himself has a separate existence and the Father too. But if the truth of the fact be not so, why did He not, keeping what belongs to oneness, say, I and My Father am One? But since He explains what He means by the plural number, clearly He overthrows the surmise of those who think otherwise. For we are will not be with sense taken of one.
Another. At the fashioning of man the voice of God is introduced saying, Let Us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness. If then the amplitude, if I may so call it, of |19 the Holy Trinity is contracted into a One in number, and they impiously take away from the Father and the Son Their separate Existence: who is he who says, and to whom, Let us make man in Our Image? For He ought forsooth to say, if it be as they in their silly nonsense say, Let us make man in my image, after my likeness. But now the writer of the Book, not saying this indeed, but allotting the creation to the plural number and adding Our image, well-nigh with clear and mighty voice proclaims the enumeration of the Holy Trinity to be above One.
Another. If the Son is the Brightness of the Father, as Light of Light, how is He not other than Him, as of distinct Being? For that which is the embrightened, is so in very deed from other, that namely which brightens it, and not itself from itself.
Another. The Son shewing Himself of the Essence of God the Father says again, I came forth from the Father and am come; again I go to the Father. How then will He not be Other than the Father in Person and number, when all reason persuades us to conceive of that which proceeds from ought as other than that from whence it proceeded? Not true therefore is the contrary argument.
Another. Believing in God the Father, in His Only-Begotten Son, and in the Holy Ghost we are justified. Wherefore the Saviour Himself too enjoins His own Disciples saying Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. If then the difference of the Names is to contribute nothing to our conception, but when one says the Father, he means the Son, and in naming the Son makes mention of the Father, what need was there of bidding that the believers should be baptized not into Unity but into Trinity? But since the tale of the Divine Nature runs forth into the number three, it is I suppose wholly manifest to all that Each of those so numbered exists in His Own Person, but by reason of there being no change in the Nature, It arrives at One Godhead and has the same worship.
Another. The Divine Scripture says that the cities of the |20 Sodomites were burned by the Anger of God, and explaining how the Divine wrath was brought upon them, and clearly describing the mode of the destruction, The Lord, it says, rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from, the Lord, since this too is the portion of the cup most befitting those who are wont to commit such sins. What Lord then from what Lord sent the fire on and consumed the cities of the Sodomites? It is clear that it was the Father Who worketh all things through the Son, since He is too His Might and His Arm, Who caused Him to rain the fire upon the Sodomites. Since therefore the Lord sends the fire from the Lord upon them, how is not the Father Other, in respect to His own Being, than the Son,, and the Son again than the Father? For the One is here signified as being from One.
Another. Moved by prophetic spirit, and through it foreknowing things to come, the blessed Psalmist had perceived that the human race could no otherwise be saved, except by the alone Appearing of the Son of God, Who is able easily to trans-order all things to whatsoever He will. Wherefore he besought that the Son might be sent to us, as alone able to save those who were under subjection and oppression of the devil, and said, as though to God the Father, O send out Thy Light and Thy Truth. What then the Light is, and what the Truth, hear the Son Himself saying, I am the Light and I am the Truth. But if the Light and the Truth of the Father, that is the Son, be sent to us, how is He not Other than He, as far as His own Being, even if He be One with Him as regards Sameness of Essence? For if any imagine that it is not so, but that Father and Son are one and the Same, why does not he who bears within him the Spirit make the fashion of his prayer different and cry, Come to us, O Light and Truth? But since he says O send out, plainly he knew that One is the Sender, Another the Sent: be the mode of the Sending conceived of as befits God.
Another. The Divine Scriptures say, that through the Son were made all things that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, and thus believing, we the worshippers of the truth go on our way in rightness of conception, |21 and within the dogmas of piety. Let us then scrutinize the expression through the Son, and examine what sense it gives us. It is clear that it would have us conceive of the Doer and Worker as One, Him through Whom all things are wrought as Another. For the expression through the Son gives, as of necessity, a sort of exhibition of two Persons. Else let them say how the word through the Son in His being said to do anything, will rightly and truly admit the one in number and in the reckoning thereto pertaining, if none other be conceived of with Him and concurring with Him. But I suppose that our opponent will be wholly at a loss. But since both the Divine Scriptures proclaim that the Father hath wrought all things through the Son, and we believe it and I suppose that they too: how is it not of necessity to conceive that the Father exists separately and by Himself, and in like manner the Son, nor does this any way overthrow the fact that the Holy Trinity is seen in sameness of Essence. |22
CHAPTER III. That the Son is both God by Nature and in no wise either inferior to or unlike the Father.
And the Word was God.
He who bare within him the Spirit was not ignorant that there should arise some in the last times who should accuse the Essence of the Only Begotten and deny the Lord that bought them, by supposing that the Word Who appeared from God the Father is not by Nature God, but should bring in besides Him some so to speak spurious and false-called god, having about him the name of Sonship and Deity, but not so in truth. Such do they, who give the Jewish impiety of Arius an abode in their own mind; wherefore they put forth out of a dead heart, no life-giving word of pious thought, but that which looketh and tendeth unto death. Their tongue verily is as an arrow shot out; deceitful the words of their mouth.
As though then some one were already resisting the words of truth, and were almost saying to the Holy Evangelist; The Word was with God, Sir, be it so, we agree fully to what you have written as to this. Be the Father and Exist He separately, and the Son likewise. What now ought one to suppose that the Word is by Nature? for His Being with God, does not at all reveal His Essence. But since the Divine Scriptures proclaim One God, we will allot this to the Father only, with Whom the Word was. What then replies Truth's herald? Not only was the Word with God, but He was also God, that through His being with God, He might be known to be Other than the Father and might be believed to be Son distinct and by Himself; through being |23 God, He might be conceived of as Consubstantial and of Him by Nature, as being both God and coming forth from God. For it were inconceivable, since the Godhead is by all confessed to be One, that the Holy Trinity should not in every wise arrive at Sameness of Essence and so reach one relation of Godhead. He was then also God. He did not become so at last, but He was, if indeed eternal being will most specially and surely follow on being God: for that which became in time, or was at all brought from not being into being, will not be by Nature God.
Seeing then that God the Word has Eternity through the word was, Consubstantiality with the Father through being God, how great punishment and vengeance must we needs think that they shall be found to incur, who think that He is in ought whatever inferior, or unlike Him who begat Him, and shudder not to go forward to that height of impiety, as even to dare to utter such things to others also, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm?
But that the Son Who is of Him of a truth is in no wise inferior to the Father, we shall know again from the accompanying considerations.
Another. By many and varied names do the Divine Scriptures call the Son. For they say that He is the Wisdom and Power of the Father, according to what is said by Paul, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. He is called again both His Light and His Truth, as is sung in the Psalms by one of the Saints, O send out Thy Light and Thy Truth. He is called also Righteousness, as, Quicken me in Thy Righteousness: for the Father quickens in Christ those who believe on Him. He is called also the Counsel of the Father, as it is said, Thou shalt guide me with Thy Counsel, and again, The Counsel of the Lord standeth for ever. Since then the Son is all these to God the Father, let them tell us who fawn on the error of Arius and are filled with that man's folly, how He is lesser than He. For if they be right, it is time to say that the Father is not wholly wise, not wholly Mighty, not wholly Light, not wholly Truth, not wholly Righteous, yea, not even Perfect |24 in Counsel, if the Son Who is all these to Him, by reason of being inferior is shewn to be not Perfect. But to think or say thus is impious. Perfect is the Father, because He has all things perfectly in Himself: Perfect then clearly the Son too, the Wisdom and the Power, the Light and the Truth, the Righteousness and the Counsel of the Father. But He Who fulfilleth Perfection in His own Father, how can He be conceived of as inferior?
Another. If the Son having inferiority to God the Father, is worshipped both by us and by the Holy Angels, we shall be taken in the act of serving two gods, since that which lacks perfection will never attain to sameness of essence with the Perfect; but vast is the difference sundering unto alienship things unlike as regards their nature. But the faith is not in plurality of gods, but One is God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost attaining unto unity with Him. The charge against the Son then comes to nothing. For how yet will that which is inferior be admitted into unity with the Perfect Father, and be united as to Nature in unity of Essence?
Another. If the Son is fulness (for of His fulness have all we received) how will what is inferior have a place? for things that are contrary to one another are irreconcileable in one subject at the same time.
Another. If the Son who has the lesser filleth all things, where will the greater of the Father have place? For the argument shall be used in more corporeal form, in the way of example, while the superiority and inferiority in the unembodied is otherwise conceived of.
Another. If God is That Which is above every name, and the Son Who is His Heir attains not to be Perfect by reason of the lesser, there is no greatness in that which is above all things, that is God. But it is absurd either to think or to say this: Perfect therefore is the Son, as being above every name, and God.
Another. If the Divine Nature is without quantity, and the lesser is cognizant of degree, how can the Son Who is by Nature God be conceived of as inferior? For He will |25 not be beyond the province of quantity, if they say that He has inferiority to the Father.
Another. The blessed John says of the Son that 2 He giveth not the Spirit by measure, to those that is who are worthy. Since then there is not measure in the Son, He is immeasurable, and surpasses all comprehension in quantity as being God. How then is the not-measured less?
Another. If the Son is lesser, the Father greater, differently, it is plain, and in proportion to the measures that Either hath, will they contribute to our sanctification. And the Father will sanctify in a greater degree, the Son in a less and separately. The Spirit therefore will be twofold, and less in the Son, greater in the Father. And they who are sanctified by the Father will be sanctified perfectly, they who by the Son, not perfectly. But great is the absurdity of reasoning herein. For One is the Holy Ghost, one and perfect the Sanctification, freely given by the Father through the Son Naturally. Not lesser then is He Who has the same operation with the Perfect Father, and Who has the Spirit of Him Who begat Him, a good of His own Nature, Living and inexisting, even as the Father hath.
Another. If the Son were in the Form and Equality of God, as Paul saith, how is He lesser that He? For the mode of the dispensation with Flesh and the humiliation thereupon mentioned, which has the Second Appearance from Heaven as its termination, will not, I suppose, bare the Son of the dignity by Nature belonging to Him. For He will surely come, as we heard Him say, in the glory of His Father. How then is he at all in the glory of the Perfect Father who is inferior to Him?
Another. God the Father is somewhere found to say by one of the prophets, I will not give My glory unto another. We must ask therefore those who impiously dishonour the Son, nay rather through Him the Father too (for he that honoureth not the Son, neither doth he honour the Father), |26 whether the Son being, as they suppose, less than God the Father is Consubstantial with Him, or no? If then they shall say that He is Consubstantial, why do they for nought put on Him the less? For things that are of the same essence and nature, will never have the greater in themselves, as regards the mode of their being: for this altogether is it that is under consideration.
But they will not perhaps agree, nor will grant that the Son is Consubstantial with the Father, He being according to them less: He will therefore be wholly other and alien from the Father. How then has He His glory? For there was given Him, says blessed Daniel, glory and a kingdom. For either God the Father will lie in saying, I will not give My glory unto another: or if He is true, and did give His glory to the Son, then is He not other than He, the Fruit of His Essence and His True Offspring. And He Who is so situated towards the Father in regard of Essence, how will He be less than He?
Others, simple and without connection. If the Father is Almighty, and the Son likewise Almighty, how is He lesser than He? for I do not suppose that according to the law of sequence, the imperfect will mount up to the measure of the perfect. And if the Father is Lord, and the Son likewise Lord; how is He less than He? For He will be not perfectly free, if He be less in lordship, and have not the full dignity in Himself. And if the Father be Light, and the Son likewise Light, how is He less than He? For He will be not perfectly Light, but will be in part comprehended by darkness, and the Evangelist will lie in saying, The darkness comprehended it not. And if the Father is Life, and the Son likewise Life, how is He less than He? For in us life will not exist in perfect measure, even if Christ dwell in the inner man: but they who believe are still to some degree dead, if so be that the Son having the less, is not perfectly life. But since one must needs put as far away as possible the absurdity of this, we say that Perfect is the Son, being . made equal to the Perfect Father by reason of the exact Likeness of His Essence. |27
Another. If the Son be less than the Father, and therefore not Consubstantial; He is as a consequence other by nature and wholly alien: hence He is not Son, yea not even God at all. For how will he be called Son who is not of the Father, or how will he be any longer God who is not of God by Nature? But since our faith is in the Son, we are still it seems in error, not knowing the True God. But this is absurd. Believing therefore in the Son, we believe in the Father too and in the Holy Ghost. The Son is not therefore alien from God the Father as lesser, but has unity with Him, by reason of being of Him by Nature, and is therefore both Equal and Perfect.
Another. If God the Word Who beamed forth from God the Father is in truth Son, of necessity must our opponents even against their will confess that He is of the Essence of the Father; for this is what sonship in truth means. Then how is Such inferior to the Father, if He be Fruit of His Essence, Which is nowise receptive of the lesser within Itself? For all things are in perfect degree in God. But if He be not of the Essence of the Father, neither is He Son, but some counterfeit and falsely-called: yea neither will the Father Himself be rightly and truly called Father. For if there be no Son by Nature, on account of Whom He is Father, how is He conceived of as Father? But this is absurd, for God is Very Father; for so do all the Divine Scriptures cry aloud. He Who is of Him by Nature is therefore surely Son: if so, not lesser; for He is Consubstantial as Son.
Another. The name of family or fathership not God has of right from us, but we rather clearly received it from Him. And trusty is the word of Paul crying on this wise, Of Whom every family in heaven and earth is named. But since God is that which is most ancient of all, by imitation are we fathers, who are called to His Pattern by reason of our being made after His Image. Then how, tell me, are we who are made after His Likeness, by nature fathers of our own children, if this be not the case in the Archetype, after Which we too have been formed? How will any one |28 grant that the name of family or fathership passed even unto the rest from God, if He be not in very deed a Father? For, if it were so, the nature of the thing would be wholly overturned and we should rather give to Him to be called Father in imitation of us, than He give it to us. For this the argument will compel the heretic even against his will to admit. The witness therefore of the truth lies in saying that from Him is every family both in heaven and earth. But to say this is most absurd: for true is he who is bold to say, Do ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me? and from God does the name of family flow down to us also. He is therefore by Nature the Father of the Word, He begat Him in all respects not unlike Himself, through His having the lesser than whatever Himself has. For we who are made after an imitation of Him, do not so have those that are begotten of us, but altogether equal, as regards the nature.
Another. Let not the heretic manifold in arguments deal subtilly with the truth, nor confessing that the Word of God is Son, honour Him in mere words, saying that He is not of the Essence of the Father. For how is He Son at all, except He be so by Nature? Let them then either, stripping off the mask of hypocrisy, blaspheme openly, confessing that He is neither God nor Son: or if convicted by the whole Divine Scripture and wounded by the words of the Saints as by sling-stones they feel shame in presence of the truth, and say that He is Son and God, let them not think that He is lesser than He Who begat Him. For how will the Word, being God, admit of the lesser, compared to God the Father? although man too is both called and is son of man, yet will he not be inferior to his father so far as he is man. For man will not be greater or less than man, in respect of his being man, nor yet angel than angel, in regard of his being angel, nor ought else of things that are that is con-natural to any-thing whatsoever, and has a share of the same essence allotted to it. Therefore if He is truly Son, one must needs say that He is of the Essence of the Father, having all His Father's properties in Himself of Nature. And if the Father be God by Nature, God by Nature plainly is also the Word Who is |29 begotten of That Nature. How then will God be less than God in regard to being God?
Another. Whence, sirs, did ye get the daring to say that the Son is in lesser condition than He Who begat Him? How will He admit the lesser? As regards the date of being, no one I suppose, even though exceeding silly, would surmise. For before the ages is the Son, and Himself is the Maker of the ages: and it will be with reason conceived that He Who has His Generation elder than all time, will not be defined by time. But neither is He lesser than He in the dimension that belongs to size: for the Divine Nature is conceived of and is without size, dimension and body. How then is the lesser to be taken of Him Who is begotten? In glory, perhaps one will say, in power, in wisdom. Let them say then, how great and large the Father is herein (if one must speak thus), in order that the Son may be conceived of as less, when measured with Him? Or if the Father is in good inconceiveable and immeasurable, and that far outstrips the measure of our understanding, whence do the Arians, readily daring all things, say that the Son is lesser, to the overthrow of the dignity that belongs to Him by nature? For the lesser is proved by the juxtaposition of the greater; but if the Dignity of the Father is unmeasured, what is the proof of its diminution in the Son?
Another. One may indeed with truth reply to the abomination of the unholy heretics, Our enemies are without understanding. For how are they not full of all unlearning, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm, as Paul saith? The reason why we think it needful to accuse them is this. If they say that the Son is of a truth begotten God of God the Father, and so believe, how is He lesser than the Father? For great absurdity of ideas will hence be generated, on every side containing blasphemy, and such that one would refuse only to hear them. For if the Son being God by Nature can any whit admit in Himself the lesser, we must needs at length conceive that there is something greater than God. The Essence then of the Father is not conceived of as being in Perfection of every |30 thing, even though He be by Nature God, but He will Himself progress in some direction towards the greater, convicted in the Son His Image that He Himself too is of the essence that admits the lesser. And He will suffer this virtually, even if He have not yet suffered it; since things that are capable of ought, will altogether admit the things whereof they are capable, and when the time calls them to suffer it, they will not refuse it. But great is the blasphemy that is apparent herein. For neither will the Father advance in any direction towards the greater, nor yet will He admit of the lesser, by reason that He is by Nature God. Therefore neither will the Son admit in Himself the lesser, in that He too is God by Nature, lest the syllable or two 2 which was devised by the unlearning of the heretics, should be imagined to be an accusal of the Essence that is above all.
Another. If the Word of God the Father being by Nature His Son is lesser than He, either in regard of God-befitting Dignity, or as not by Nature Unchangeable, or in any sort of inferiority, the accusal will be not so much of Him as of the Essence Whereof He is believed to be, if It altogether generate the lesser, or the worse, than Itself, although the originate and constructed creation would not endure to do such a thing. For everything that is fruit-bearing, brings forth what is wholly like itself. But if they say that the Divine Nature of the Father is above all passion, It will manifestly be beyond this charge, and being the Archetype of the good things that are in us, will beget the Son not lesser, but Equal and Consubstantial, lest the God That is so far above us be inferior even to us.
Another by the method of reductio ad absurdum. Christ shewing that He is Equal with God the Father says to His own Disciples, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. Then how will He that is by Nature Such, and so IS as Himself with truth declares, have the lesser, according to the uncounsel of some? For if being lesser He shews in Himself the Father, without any intervening change, the lesser will reach to the Father, as appearing in His Unchanged |31 Image, the Son. But this is absurd: therefore not lesser is the Son, in whom the Father being Perfect is imaged. Another. And how will the Son admit the lesser, than wherein is the Father, seeing that He says without blame, All things that the Father hath are Mine: and again, as to God the Father, All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine? For if indeed the Son is, according to the uncounsel of some, lesser; since He speaks truth in saying to the Father, Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine, the lesser will make its way to the Father too, and likewise the greater to the Son, the order of things being indifferent, if what belongs to either are seen in the other, and whatsoever is the Father's, this is the Son's also, and again whatever appears as the special property of the Son, this is the Father's too. Nothing then will hinder our saying that the Father is lesser than the Son, and the Son greater than the Father. But this is most absurd only to conceive of: Equal therefore and not lesser is He Who hath the Prerogatives of Essence in common with the Father.
Another of the same. If all that the Father hath, are wholly the Son's, and the Father hath Perfection, Perfect will be the Son too, Who hath the properties and excellencies of the Father. Therefore is He not lesser, according to the impiety of the heretics.
Another by the method of reductio ad absurdum, with combination of arguments. Let them tell us who are pouring down the flame unquenchable on their own head, and who reject the uprightness that is in the Divine Dogmas, devising wiles of many-coloured arguments unto the deceiving and overthrow of the simpler, whether the Father is superior to the Son, having the greater in comparison with Him, if He be less, as they in their silly talk say, or not? But I entirely suppose that they will say, He is superior: or let them say what advantage the Father hath in possessing the greater, if He be not superior. For if nothing at all, the whole charge against the Son immediately comes to nought: but if there is any great difference, He is then superior, as having the greater. Let them answer then and tell us, if they are indeed wise, |32 why the Father begetting the Son, begat Him not Equal to Himself but lesser. For if it were clearly better to beget the Son in all things Equal to Himself, who hindered His doing it? For if there is ought that hindered as of necessity, they will admit even against their will, that there is somewhat greater than the Father. But if there were nothing at all to hinder, but having the power and knowing that it is better to beget the Son equal He begot Him lesser, this is plainly envy towards Him and an evil eye: for He chose not to give equality to the Son. Either then the Father is impotent in regard to His Begetting, or it will be evil eye, according to the result collected out of the arguments, if the Son have the lesser according to their account. But this is absurd; for the Divine and Untaint Nature is above all passion. Therefore not less is the Son, that He lose not the equality, the Father being in no wise powerless to beget His Offspring equal to Himself, nor yet hindered by evil eye from choosing the better.
Another. The Saviour Himself somewhere says that He is in the Father and the Father likewise in Him. But it is plain to every one, that we are not to suppose that like as one body is in another, or one vessel in another, so the Father is contained in the Son, or the Son again in some way placed in the Father: but One appears in the Other, and He in Him in the Unchanged Sameness of Essence, and in the Unity and Likeness that belongs to Nature. As though a person beholding his own form in an image were to say truly to any, and marvelling at the finished likeness of his figure to cry out, I am in this picture and this picture in me.
Or in another way:----As if the sweetness of the honey when laid on the tongue should say of itself, I am in the honey and the honey in me; or as though again the heat that proceeds naturally from fire, emitting a voice were to say, I am in the fire and the fire in me. For each of the things mentioned is I suppose divisible in idea, but one in nature, and the one proceeding by a sort of indivisible and continuous forthcome from the other, so as to seem to be even |33 severed from that wherein it is. Yet though the force of ideas regarding these things takes this form, still one appears in the other and both are the same as regards essence. If then by reason of the unchangeableness of Their Essence, and the entire exactness in express Image, the Father is in the Son, how will the greater find place and appear in the Son Who is according to them lesser? But since He is wholly in Him, altogether Perfect is the Son, Who is able to contain the Perfect and is the express Image of the Mighty Father. |34
CHAPTER IV. Against those who dare to say that the conceived and Natural word in God the Father is one, and He that is called Son by the Divine Scriptures another: such is the misconceit of Eunomius' party.
2 This was in the beginning with God.
The Evangelist herein made a sort of recapitulation of what had been already before said. But adding the word This, he is seen all-but crying aloud. He Who is in the beginning, the Word with the Father, He Who is God of God, He it is and none other, regarding Whom our august book is set forth. But he seems again not idly to add to what has been said the words, This was in the beginning with God. For he, enlightened by the Divine Spirit unto the knowledge of things to come, was not ignorant, as seems to me and as we may truly say, that certain would appear, perdition's workpeople, the devil's nets, death's snares leading down to the chambers and depth of hell those who from unlearning give heed to the things that them belch forth out of an evil heart. For they will rise up and be valiant against their own head, saying that one is the word that is conceived in God the Father, and that some other most similar and like to the conceived one, is the Son and Word through Whom God works all things; in order that He may be conceived of as word of word and image of image and radiance of radiance.
The Blessed Evangelist then, as though he had already heard them blaspheming and with reason stirred against the absurd follies of their writings, having already defined, and by many words, as was due, shewn that the Word is One, and Only and Very, of God and in God and with God, with |35 flashing eye he adds, This was in the beginning with God, as Son, that is, with the Father, as inborn, as of His Essence, as Only-Begotten; This, there being no second.
But since I deem that we ought, zealously declaring such impiety, to lay yet more open their blasphemy, for the greater security of the simpler ones (for he who has learnt it will give heed and will spring out of its reach, as though a serpent lurking in the midst of the path), needs will I expose their opinion, after the form of antithesis. For it shall receive its refutations in order, according to the modes which God who giveth wisdom to all shall grant.
Eunomius' opinion as to the Son of God.
"The Only-Begotten Son of God, says he, is not of very right His Word, but the conceived word of God the Father moves and is ever in Him; while the son who is said to have been begotten of Him, becoming recipient of his conceived word, knoweth all things from having learnt them and, after the likeness of the former, is called and is word."
Then in confirmation, as he imagines, of his blasphemy, he weaves some such arguments of perverted ideas, that, as it is written, the wretched man may be holden with the cords of his sins.
"If the Son Himself, says he, be the Word Natural and Conceived in God the Father, and is Consubstantial with Him Who begat Him, what hinders the Father too from being and being called Word, as Consubstantial with the Word?"
And again: "If the Son be the Word of God the Father and there is none other than He, by means of what word, says he, is the Father found saying to Him: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee? For it is very clear that not without a word did the Father address Him, since every thing that is uttered, is altogether uttered in word, and no otherwise. And the Saviour Himself somewhere says, I know the Father and keep His saying, and again, The word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's Which sent Me. Since then the Father addresses Himself to Him in word, and He Himself acknowledges, one while that He keeps |36 the Father's word, at another again, that the Jews heard, not His word, but the Father's; how will it not, he says, be confessed beyond a doubt, that the Son is other than the word that is conceived or that stands in motion of the mind, whereof participating and replete, the utterer and exponent of the Father's Essence, that is the Son, is called word?"
Such ills then does the foolish man sow to himself and gainsaying all the Divine Scriptures at once is not ashamed, shewing that true is that which is written of himself. When the wicked man cometh into the depth of evils, he despiseth. For verily exceeding deep unto naughtiness hath the fighter against God of his folly dug, refusing the uprightness that is of truth, and halting with the rottenness of his own arguments. For that the Only-Begotten Son of God the Father is of very right His Word, we shall know by the subjoined.
Refutation in order of the misconceit of Eunomius.
Slow to learn is the silly heretic. For how into a malicious soul will wisdom at all enter? or what, tell me, can be more malicious than such men, who, as it is written, turn away their ears from the truth and run more easily unto the fables of their own cogitations, that justly too they may hear, uttering things not of the Divine Scriptures, Woe to them that prophesy of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord? For who speaking out of the mouth of the Lord calleth Jesus Anathema? which thing indeed some do in unbridled haughtiness against the doctrines of piety, and as one of the holy Prophets said, perverting all equity. For they say that the natural and conceived word in God the Father is one, him that is called Son and Word again another: and they bring in support of their own, as they deem, opinion, but more truly, their unbridled impiety, our Lord Jesus Christ in His discourses with the Jews saying, I know the Father and keep His word: and moreover that which was said to Him by the Father, From the womb before the Day-star begat I Thee. Then they say belching forth the venom of their own father, If the speaker is other than he whom he addresses, and the Father addresses the Son by word, the innate word |37 wherewith the Father conversed will be other than the Son. And again: If, says he, the Son Himself declared that He keeps the Father's word, how will not he that keepeth be other than that which is kept? To this it is perhaps not hard to reply (for the Lord will give utterance to them that evangelize with much power). But those who are sick of such unlearning ought to remember Him Who says, Ah they who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, and for us it is meet that we should cry unto our Guide Who is in the heavens, Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity. For vanity of a truth and rubbish and nought else are the vain utterances of their uninstructedness. For not as though He had another word of the Father in Himself did the Son say that He kept the Father's word, nor yet did He declare that He had come to us, bringing him with Him as though a pedagogue, but as Alone in-being in the Father by Nature, and having again likewise in Himself the Father, none else intervening, I, says He, in the Father and, the Father in Me, not the innate, nor yet any other word, but the Father, in Me. How then ought one to conceive of what was said by Him to the Jews, may one ask us, and that with reason. To this we say with truth what comes up upon our mind. The Saviour was teaching the most incredulous people of the Jews and, drawing by little and little His hearers from the worship of the law, did ofttimes call out to them, I am the Truth, all but saying, Throw off, sirs, the yoke of the law, receive the spiritual worship; let shadow now depart, type recede afar, the Truth hath beamed. But He did not seem to all to be doing rightly, subverting Moses' precepts, yea rather leading them to what was more true, so that some even cried, If this man were of God, He would not have broken the Sabbath, which was to openly condemn of sin Him Who knew it not.
To such like follies then of the Jews He replying puts away all boast in His words, and lowlily and darkly designs to teach them, that the Son Who knows not sin would not work ought other than seemed good to God the Father; lest saying more nakedly, I know not sin, He should |38 again stir them up to stone Him. For they straightway boiling with wrath would have sprung upon Him saying, Not to sin belongs to God Alone: Thou then being a Man, utter not the things that beseem God Alone. Which thing they even did at another time, saying that with reason do they stone Him, because being a Man He makes Himself God. Obscurely did the Saviour, in that He was both Man and as under the law with those who were under the law, say that He kept the Father's word, all-but saying, I will never transgress the Father's Will. For by stepping aside from the Divine law is sin born, but I know not sin Who am God by Nature. Therefore I offend not the Father in My teaching. For the rest let no one find fault with Him Who is by Nature Lawgiver, but because of His Likeness unto us is Law-keeper. But He says that He knows the Father, not simply as do we, only the very same thing more simply for that He is God, but from what Himself is does He declare that He understands the Nature of the Father. But since He knows that He Who begat Him knows not to endure change, He knows, it is plain, that Himself is Unchangeable of an Unchangeable Father. And that which knows not change, how can it be said to sin, and not rather to stand unswerving in its own natural endowments?
Yain then is the accusal of the Jews imagining that the Son thinks ought beside the Counsel of the Father: for He keeps, as He says, His word, and by Nature knows not sinning: for He knows that the Father cannot suffer this, with Whom He is Consubstantial as Very Son. But since they meet this by citing what has been annexed to their objection, From the womb before the Day-star begat I Thee, come let us unfold the word of piety as to this also. For not because the Father says such things to the Son, ought we therefore to think, that there is in Him an innate word and to conceive of the Son as other than it. But first of all let us think this with ourselves that a prophet versed in uttering mysteries in the Spirit puts on for us the person of the Son, and introduces Him hearing of the Father, Thou art My Son, and what follows. And the form of speech, in that it is constructed after human |39 fashion, will not I presume at all compel us to conceive of two words, but referring to our own habits [of speech] the unavoidable arrangement herein, we shall blame, if we do rightly, the weakness of our own nature, which has neither words, nor modes of idea which accurately serve unto the mysteries that are above us, or that are adequate to express faultlessly things more Divine: and to the Divine Nature again we shall attribute the superiority over our mind and speech, not conceiving of Its relations exactly as they are spoken of, but as befit It and as It wills. Or if any of the unholy heretics imagine that we unrightly abuse such words, and do not admit that the form of speech comes up to our usage of it, they will rightly hear: Let the Father be conceived of as also begetting as we do, let Him not deny the womb and the pangs of birth. For from the womb begat I Thee, says He to the Son. But perchance, yea rather of a certainty, they will say that from the likeness to us the Father's True Begetting of the Son is signified. Therefore let the other too be piously understood, even if it be uttered in human guise, and their bitter and unholy difficulty is solved.
And these things were, I suppose, sufficient. But since we thought that we ought to smite down the difficulties devised of their stubbornness (as it were some swarm of foes), with the uprightness of pious dogmas, come let us now bringing them forward in the manner befitting each, raise up against each its opponent, and with more zealous thoughts let us arm against them the ever victorious truth. The objection again, as from them, shall be set forth in order before the arguments which confute it, inciting the vigilance of the argument to proceed to more accurate test, and like the rush of some mountain-torrent, ever bearing down headlong the good readiness of the readers to desire ever to learn the answer.
Oppositions or objections, as from the heretics.
"If there exist not, says he, in God the Father a word essential and conceived, other than the Only-Begotten Son That |40 is of Him, Who is also called word in imitation of that one, the result will be absurd, and we who deem we think rightly must needs confess, that if the Word is Consubstantial with the Father and the Father with the Word, there is nothing yet to hinder the Father from being and being called word, as Consubstantial with the Word."
Refutation of this.
No argument, O most excellent, will ever constrain us to think that we ought to believe and call the Father Word, or even to believe that He could be so, because He is Consubstantial with the Word. For in no wise will things that are of the same essence admit of a mutual interchange, and receive a sort of mixture, as from one into the other, so that the things named could be reduced from many into one, or from duality into unity. For not because our forefather Adam was consubstantial with the son born of him, will father therefore advance unto son, son again mount up into father; but being one with him as far as regards the unity of essential quality, he will retain what is his own: and he who is of any father will be conceived of as a son, and again the begetter of any will clearly be father. But if ye imagine that ye are constructing a clever argument hereupon, and that consubstantiality will surely constrain consubstantial to be one with consubstantial, and will suffer no distinction to prevail, so that each should exist by itself and in whatever it is, what was it persuaded the Judge of all not to punish the father for the son, nor to demand of the son satisfaction for the father? For the soul, says he, that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. But since the sentence of Him Who judges righteously does not bring down the father, albeit consubstantial with the son, into the position of sonship, nor yet does it bring up the son into the condition of fatherhood, but knoweth each individually, not this progressing into that, nor that stepping into this; it is I suppose evident, that no argument will constrain God the Father, because He is Consubstantial with the Word, to change into being the Word. |41 For He abideth wholly in Himself, that is Father, even though He Who is begotten of Him be conceived to be and be Word and therefore Son, that things Divine may not appear in worse state than ours are.
Another in equal guise with the objection, by the method of reductio ad absurdum.
The Son, as having no difference from His Father, but being His most exact Likeness and the express Image of His Person, is found saying to His disciples, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But if He being thus, is Consubstantial with the Father, and things consubstantial admit of utter confusion with one another, there will be nothing it seems to hinder the Son from being conceived of as Father, in that He is Consubstantial with the Father, and capable of passing over into this, nought hindering it, if consubstantiality suffice unto this kind of change or transposition. Let the Son then be conceived of as Father, and let Him say, as now being so, to the real Father, From the womb before the Day-star begat I Thee; and let Him assume to Himself every word in short that belongs to the Father. When this at length has taken place, every thing is now thrown into confusion, and That Which ever so existeth, I mean the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity will be reduced to Unity, if That which rightly and separately belongs to Each vanishes on account of the Con-substantiality, and the sameness of nature overthrows the distinction of Persons. But this is absurd. Hence the Father will not be the Word, because Consubstantial with the Word, but will abide unchanged, being What He is, even though He have Co-nature or Consubstantiality with His Own Word. And their objection has been proved to be nought.
Another. If every word be the word of some one, pouring it forth from the tongue, that is, or belching it forth and bringing it up from the heart; and the Father be Word, because He is Consubstantial with the Word: He will be His own word, or rather no one's, or will even have no existence at all (for how will there be word, when he whose word it is, is not?). But this is absurd: for never will the Divine and Untaint Nature be receptive of non-being, nor will the Father |42 ever pass into the Word, even though He be Consubstantial with the Word, but will remain Father, Whose Wordalso the Son is.
Another. If the Divine Nature be believed non-recipient of all turn and change as regards Essence, how will the Father, leaving His own position, pass into being the Word? For He will be recipient of change, suffering it as of necessity, and will not be the same, as not keeping what He was from the beginning. But if this be absurd (for to change is wholly foreign from the Divine Nature), the Father will not have the change into the Word, but will be Father ever, having immutability and unchange as God.
Another as of the same, at length.
The Only-Begotten Word and Son of God, shewing that He is Very God of Very God the Father says, All things that the Father hath are Mine. But though the Son is Heir of all the properties that are in the Father of Nature, as being of Him by Nature, yet He will never have that of being Father (for this too is one thing that belongs to the Father); but the Son will remain bereft of nought that is inherent in the Father, though He be not deemed of as Father, but having in Himself perfectly all the properties and endowments of the Father's Essence. Applying this very same method of reasoning to the Person of the Father also, we say that He has all the properties of the Son by Nature, yet not the power of passing into sonship and into being Word, but that as un-turning by Nature He remains what He is, that in addition to being God the Father, He may be also without change, having Unchanged in Himself the Word That appeared from Him, the Son.
Another. God the Lawgiver found fault with certain by the holy Prophets saying, They have put no difference between the holy and profane. For great indeed is the difference or contrariety of manners which is seen between them by those who will discern. But if it be admissible to commingle the nature of things consubstantial one with another, and things that are in separate and individual persons can run off to whatever they please of congenerate or connatural;----what is there to separate the profane from |43 the holy, if the distinction of separate being or of who one is, is never seen, but one exists in another because of sameness of essence? Be then (the knowledge in regard to each being hence indifferent), all jumbled up together, and let the traitor Judas be Peter or Paul, because consubstantial with Peter and Paul; be Peter again or Paul, Judas, because consubstantial with him. But so to think is most unreasoning; and the being of the same substance will by no means take away the difference of things congenerate or connatural from one another. Our weakness then will not so set itself to contend with the Divine Essence, as to compel God the Father to be called and be the Word, because He is Consubstantial with the Word. For He abides ever Father, in no wise able to lose the distinction of what He is in regard to this, nor yielding to sameness of Essence that He should possess nothing distinctively. And He will no way wrong the Son by this, but rather will shew Him as His own, and possessing from Him by Nature the Unturning and Unchangeableness of Him That begat Him, both by His possessing properly and alone Sonship and not being changed into the Father, even as neither does He into Son.
Opposition, or another objection as on the part of the heretics.
"Not reasonably, say they, do ye blame as not thinking rightly those who say that the Word innate in God the Father is other than the Son, although ye hear Him clearly say in the Gospel narrative, I know Him and keep His word. But if, as Himself affirmed, He keeps the Father's word, other in all respects, I suppose, and of necessity will he be than him; since needs must the distinction of being other exist between him who keeps and that which is kept."
Different solutions in order shewing clearly that the Son is the Word of God the Father.
If the Only-Begotten Son of God the Father is not Himself His Word, but some other than He, which they call conceived, exists in God, let those who put forth this contrary opinion tell us whether the word which is the conception of their own ignorance be hypostatic or no. For if they say |44 that it exists of itself conceived of as in separate being, they will surely confess that there are two sons: but if they say that it has no existence, then, since nothing any longer conies between and severs the Son, how will He be third from the Father and not rather next Him, as Son with Father?
Another by the same considerations. The opponents define that there is in God the Father a word, the conceived, by means of which, according to their most unlovely imagination, the Son is taught the counsel of the Father. But how great folly their dogma hereupon has, we must see.
"We must consider the argument about this matter thus. The name father, has of necessity no mean in relation to the son. For what will be the mean of father as regards the son, or again of son as regards the father? But if, according to their unlearning, there severs the Son from the Father an intervening will and a conceived word, which they say is interpretative thereof, no longer will the Father be conceived of as altogether father nor yet the Son as son, if we conceive that the will of God and the word that interprets it, exist in their own hypostases. But if we grant that these are without hypostasis, then the Son is in God the Father without any thing mediate and next to Him; where then will the conceived word retire, or what place will the will have, conceived of as other than the Son?
Another by the reductio ad absurdum. We believe that the Holy and Adorable Trinity is Consubstantial, even if the madness of the heretics will it not. But I think that there ought to be admitted with regard to things consubstantial, a likeness also with one another in all things, in regard to natural properties. If then there be, according to the uncounsel of some, in God the Father some conceived word other than the Son, the Son too will surely have a conceived word in Himself, as being His Likeness and the unchangeable Express Image of His Person, as it is written: the Holy Ghost will have one equally with Him, according to the equal analogy of conceptions. The Trinity then has come to be in double, and the Divine Nature is shewn to be compound. But this is absurd. But in simple essences, there is nothing whatever save |45 themselves. Nothing then will hinder the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity from being closely connected, nought intervening. Another at length. When Divine Scripture puts forth nouns with the article prefixed, then it means some one thing which alone is properly and truly that which it is said to be; but when it does not prefix the article, it makes a more general declaration of every thing that is so called, as for example (for our discourse shall attain clear demonstration) many are called gods, but when God is spoken of with the article it signifies Him Who alone and properly is so; more simply and without the article, one perchance of those called hereto by grace. And again there are many men. But when the Saviour says with the article, The son of man, He signifies Himself as one picked out of ten thousand. Since then names have this character in Divine Scripture, how ought we to understand, In the beginning was the Word? For if every word of God is hereby meant as being in the beginning, let them shew it, and it is we who are the triflers. But if the Evangelist prefixing the article, signifies One and that is so properly, crying, In the beginning was the Word, why strive they in vain, bringing in another besides, only that they may expel the Son from the Essence of the Father? But we ought, considering the absurdity herein, to refuse the uncounsel of those who think otherwise.
Another, shewing that not after the conceived word, as they say, is the Son formed, but He is the Likeness of the Father Himself.
If the Only-Begotten Son of God is and is called, according to them, therefore Word, because, receiving the conceived word of the Father, He is as it were formed thereafter, why is He not found to say to His Disciples, I and the word of the Father are one, He that hath seen Me hath seen the word of the Father? But since overstepping all things, He likens Himself Alone to the Father Alone, none intermediate coming forward to the Likeness, the Son will be conceived of as likening Himself to Him Who begat Him, and to none other than Him.
Opposition, as from the opponents.
"We find, they say, the Son to be other than the |46 conceived word of God, giving heed not to our own thoughts thereon, but to considerations from the Divine Scripture. For what shall we say when we hear the Son saying to the Father, Glorify Thy Son, the Father again answering and saying, I have both glorified, and will glorify again? Shall we not altogether acknowledge that the Father replies to the Son in a word? How then is not he through whom the Father answers the Son other than He?"
Different solutions to this in order.
Worthy of utter marvel, yea rather of mourning too, are the unholy heretics, and moreover that one should say over them that which is spoken in the Prophets: Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that thinketh and sayeth such things respecting the Only Begotten. For what more wretched than such, if they fancied that this was actually and truly the voice of the Father, which not only the Saviour heard, but also this crowd of the Jews which stood around, yea rather the choir of the holy disciples? For they should rather have imagined God-befitting excellencies, and not have attempted to submit things above us to the laws that guide our affairs. For upon the bodily hearing strikes a bodily voice, and noise which through the lips is emitted into the air, or contrived by any other instrument. But the Will of the Father, in ineffable voice gently and as it were in the mind revolved, the Son Alone knoweth Who is in Him by Nature as His Wisdom. But to suppose that God uses a voice consisting in sound is wholly incredible, if we would retain to the Nature That is above all things Its superiority to the creation. Besides, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself says that this was not the voice of God the Father, and moreover shews that He needs no interpretation from another to be able to learn the Father's will saying, This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. He should rather have said, my good friends, if ye are right in holding such opinions regarding Him, Ye have heard with Me the voice of the Father; but now, turning His declaration right round to the exact contrary, He avers that He had no need |47 of the voice, but asserts that it came rather for their sakes, not that it was uttered by the Father, but came and that for their sakes. And if God the Father works all things through Him, through Him altogether was this also, yea rather He was Himself the voice, not to Himself interpreting the disposition of the Father (for He knew it as Son), but to the hearing of the by-standers, that they might believe.
Another. If they say that the Son needs some innate word, that thereby He may be taught the Will of God the Father, what will become of Paul who says, Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God? For how is the Son the Wisdom of the Father, if lacking in wisdom He receive perfection from another, through learning what forsooth He knows not? or how must one not needs say, that the wisdom which is in the Father is not perfect? and if the Son be the Wisdom of the Father, how can His Will be conceived of as other than He? We come then to say that the Will of God the Father is not perfected in wisdom. But great is the impiety of this, and full of blasphemy the statement. Not therefore as partaker of instruction from another does the Son know what belongs to His own Father, but as Himself the Word and the Wisdom and the Will, does He search all things, yea, the deep things of God, as it is written concerning the Spirit too.
Another. As the Likeness and the exact express Image of the Father do the Divine Scriptures introduce to us the Son: and the Saviour Himself saith, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But if with that likeness to Him, He knows not of Himself what is in Him, but needs so to speak expositions from another in order to learn it, it is time to think that the Father Himself is in the same case, if He is in the Likeness of the Son, and He will Himself too need one to unfold to Him what lies hid in His Offspring. And thus in addition to the absurdities that result from hence, the Divine Nature becomes also a recipient of ignorance. But since it is impious thus to think, we must betake ourselves to more fitting thoughts: for this clearly is what is profitable and helpful.
Another. The Spirit, says the blessed Paul, searcheth |48 all things, yea the deep things of God; and he adds, For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That is in Him. Since then the Holy Spirit Which accurately discerneth all things, is Spirit not only of the Father, but of the Son too, how can He having within Him by Nature the Spirit Which knoweth all things be yet ignorant of ought that is in the Father? Superfluous then in truth does it plainly appear to imagine that the Son learns of another the Will of the Father; and utterly will vanish the need of a word to mediate in vain, according to their ill-instructedness. For the Son knows all things of Himself.
Another, by the method of reductio ad absurdum. They who accuse the Essence of the Only-Begotten, saying that He knew not the Will of the Father, but made use of in order to learn, another teacher, the word invented by them, which they call conceived, let them tell us, if they think that their own opinion hereupon ought to prevail, whether they will say that the conceived word is by nature equal to the Son (for let it be supposed to have a separate existence of itself) or not equal, but inferior perchance or even superior. If then they suppose it inferior, they will commit impiety against the Father Himself also: for there will be of a surety in Him what is worse than He, and other than He, the conceived word. But if they do not say worse, but shall allot to it a superiority to the Son, the charge against the Son will operate two-fold against the Father. For first of all He will be found to have begotten what is in worse condition than Himself. Then moreover He too will have the conceived word superior to Him, if the Father is Consubstantial with the Son who according to them has got an inferior position. But it is likely I suppose that the opponents will start back from the blasphemy that results from either alternative: and will say that the conceived word of the Father is equal to the Son as regards essence. The question then is at an end. For how will the one teach the other, as one who knows one who does not know, if both are equal by nature? The argument of these people being |49 then on all sides weak, it will be superfluous to imagine that the Son has any mean, and not rather to believe that He is in God the Father, God the "Word Who was in the beginning.
Another. The blessed Paul says that in the Son are hid the treasures of all wisdom and all knowledge. But if he is true in saying such things, how yet shall we suppose that He needed teaching from another, or in whom shall we any more seek perfectness in knowledge, if He Who has it all is made wise by another? how is he Wisdom who is made wise? But since we must needs give heed not to their words, but to those through the Spirit, and the Son hath, as Paul saith, in Himself the treasures of wisdom and of all knowledge, not from any one else will He know the things whereby He is wisdom, but being in the Father He knows all that is the Father's, as His Wisdom. |50
CHAPTER V. That the Son is by Nature Creator with the Father, as being of His Essence, and not taken to Him as a minister.
3 All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.
The blessed Evangelist, having overthrown the intricate objections of the unholy heretics, and having completed his subtil and most exact utterance respecting the Only-Begotten, comes to another snare of the devil compounded of the ancient deceit, and putting forth to us the sting of the polytheic error, which has wounded and cast down many, and widening the way of perdition, and throwing open the broad and spacious gate of death, heaped up souls of men in herds unto hell and set rich food as it were before the devil and brought before him choice meat. For since the children of the Greeks applying themselves to the wisdom of the world, and having plenteously in their mind the spirit of the ruler of this world, were carried away unto polytheic error, and perverted the beauty of the truth and, like to those who walk in mist and darkness, went down to the pit of their own ignorance, serving lifeless idols, and saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: others again transgressing akin to them, devising nevertheless a more polished error, deemed that they ought to worship the creature more than the Creator, and lavished the glory that befitted the Divine Nature Alone on the elements that were made by It, of necessity does the Divine introduce to us the Only-Begotten as Maker and Creator by Nature, saying that all things were made by Him and that without Him nothing passed into being, that he might close for the future the entrance for their deceits, and might shew to them that know Him |51 not the Creator of all things, and by the very words wherein he says that the creation was made, might clearly teach that other than it is He Who called it into being, and by His Ineffable Power brought things that are from not being unto birth. For thus at length was it possible by the beauty of the creatures proportionally to see the Maker, and to recognize Him Who is in truth God, through Whom all things have been already made, and made are preserved. Against the false-worship then of the Greeks do I deem that he thus well arrayed the Gospel word, and for this cause do we believe that the Only-Begotten was introduced by the voice of the saint as Maker and Creator.
But since it is meet to consider the crooked inventions of the heretics, I think that we ought looking to their ways too to say again a little.
All things, says he, were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.
This God-befitting dignity too does he put about the Son, on all sides shewing that He is Consubstantial with God Who begat Him and saying that all things that belong to Him by Nature are in His Offspring: that He may be conceived of as truly God of God, not (as we) having the appellation adventitious and accruing to us by grace alone, according to the words, I have said, Ye are gods and all of you are children of the most High. For if all things were made by Him, He will be Other than they all. For in this, All things, there is nothing which is not seen among all things. As the blessed Paul too is found to have understood the all things: for when in one of his Epistles he was discoursing of our Saviour and said that all things were put in subjection under His feet, excellently does he subjoin, For in that he saith all, he left nothing that is not put under Him. Therefore since we believe that all things were made by the Son, we will not think that He is one of all, but will conclude that He is external to all, and severing Him from the nature and kin of things originate, will at length confess that He is none else save God of God by Nature. For what will intervene between |52 God and the creature? I do not mean in regard of essence, for much intervenes, but only in regard to the position of anything that is, in conception. Or what other position will the Son have, Who surpasses the nature of things made, yea rather is Himself the Maker? For all things were made "by Him, as by the Power, as by the Wisdom of God the Father, not hidden in the Nature of Him Who begat Him, as in man is for instance his innate wisdom and power, but existing separately and by Himself, yet proceeding according to the ineffable mode of Generation from the Father, that the Wisdom and Power of the Father may be conceived of as truly-existing Son.
But though the blessed Evangelist says that all things were made through Him, the saying will not I deem at all minister damage to the words concerning Him. For not because it is said that the things that are were made through Him, will the Son be introduced as an underworker, or a minister of others' wills, so that He should be no longer conceived of as being by Nature Creator, nor will He be one given the power of Creation by some other, but rather being Himself Alone the Strength of God the Father, as Son, as Only-Begotten, He works all things, the Father and the Holy Ghost co-working and co-with Him: for all things are from the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost. And we conceive of the Father as co-with the Son, not as though He were powerless to work ought of things that are, but as being wholly in Him, by reason of unchangeableness of Essence, and His entire kin and the absence of any medium towards His Natural Procession from Him. As though one were to say that to the sweet scent of a flower, the flower itself was co-present for the operation of the sweet scent, since it proceeds from it naturally. But the force of the example is slight and the Nature That is above all will overpass this too, receiving of it little-impresses of ideas. Since how shall we understand, My Father worketh hitherto and I work? For not separately and by Himself does the Son say that God the Father works ought regarding things that are, and that Himself again likewise works apart from the Father, the Essence |53 Whence He is after some sort resting: for so the Creator would be two and not One, if Either work apart and separately. Moreover the Father will be recipient of the power of not having the Son ever in Him, and the Son likewise will be seen to not have the Father ever in Him, if it were possible that Either should work apart and separately with regard to things that are, as we said before, and the Son will not be true, when He says, I am in the Father and the Father in Me. For it is not, I suppose, merely after likeness of Essence, that we see the Son in the Father as Express Image, or again the Father in the Son as Archetype; but we hold that the Son beams forth by Generation from the Essence of the Father, and is and subsists in It and of It in distinct Being, God the Word: and that the Father again is in the Son, as in Consubstantial Offspring, Connaturally, yet severally, according to simply the difference of being, and being conceived of as that which He is. For the Father remains that which He is, even though He be Connaturally in the Son, as we say that the Sun is in its brightness. And the Son again will be conceived of, as not other than He is, even if He be Connaturally in the Father, as in the sun its brightness. For thus, the Father being conceived of and being in truth Father, the Son again being and conceived of as Son, the Holy Ghost having His place with them, the number of the Holy Trinity mounts to One and the Same Godhead.
For how will God be at all conceived of as One, if Each of the Persons mentioned withdraw into a complete individuality, and, while wholly removed from Connature and Essential participation with the Other, be called God? Therefore let us conceive of Father, Son and Spirit, according to the mode of individual being, not mixing up the difference of the Persons or names in regard to That Which Each IS: but while we reserve severally to each the being and being called what He IS, and thus believe, referring them still of Nature to One Godhead, and refusing to hold a complete severance, because the Son is called the Word and Wisdom and Brightness and Express Image and Might of the Father. For He is Word and |54 Wisdom, by reason of these being, immediately and without any intervention, of the mind and in the mind, and because of the reciprocal interpassing into one another so to say of both. For the mind is seen in word and wisdom, and word in its turn in the mind, and there is nought that intervenes, or severs the one from the other. He is called Power again, as being a quality inherent without any interval in those who have it, and that can nowise be severed from them in the manner of an accident, apart from the destruction of the subject: Express Image again, as being even connate, and unable to be severed from the essence of which it is the express image.
Hence since Either is naturally and of necessity in Other, when the Father works the Son will work, as being His Natural and Essential and Hypostatic Power. Likewise when the Son works, the Father too works, as the Source, of the Creating Word, Naturally In-existent in His Own Offspring, even as the fire too in the heat that proceeds from it.
It is clear then, that vainly has been iterated the accusation of the opponents against the Only-Begotten, who introduce Him to us as creator by having learnt, yea rather as minister too; because of the Blessed Evangelist saying, All things were made through Him and without Him, was not anything made. Much do I marvel at the unholy heretics: for whatever seems any way to undo the Dignity of the Only-Begotten and to shew Him second to Him Who begat Him, according to their own view, this they hunt with much zeal, and from all sides bring to it the drugs of their own stubbornness; whatever again are healthfully and rightly said and bring the Son up to the Glory of the Father, these things they bury most surely in deep silence, as having one sole aim, to in vain revile Him Who is glorified of all the creation. For when they hear that All things were made through Him, they hotly bring on Him the name of service, dreaming that the Son is bond instead of free, and worshipper rather than Lord. But when they learn that without Him was not anything made, they do not mount up to think ought great and marvellous of Him. For since it is not in God the Father to create otherwise than by His own Offspring, Which is His Wisdom |55 and Power, the Evangelist says that nought at all was made without Him. For therefore is the Only-Begotten the Glory of God the Father (for He is glorified as Creator through the Son); for He worketh all things and bringeth into being things that are not.
And well will one conceive of the words, without Him, was not anything made, if he consider with himself what was said at the creation of man. For Let us make man, says he, in Our image after Our likeness. For here specially one can behold in the Son of a truth nought that is lowly, as in a minister according to their phrase. For God the Father does not command the Word, Make man, but as Co-with Him by Nature and His inseparably so to say In-existing Co-worker, He made Him also Partaker of His Counsel respecting man, not anticipating the knowledge that is in the Son in regard to any conception, but as Mind inseparably and apart from time manifested in the in-imaged and in-existing Word.
Let God-befitting contemplations again be above the reach of the example. Yet we say that He co-works with the Son, not conceiving as of two severally, lest there be conceived to be two gods, nor yet as though both together were one, in order that neither the Son be compressed into Father, nor again the Father into Son, but rather in such sort as if one allowed to be co-existent in the brightness from light the light whence it flashed forth: for in such examples the generator seems to be separated in idea from the generated and that which springs forth from it indivisibly; yet are both one and the same by nature, and the one in no wise separate from the other. But above this too will God again be, inasmuch as He is both Super-substantial and has nothing wholly like Him in things originate, that it should be taken as a image of the Holy Trinity, without any difference, in exactness of doctrine. But if they deem that the word, through Whom, said of the Son, can bring down His Essence from Equality and Natural likeness to the Father, so as to be minister rather than Creator, let those insane consider and come forward and make answer, what we are to conceive of |56 the Father Himself also, and Whom we are to suppose Him too to be, seeing that He clearly receives the words through Whom in the Divine Scripture: for God, says he, is faithful, through Whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son, and Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God: and again Paul writeth to some, Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God 3. All these then have reference to the Person of God the Father, and no one I suppose will rush to that extreme of madness (except perchance he hold with the above mentioned), as to say that the name and fact of service, is reasonably predicated of the very glory of the Father, because the word through Whom is applied to Him too. For the Divine Scripture is sometimes indifferent in regard to its words, in no wise wronging the subject thereby, but applying to the things signified in a less proper sense both the words themselves and those whereby it deems that they are well explained. But it is well to say of those, that The glory of the Lord veileth speech. For little in truth is all might of words unto the exact exposition of the Ineffable and God-befitting glory. Wherefore one must not be offended at the meanness of the things uttered, but must rather yield supremacy, and might in tongue, and keenness of every mind, to the Divine and unutterable Nature, for thus shall we be and not in small degree pious. |57
CHAPTER VI. That the Son is by Nature Life and therefore not originate, but of the Essence of God the Father.
4 4 That which was made, in it was Life.
Yet doth the Blessed Evangelist make to us his discourse concerning God the Word, and he seemeth to me profitably to go through all that pertains to Him by Nature, that he may both put to shame the outrages of the heretics, and may fortify those who would fain excel in right faith, with reasonings thereunto tending, not providing from words of worldly wisdom unpersuasion, but in demonstration of the Spirit marvelling at the beauty of the truth.
What he would then teach through the words before us, is this. He shewed us just now that the Son is by Nature Maker and Creator, saying that all things were made by Him and that without Him not so much as one thing was called into being. But since on the creation He bestows not only to be called into being, but also holds it together when made through Himself, immingling in some way Himself with those who have not by their own nature eternity of being, and becoming life to those that are, that having become they may abide, and that each may be preserved according to its own limit of nature;----needs does he say, That which was made, in it was life. Not only, says he, were all things made by Him, but also whatever was made, in it was the Life, that is, the Only-Begotten Word of God, the Beginning and Subsistence of all things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly and infernal. For Himself being the by-Nature Life, bestows manifoldly on things that are, being and life and motion, not in any way of partition and change passing into each one of things that are by nature distinct: but their |58 nature, viewed by itself, is variously fashioned by the ineffable Power and Wisdom of the Creator, while One is the Life of all passing into each, in such sort as befits it, and it is able to partake thereof. But since that which is brought from not being into being must needs also decay, and that which has beginning surely hasteth unto its end (for to the Divine and All-superior Nature Alone beseemeth the being preceded by no beginning and being free from ending): the Creator wisely deviseth for the weakness that is in things made, and contriveth for them by His skill an eternity. For the perpetual succession unto each of its like, and the natural progression of things connatural or kin unto one another looking ever towards onward course, make the creation ever-visible and ever-co-enduring with God its Maker. And this (contrivance) is that every one of things that are, soweth seed in itself after its kind and after its likeness, according to the unspeakable sentence of its Creator. In all then was the Life; for this is our subject. But, excellent sir, may one with reason say to the heretic warring against the truth, what will you say to this too, when you hear him who bears within him the Spirit say, that in all things that were made was the Life, that is, the Word That is in the beginning? Will you dare to say now too, that the Son is not of the Essence of God the Father, that He may be deemed of as originate and created? How then will one not cry out against thine unlearning, O thou, and that with justice? For if in things that were made was the Word, as Life by Nature, immingling Himself by participation with things that are, He is then Other than those wherein He is believed to be. But He being by Nature Other than what the creation is, how will He not be the God over all? But if you remain shameless, and cease not to imagine that originate is the Son Who is in things made, as Life:----first of all He will be conceived of as being somewhat in Himself, then besides. He will Himself be partaker of Himself 5, and |59 Life, if being in things made, He be conceived to be Himself too one of them. But the fighter against God sees surely himself too, how great the absurdity of thinking thus. Therefore if the Word Who quickens them is by participation in things originate, He will not be Himself too among the participators, but other than they. And if so, not originate, but in them as by Nature Life.
This again we shall see by the subjoined considerations.
Thoughts or arguments.
If the Son be not of the Essence of God the Father, but from without He have subordinated Him according to them, He is originate and made. How then does He quicken all things, Who is among things made? Or what distinction shall we find any longer in the Divine Nature? or how does the most wise Paul say, as something admirable of Him That is by Nature God, Who quickeneth all things? For if the Son being originate, quickeneth all things, the creation quickeneth itself, in no wise needing thereto God its Maker. There is then nothing in God more than in the creation; For it inworketh not less than God can do. But this is absurd. Not originate then is the Son, but God and therefore by Nature Life also.
Another. The Psalmist marvelleth exceedingly and that with reason at the Divine Nature, and in particular attributeth to It a most fair dignity saying, For with Thee is the Fountain of life. But if the Father have set the Son below Him, and have Him not of His own Nature, and He even being so, quickens things originate and is by Nature Life as quickening, why vainly strives the Psalmist saying that the fountain of life is with God Alone? For the nature of things originate also is recipient of this, if the Son, albeit not of the Divine Essence according to the uncounsel of some, quickens. But this is absurd. Therefore Life by Nature is the Son, as God of God, and Life of Life.
Another. If the Son being by Nature Life be originate and created, as not having His Being of the Essence of God the Father, according to their fantasy, the nature of things originate will be recipient of being and being called life, and |60 all things will be life in potential, even if they have not yet the exercise of the thing itself. For that which has the natural power of being ought, will surely be so I ween, even if it be not so as yet; for it has the power inherent in its nature. When then the being life is common to the creature, the special and alone prerogative of none, why vainly does the Son vaunt of Himself, I am the Life? for He should, I suppose, have rather said, I am along with you the life. This would I suppose have been truer, if being indeed originate He is Life too. But since He puts about Himself Alone as His special good the being Life, it is at length clear that He classes Himself, not with things originate, but with the Divine Essence of the Father, whereto the being Life also pertains.
Another. That which is participate of life is not in its own right life, for it is clearly in it as other than itself. If then the Son is by participation in things originate as Life, He will be other than the things that are participate of Him and lack life. Therefore not originate is He, nor seeking to be quickened by another. He is therefore God as quickening; but if so, He will be confessedly of the Essence of the Father, if we worship One God, and serve none other than Him Who is.
Another. Accurately testing the nature of things that are, we see God and the creation and nought else besides. For whatever falleth short of being God by Nature, that is surely originate; and whatever escapeth the catalogue of creation, will surely be within the limits of Deity. Since then we have well established this, let them tell us who thrust forth the Son from the Essence of God the Father, how He can quicken as Life, seeing that the Divine Nature has this as its own property, and yields it to none else. But if being originate He can be Life also, the grace of the excellence will surely overtake all things that are originate, and all will be by nature life. What need will they have therefore of participation of the Son, or what more will they gain hence? for they too possess the being by nature life. But this is not true, but they partake of necessity as |61 needing life, of the Son. Alone then is the Only-Begotten by Nature Life, and therefore will He not be reckoned among things originate, but will mount up unto the Nature of Him Who begat Him: for Life by Nature is the Father too.
Another. The Son being by Nature Life, is either Other than the creation, I mean by nature, or con-natural with it. If then He be connatural and consubstantial, how will He not lie in saying, I am the Bread of Life Which cometh down from Heaven and giveth life unto the world? for the creation hath from its own the being life, but life is imparticipate of life, that it may shew itself life. But if He is not connatural, He will also escape being originate, withdrawing from the creation together with Himself His own proper good also. For the creation will not be by nature Life, but rather lacking and participate of life.
Another. If the Son being by Nature Life is connatural with things made, by reason of not being of the Essence of God the Father, according to their speech, wherefore does the blessed Psalmist say that the heavens shall perish, and shall wax old like a garment: but to Him did he attribute His own proper prerogative, crying aloud, But Thou art the Same and Thy years shall have no end? For either He will perish and fail along with us, as connatural, and will no longer be conceived of as Life, or our natural connection with Him will draw up us too to be ever the same and to unfailing number of years. But verily He shall be ever the same, and we shall fail: He is therefore not originate as we; but since He is of the Life by Nature He will also quicken as Life the things that lack life.
Another. If nought is participate of itself, but the creation partakes of the Son as Life; He is not the creation, nor yet is the creation Life, which the Son is.
Another. If to quicken is one thing, to be quickened another, as action and passion, and the Son quickens, the creation is quickened: therefore not the same is Son and creation, since neither is the inworker with the inwrought. |62
CHAPTER VII. That the Son is by Nature Light and therefore not originate, but of the Essence of God the Father, as Very Light from Very Light.
And the Life was the light of men.
In these words too does the blessed Evangelist shew us that the Son is by Nature God and Essentially Heir of the good things of Him Who begat Him. For having taught before that being by Nature Life, He was in all things that were made by Him, holding them together and quickening them and granting them of His unutterable Power to pass from not being into being, and preserving them when made, he advances to another train of ideas, from all sides minded to lead us by the hand unto the apprehension of the truth, as was right. Therefore in things made was the Word, as Life. But since the rational living creature among them on earth recipient both of mind and knowledge and participant of the wisdom that is from God, is man, needs does the Spirit-bearer shew us clearly the Word as Bestower of the wisdom that is in man, that God the Father may be conceived of being all things in all through the Son;----life in them that lack life, light again and life in them that lack life and light. And therefore he says, And the Life was the light of men, that is, God the Word Who quickeneth all things, the Life in all that are, both enlighteneth the rational creature, and lavisheth understanding upon those who are recipient of understanding: that so that may be kept and have full force that is said to the creature, for what hast thou that thou didst not receive? For nought of wealth from itself hath the originate and created nature, but whatever it is seen to possess, this is surely of God, Who bestoweth both being, and |63 how one ought to be. And well was the was put of the life, that it might signify in every way the eternal Being of the Word, and might cut off the triflings of those void of understanding, who introduce to us the Son, of the things that are not, which manifestly warreth against the whole of Divine Scripture.
In regard then of the Eternity of the Word with the Father;----having already sufficiently gone through it both in the present Book, and in that called the Thesaurus, we deem that we may be silent. But what the mind of the words before us introduces, this with all readiness examining to the extent of our power, we will be diligent to profit both ourselves and those who shall hereafter read it, God again opening to us both doors and a mouth to our words.
What then will the fighter against Christ say to us, when he learns that the Life, that is, the ever-living God the Word, is the Light of men? What arguments will he sling at us, when we come forward and say, If the Son be not by Nature God, and Fruit of the Essence That begat Him, if He have not beamed forth to us Very Light from Very Light, but Himself too being from without is subordinated according to your unlearning: He is connatural with things made, and will in no wise escape being originate. How then, O ye filled full of all folly, doth He illuminate, they receive illumination from Him? For is not that which illuminates one thing, that which is illuminated another? but this is plain and clear to every one. For if we grant that they are the same, as regards kind of essence and the mode of existence, what is there more in that which has power of illumining, what again less in that which lacketh light? For whatsoever cometh, will come to both of them, and apart to each, and that which is in need of light will be light, and the light will not differ from the illumined. But great is the confusion of ideas manifest herein, and necessity of reason severs each of the things named and puts in its own proper nature the supplier herein apart from the supplied. Not therefore connatural with things made is the Son, but He will abide in the Essence of the Father, being Very Light of Very Light. |64
And it were nothing hard, by transferring the method of reasoning in the foregoing, which we made concerning the Son being by Nature Life, and demonstrated that He is Other than the things wherein He is, to give clear proof in this chapter too.----But in order not to leave the labour of this to others, nor to appear overmastered by sloth, I myself will endeavour, so far as I can, to transfer the form of argument used in the foregoing reasonings. For as in those, He being Life by Nature, is shewn to be Other than those wherein He is, so here too, said to be and in verity being the Light of men, He will be found to be Other than things that lack light and partake thereof; as we shall see more clearly in the following.
Proofs by demonstrations, that the Son who illumineth is Other than the creation that is illumined.
If the Word was in the things spoken of, as Light by Nature, immingling Himself by means of participation in things that are, He is then Other than the things wherein He is believed to be. But He That is by Nature Other than what the creation participant of Him and by Him illumined is, how will He not needs be the God Who is over all?
Another. If the fighter against God says that the Son being by Nature Light is in things originate as originate, illumining things that lack light:----first of all He will be conceived of as being in Himself, then besides, He will Himself be partaker of Himself and Light, if being in things originate, He one and the same be conceived to be of them. But he that has applied his heart unto wisdom, as it is written, sees surely how great the absurdity of thinking thus. Therefore if the Word Who illuminateth them is by participation in things originate, He will not Himself be among the participants and illumined, but Other therefore than they. And if so, He is then not originate, but as Light by Nature and God in things that lack Light.
Another. If the Son be not of the Essence of God the Father, but being from without He have subordinated Him according to them, He is then originate and created: how |65 then is He in things made, enlightening them? or what special shall we find any longer in the Divine Essence? or how does the most wise Psalmist say as something marvellous of Him Who is by Nature God, In Thy Light shall we see light? For if the Son being originate illumines all things, the creation will illumine itself, having no wise need thereto of God its Maker. There is then nothing more in God than in the creature, and it inworks no less than God could do. But this is absurd. The Son then is not originate, but God rather, and therefore Light by Nature, as is the Father.
Another of the same. If the Son being the Light of God the Father (as is said, In Thy Light shall we see Light and, O send out Thy Light and Thy Truth), is originate and brought into being, there is no longer ought to hinder, by equal analogy, all things originate from being called the Light of God the Father. For if the nature of things created at all admits this, it will be in potential common to them all, and not the own property of the One Son. But this is absurd: for to the Son Alone will it pertain to be called and to be the Light of God the Father. Not therefore originate is He, but Light, as God from God Who illumineth through Him things lacking light.
Another. If the Son being by Nature Light is not of the Essence of the Father, but being from without is subordinated, according to the uninstructed speech of the fighters against God, it follows that He is connatural and kin to things created, as having forsooth fallen away from the Divine Essence. How then is He called and is Light, but of the holy Baptist it is said, He was not the Light, albeit the blessed Baptist is light in potential, and not he alone, if it be once granted that the Son being originate, can be by Nature Light? For that which has once had place in the nature, is I suppose common to each that partakes of such nature, according to the law of consequence. But John was not Light, the Son Light. Other therefore by Nature is He and not connatural with things made.
Another of the same. If the Son being by Nature Light is originate and created, as not possessing forsooth the being |66 of the Essence of God the Father, as some surmise, the nature of things originate will admit of being and being called light; it will be altogether light according to the law of potential. For that which has in its nature to be anything, will I suppose surely be so, even if it have not yet been. Since then the being light is common to the nature of things originate, and the property in aloneness of none, why in vain does the Son vaunt of Himself, saying, I am the Light? for He ought I suppose to say, I am with you the Light. But since He puts it about Himself Alone as His own proper good, joining to Himself no one else, He clearly classes Himself, not with things originate, but with the Divine Essence of God the Father, whereto belongs the being by Nature Light..
Another. That which is participate of light is not in its own right the Light; for it is clearly one thing in another. If then the Son be by participation in things originate, as Light; He will be other than those that partake of Him and lack Light. Therefore not originate is He, nor seeking, as things originate, to be illumined by another: it remains therefore that He is God and able to illuminate. If so, He will be conceived of also as sprung of the Essence of the Father, if we worship One God, and serve none other than the True God.
Another. Accurately testing the nature of things that are, we behold God and the creature, and nought else besides. For whatever faileth of being by Nature God, is wholly originate, and whatever escapeth the category of being made, is wholly and entirely within the limits of Divinity. Since then we have established this, let them tell us who thrust forth the Son from being of the Essence of God the Father, how He can illumine as Light, seeing the Divine Nature retaineth this as Its own, and yields it to none else. But if the Son being originate, can be also Light, the grace of this excellence will surely overtake all things originate, and all will be by nature light. What further need then have they of participation with the Son, or what more will they gain hence, having themselves too the being by |67 nature light, even as the Son hath it in them? But the creature does need the Illuminator, not having this of its own. God then by Nature is the Son, and therefore Light, as able to illumine things that lack Light.
Another. The Son being by Nature Light, is either Other than the creature, in regard that is of the mode of being, or connatural with it. If then He be cognate and consubstantial, vainly, as it seems, did He come to us saying, I am come a Light into the world; for the creation has of its own itself also the being light: but light is impartici-pate of light, that it may be understood to be light. But if He be not connatural, but the creature lack light to